Latest / History Harpies: Pop Culture, Past and Present / No, Don't Let That Dashingly Handsome Vampire Inside (Ft. Sinners, Dracula, and Interview With the Vampire)

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No, Don't Let That Dashingly Handsome Vampire Inside (Ft. Sinners, Dracula, and Interview With the Vampire) · History Harpies: Pop Culture, Past and Present

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  They say we're loud, opinionated, afraid Telling
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  us to hush, dim our historical light But darlings,
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  we're the Harpies, sharp and keen Unveiling the
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  truth behind the silver screen History Harpies
• 0:17
  hear us roar Hi, this is History Harpies. I'm
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  Lauren. And I'm Christine. And welcome to what
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  is episode... Fourteen! Fourteen, I think. Something
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  like that. This week we are in the spirit of
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  Halloween, Halloween which is on Friday, and
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  if you are a... teenager or in college, you will
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  have Halloween Weekend. I've never heard that before.
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  Yeah, my daughter has Halloween Weekend, which is
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  a series of parties and different costumes, and
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  she probably has three or four different costumes.
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  Are you serious? Yes. So it's like a wedding
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  weekend. Yes. Yes. Extravaganza. Yes. I had no
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  idea. It begins with some pre -gaming on Thursday,
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  which of course, well, not of course, but for
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  our listeners is homecoming, which will then
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  segue into Halloween. Fantastic. And she has
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  a Friday outfit, a Friday, like, afternoon outfit,
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  and then a Saturday outfit. Unbelievable. Even
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  though Saturday is not Halloween anymore, but
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  you can still, you know, carry it on. Yes. Yes.
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  It drags on. The whole weekend. Yes. And of course,
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  if you're in college, Halloween is like the most
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  debauchery, the most... fun the most everything
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  and it goes on for many weekends yeah my son
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  in college one of my sons in college told me
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  that people actually rushed in fall, so they
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  could do Halloween in the fraternity. Interesting.
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  You know, this really is one of the most weird
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  developments in American culture, that Halloween
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  has become an adult holiday. It really is. I
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  don't approve of that. I have to say, I don't.
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  Oh, God. I don't approve of that. I do, because
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  I have my Halloween tradition, which is getting
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  in some ways more rigid every year, but in a
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  good way, is I sit on my porch, I get really...
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  really drunk, in a good way. In a good way. And
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  I give out Halloween candy and I make all kinds
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  of Halloween cocktails, themed cocktails. I have
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  some friends over and I just enjoy the little
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  kids and the costumes. Everyone swings by. Yeah,
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  and just remember when my kids were little and
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  they used to love it so much and do it. So yeah,
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  I have my own Halloween tradition. And I also,
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  because the alcohol, of course, permits me to
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  eat more candy than I normally do. It's all good.
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  Halloween is good. So I wanted to start, even
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  though this themed episode is about vampires,
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  we're going to talk a lot about vampire movies,
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  to ask Christine what her favorite childhood
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  Halloween costume was. This is a hard question
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  because for two reasons. One, my memory of my
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  childhood costumes is not great. I remember being
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  a princess in one of those box costumes when
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  I was really little. I tried to have my mother
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  make me a punk costume when I was in sixth grade.
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  That did not go well. But the other reason why
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  it's a difficult question for me is that of course,
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  growing up in the great state of Maine, it was
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  always freezing on October 31st and so Maine
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  kids had to wear coats over the costume. Such
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  a problem. But even in Philadelphia, I remember
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  that issue is that you wanted to wear this amazing
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  outfit and then you had to wear some big coat
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  over it and no one knew what you were and then
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  you had to take it off when you get to every
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  house. Good point. So this is such a strong component
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  of my memory of how Halloween's as a child, putting
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  the coat on. And of course, back when I was trick
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  -or -treating, you were trick -or -treating,
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  we still might get things like apples and cookies,
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  right? Which is like so fun. Oh, with a razor
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  blade. With a razor blade. The urban legend.
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  Gen X Halloween was always about an apple with
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  a razor blade in it, which I - With a drug -coated
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  candy bar. Okay, I will tell you, my favorite
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  Halloween costume, Now, just in tradition, Halloween
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  traditions, when I was in elementary school,
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  I went to Wyancotte Elementary School, which is
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  the best elementary school on the planet. And
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  our elementary school was located right next
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  to an assisted living facility. And so one of
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  the traditions that we had was to have a parade
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  in front of the assisted living facility so that
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  the seniors would come out and would enjoy seeing
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  all these cute little kids in their outfits.
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  Little costumes. I do not come from a family
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  that sews or makes clothing. However, however,
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  someone in my family, I can't remember if it
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  was my mother or my father, helped me make a
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  Crayola crown costume. And I was a red crown.
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  And I wore the, you know, bottom was the kind
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  of barrel part of it. And then I had the little
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  pointy cap, which was the top of the crayon.
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  And I paraded around in front of these seniors.
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  And so the memory of wearing that crayon costume
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  in some ways has much less to do with trick or
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  treating on Halloween night proper, but more
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  to do with the parade and the joy that it brought
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  to the people. And I know that sounds sappy,
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  but it really was this awesome tradition we had
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  in our school and that everyone looked forward
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  to it. Again, it was like brings me so much joy.
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  I don't know if they do it anymore, but it was
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  it was terrific Yeah, so my Halloween. It's funny
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  my I was never anything scary and in part because
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  I'm kind of scared of my own costume I like horror
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  films, but I don't like dressing up myself like
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  something scary. Interesting. Yeah, we can get
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  into the psyche of that some more. But I never
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  wanted to be anything scary. I never wanted to
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  go trick or treating with people who are dressed
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  as things that were scary. And I don't like being
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  scared by actual humans on Halloween, which if
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  you live in this neighborhood, you really can
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  be. Our neighbors across the street do a phenomenal
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  job, as you know, of scaring the shit out of
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  the people who come to their house. So this is
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  an incredible place to live for Halloween because
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  I get like 500 trick -or -treaters. And the problem
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  is I haven't even bought the candy yet. I have
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  not either. I'm waiting for it to go on sale.
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  Yeah, exactly. I went the other day to Publix
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  and it was like... I could do not, like $16 for
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  a bag of like seven Kit Kats. I'm like, no, no,
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  I will wait for this shit to be a BOGO. And I
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  also buy only the Halloween candy that I like
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  to eat. So I gotta wait for the Kit Kats and
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  the Twizzlers and I'm not buying - Twizzlers?
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  Oh my - Oh my God, Twizzlers. Twizzlers are my
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  favorite candy. Twizzlers are so awful. Come
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  on now, girl. They're awful. They're awful. Again,
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  we're gonna have to have a talk. Oh my goodness.
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  We're gonna have to have another talk. How is
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  this even possible? Do you know that I have like
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  a king -size Twizzlers downstairs? I know they're
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  plastic, but I love them. They're plastic! I
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  know, and I eat them regularly. I eat them regularly.
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  Yeah, I'll drink a Diet Coke, a Diet Dr. Pepper,
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  and eat a Twizzler. And I might as well smoke
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  a cigarette. Yeah. Yeah, I mean. It might be
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  more healthy for you to smoke the cigarette than
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  to eat the Twizzler. I eat so many, everyone
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  who knows, I don't know how, how do you not know
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  this about me? I don't know, it's amazing. Everyone
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  who knows me knows I love my kids. You probably
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  told me this like 10 years ago and I blocked
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  it out of my brain on purpose. Yeah, because
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  you obviously found it so disturbing. You found
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  it disturbing. Yeah. I love Twizzlers. You and
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  Carrie Bradshaw. Carrie Bradshaw loves Twizzlers.
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  Oh, there, I know. Well, I love licorice. I don't
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  like black licorice, but I love licorice. And
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  in fact, there's a site called licorice .com.
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  And I'm just hoping that somebody will love me
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  enough one day to like order me a year long subscription
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  to that place. Yeah, honestly. Yeah, small things.
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  I love, love me some Twizzlers. Well, that is
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  good to know. Gummies, Twizzlers, anything like
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  that. But Twizzlers, and here's something now
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  that they have, which it's a combination of the
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  Diet Coke and the Twizzler. It's the sugar -free
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  Twizzler. So even. So even. Yeah, so it's like
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  you're just... It's like an abomination poison.
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  Poison and abomination. It's like a Botox in
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  a candy. And I just eat it up. Eat it up. I have
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  it on my, you know, on the... Passengers seat
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  in the car and I'm just driving along eating
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  the twizzlers. I may take them to this class.
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  I have to go to later The students know I love
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  the twizzlers and they always have to twizzlers
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  out in in the you know in the department office
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  Interesting well, okay on that Early funeral
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  you can like line my coffin with twizzlers. I
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  love it This is so awful. We have to leave this
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  topic immediately because it's so disturbing
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  to me. So this week we decided that in honor
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  of Halloween, we would talk about vampires. And
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  of course, vampires have already come up in our
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  pod when we talked about Salem's Lot, when we
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  talked about Maine and Stephen King. We are not
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  going to be talking about Salem's Lot today,
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  but we did watch and think about a bunch of other
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  things having to do with vampires. And spoiler
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  alert. Sex workers will once again come back
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  into this podcast. Where are the sex workers
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  in our week? In Interview with a Vampire. How
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  could I forget? So we watched Interview with
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  a Vampire. The original Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise
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  film, not the more recent series. And I didn't
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  even know that that thing existed. It does, and
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  I haven't seen it. And then we watched Francis
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  Ford Coppola's Dracula. And we watched Sinners
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  and we watched none of these films together,
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  which is important because in past pods we have
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  watched them together. We watched these separately.
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  And so this will be a little bit of a schizophrenic
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  podcast. And we have some disagreements. We do.
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  About these. And in fact, it is the case that
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  we have not talked at all together about Sinners.
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  No. So we have no idea. No idea. We're like one
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  of those game shows. Like a dating game where
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  people are like behind pieces of glass or something.
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  The reveal. The reveal. And one thing I will
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  say that, and I don't know, you know, we can
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  psychologize you with your Twizzlers. We can
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  psychologize me with the vampires because...
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  Being afraid of vampires is one of my earliest
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  earliest childhood memories. I was and of course,
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  you know, maybe it's a main creepy thing I was
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  terrified of vampires, but also fascinated by
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  them at the same time and I will say I still
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  probably remain so And I give them no thought
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  at all. No thought at all. Vampires, no. Not
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  in my consciousness. Don't think about them.
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  When there's a movie that comes out and it loves
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  True Blood, I watch the whole series. I really
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  appreciate some hot vampires. What about Twilight?
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  Did you see Twilight? Yes. I also have not seen
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  Twilight. Read the books. Even read the books.
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  um but other than that other than cultural content
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  i just never give them a second thought and in
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  fact it's funny that even since these movies
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  i almost haven't given them a second thought,
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  even since the movies. How is this possible?
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  I just don't think about it. It's so interesting.
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  I don't think about them. But I think also, perhaps.
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  I think it's your feel. No, that's exactly it.
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  I was going to say, because I'm a European historian,
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  and you're an American historian. Perhaps that
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  I do think my field lends itself to whatever extent
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  our vampire lore is indebted to European, Eastern
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  European folklore. I think that probably is the
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  case. And you're also very much a specialist.
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  Obviously. religion, spirituality, supernatural,
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  all of that, and I don't go near any of that.
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  Except for just, like, the real, like, basic
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  stuff. Stuff. The stuff. So let's see. Do you
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  first want to talk about, we have Dracula and
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  Interview with a Vampire. And Interview with
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  a Vampire. Okay, let's start with those, which
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  came out around the same time. Yeah, about 1994
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  -ish. In the 90s. Yes. And as I told Christine,
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  which goes into this. I was in college during
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  those years, so I did not see a lot of movies
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  in the theater. There just was no reason. I was
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  having my own fun. And so my watch or even re
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  -watch or maybe even first watch of these films
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  was either on video or later, like I did the
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  other night, watching these movies here streaming.
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  So I never saw them in the theater or if I did
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  see them in the theater, I was so drunk from
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  being in college and I just didn't even register.
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  Yeah, I don't believe I saw either of these movies
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  in the theater. And I will start by saying, and
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  Christine knows this, that I really, really detested
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  Dracula. I think it is actually now, Jim and
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  I went through the Francis Ford Coppola filmography
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  and he really only has like three good films.
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  So I would put this into the trash bin of his
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  like bad films. And I actually really enjoyed
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  Interview. vampire on all levels. I can't say
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  that I enjoyed it in a, you know, kind of contemporary
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  sense, but I appreciated it for what it was in
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  the period. I think a lot of it holds up. Some
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  of it kind of doesn't make some sense, but I
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  also like, you give me some Brad Pitt and it's
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  going to be tough for me not to like it. So there's
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  that. Now, I know we have very different opinions
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  on this. We do. So we are completely flipped
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  in that I love Coppola's Dracula. It's not that
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  I dislike Interview of the Vampire. I'm simply
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  lukewarm about it. I have a lot of problems with
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  it. And both of those films I did see in the
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  theater as a sober person. I was sober. I saw
• 14:24
  both of them in the theater. Something else that
• 14:26
  probably bears bringing up is, so I have read
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  the novel, Stoker's novel Dracula, multiple times,
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  and I have read Anne Rice's Interview of the
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  Vampire. As have I. Okay. As have I. So it has
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  been a long time since I read that novel. A long
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  time. And both of them, for me, I'll just say
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  were required readings in multiple classes. Okay.
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  Interesting. I didn't read either one of them
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  as a quote on my own. Okay. And I did read both
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  of them on my own. I read them for a gothic novel
• 14:52
  or I think I may have taken like Witches, Vampires,
• 14:57
  and Something Class at Wellesley and we read
• 14:59
  Anne Rice. Okay. So again, I was kind of taught
• 15:03
  these books more than I explored them on my own.
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  And I certainly haven't read them in the past
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  two decades. Okay. And did you read The Vampire
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  Lestat, the sequel to Interview the Vampire?
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  Again, in the class. Yes. Yes. Okay. And so,
• 15:17
  and I read these things in the wild. Okay. And
• 15:20
  as I said, have read Dracula multiple, multiple
• 15:22
  times. I've also read, I have to bring it up.
• 15:25
  I've also read several times the original vampire
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  story, which is John Polidori's The Vampyre which
• 15:33
  came out of the same meeting at which Mary Shelley
• 15:36
  wrote Frankenstein, sort of the meeting with
• 15:39
  Lord Byron when they're all sitting around some
• 15:40
  beautiful house at Lake Geneva. I've read that
• 15:44
  which really is foundational and part of the
• 15:46
  reason why I want to bring up holiday right now
• 15:48
  is because when we talk about Sinners I will
• 15:50
  be bringing it up again but this is the foundational
• 15:53
  story it's a novella that says here's our noble
• 15:56
  aristocratic vampire figure which really sets
• 15:59
  the stage for Dracula and I think also for Interview
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  the absolutely absolutely. So we have then an
• 16:05
  Interview the Vampire. As you say, Brad Pitt
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  is our central character, the vampire who is
• 16:11
  being interviewed, Louis, who is a New Orleans
• 16:14
  nobleman, what in the late 18th century when
• 16:17
  we first meet. So it's the film starts in 1790.
• 16:22
  Okay, so this is right after the American Revolution.
• 16:26
  This is early national. uh history so before
• 16:30
  the civil war for our listeners and uh they are
• 16:35
  in New Orleans very much taking part of Creole
• 16:39
  culture, very much feeling, one of the things
• 16:42
  I like about this film is that it's very much
• 16:44
  pulling apart the different cultures that are
• 16:46
  existing at the time. And there isn't this sort
• 16:48
  of like Yankee, British post -revolutionary fervor
• 16:53
  as much as there is this interest in Creole culture.
• 16:56
  And we are told very explicitly and shown very
• 16:59
  explicitly that Louis is a master at a plantation
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  with numerous enslaved people. who he in a lot
• 17:08
  of, well, one of them. kills but the rest of
• 17:12
  them protects and warns and says you're the you
• 17:15
  know your master is a devil and you need to you
• 17:18
  need to leave this site and they do but when
• 17:21
  the film starts he has lost his wife when he's
• 17:24
  the human he's lost his wife in childbirth he's
• 17:28
  devastated he's basically walking around looking
• 17:31
  for someone to kill him he's so devastated he
• 17:34
  wants to be reunited with his wife in in heaven
• 17:36
  or whatever and he comes upon the vampire Lestat
• 17:41
  who gets him to make the decision, or introduces
• 17:45
  the decision rather, for Louis to become a vampire.
• 17:49
  And this is very much a focus in interview, the
• 17:52
  question of choice, choosing whether to become
• 17:55
  one or not. We're told repeatedly that Lestat
• 17:57
  was not given a choice to become a vampire. I
• 18:01
  mean, the decision making process is not really
• 18:03
  clear with Louis, I think. I mean, we're told,
• 18:05
  of course, that he's making a choice. But we
• 18:07
  also have what was, of course, the very frankly
• 18:10
  erotic initial scene of Lestat, as Tom Cruise
• 18:14
  as Lestat, beginning to feed on Louis. You've
• 18:18
  got this scene that was so... And Louis does
• 18:21
  become a vampire, but it's not really clear because
• 18:23
  he's such a reluctant one. He doesn't want to
• 18:25
  kill humans. He is such a reluctant vampire.
• 18:27
  And it is very, very interesting to me this portrayal
• 18:31
  of, again, a vampire that doesn't want to kill
• 18:33
  humans. A vampire with very human feelings and
• 18:37
  a personality that is very similar to his human
• 18:40
  personality. And this is, of course, the problem.
• 18:43
  That Tom Cruise, Lestat, however we think about
• 18:45
  it, is consistently saying you're going to change,
• 18:50
  you'll see, you can only eat rats for so long
• 18:53
  and you're going to become like me, essentially.
• 18:56
  And he doesn't. But in the sense of feeding off
• 19:00
  humans regularly, being much, much more manipulative
• 19:04
  and much, much more having more evil in him.
• 19:09
  But when they come across, the Kirsten Dunst
• 19:12
  character, Claudia, which is so interesting to
• 19:15
  me because Brad Pitt kills her, feeds on her,
• 19:20
  sort of unwittingly, and then Tom Cruise with...
• 19:24
  turns her into a vampire and she doesn't have
• 19:26
  the choice and I mean again she's this little
• 19:29
  girl and she just wants to be alive and he says
• 19:32
  well do you want to be a vampire and she's like
• 19:33
  oh okay sure I just want to be alive I mean at
• 19:37
  that point she her her her mother has died from
• 19:40
  plague and you know she's she has nobody and
• 19:43
  she just basically just wants to be alive And
• 19:46
  the interesting thing with her is that for a
• 19:48
  while, and of course time in this movie is, you
• 19:50
  know, they go through hundreds of centuries,
• 19:53
  right? She is a very good vampire in the beginning,
• 19:56
  in the sense of Lestat's view. She's a willing
• 19:59
  killer. Yeah, she kills whoever, she kills whole
• 20:01
  families, she's his little kind of pupil, and
• 20:06
  grows very close to Brad Pitt, but then realizes
• 20:11
  that She will not age and that she will not become
• 20:15
  a woman and that she is trapped in this child's
• 20:18
  body and that is very, very devastating for her
• 20:23
  and that she will both need a supervisor. She's
• 20:27
  in this very weird liminal space of both needing
• 20:31
  a parent and needing help because she can't be
• 20:34
  independent because she is a child, but she's
• 20:36
  also a vampire and she is a killer and she can.
• 20:40
  You know, go out and murder a whole bunch of
• 20:42
  people, and that's how she survives. And of course,
• 20:45
  those are against vampire rules, we later learn,
• 20:48
  that you're not supposed to turn little kids
• 20:52
  into vampires. And it's done very explicitly,
• 20:55
  in the same way as a potentially divorcing couple
• 20:57
  saying, we need to have another baby, right,
• 20:59
  to hold this marriage together. Right. We're
• 21:01
  told that this is why Lestat does this. He fears
• 21:04
  that we will leave him. And there definitely
• 21:05
  is this question, both of family, but also companionship.
• 21:10
  And certainly one of the most disturbing ideas
• 21:14
  about Claudia is that it's in terms of saying
• 21:17
  what is the age of this thing, right, in terms
• 21:22
  of both the family dynamics, but also the erotics,
• 21:25
  right? Where we have these scenes, really disturbing
• 21:27
  scenes, where the fantastic Kirsten Dunst. I
• 21:30
  mean, she's incredible. She really is, her performance
• 21:35
  is stand out, stunning in this film. But we have
• 21:39
  these images of what is a child and not a child
• 21:42
  kissing Louis, saying, you're my love. And obviously
• 21:46
  it begins as this family dynamic that she is
• 21:49
  described as being their daughter, the daughter
• 21:51
  of these two men who are companions. But then
• 21:54
  as her mind ages, as she is more of a killer,
• 21:57
  even though her body has remained the same, there
• 21:59
  is, I think, again, really disturbing dynamics
• 22:02
  and this hint of... pedophilia, especially when,
• 22:06
  in order to kill Lestat, she brings home two
• 22:09
  boys, right? Two boys that she has drugged. He
• 22:13
  obviously doesn't know this. And this is the
• 22:16
  gift. This is the gift that she can think to
• 22:18
  bring to him. These two beautiful boys. And so
• 22:21
  I think that that, you know... Very famously,
• 22:24
  Anne Rice includes that character because she
• 22:26
  was trying to get over her own daughter's death.
• 22:29
  And the character in the book is much younger.
• 22:30
  She's five. And I think we're all grateful that
• 22:32
  it's not a five -year -old in the family. But
• 22:35
  that, to me, is so fascinating about the Claudia
• 22:38
  character. And as you say, this isn't supposed
• 22:41
  to happen in vampire world, but it is so monumentally
• 22:44
  disturbing in the context of the film. It is.
• 22:46
  And towards the end of the film, when, you know,
• 22:50
  Louis sort of saying, I have to leave you and
• 22:53
  she's like, well, I need another companion now.
• 22:55
  I need a mother figure. And she finds this woman
• 22:58
  and the woman is willing because she's lost her
• 23:00
  own daughter. And again, you really feel so much.
• 23:05
  empathy for Kirsten Dunst absolutely because
• 23:09
  she is trapped and she will always need someone
• 23:13
  to watch over her while at the same time she
• 23:15
  has this vampire maturity and she has these evolving
• 23:19
  adult feelings and she kind of, again, being
• 23:23
  sort of trapped in this body and that this issue
• 23:26
  of choice for her, which she didn't have, and
• 23:29
  you understand the vampire rules, right? When
• 23:31
  you sort of see why they're saying don't turn
• 23:34
  kids into vampires, right? And of course she
• 23:36
  very, very tragically dies in the end in a way
• 23:40
  that is very cruel. And also, I mean, in some
• 23:44
  ways, this is one of my questions, which is a
• 23:46
  practical matter. It's like, well, so Lestat's
• 23:48
  not dead. And don't vampires understand who's
• 23:52
  alive and who's dead? Apparently not. Because
• 23:55
  this is her punishment for, quote unquote, killing
• 23:57
  Lestat. That's right. Even though he comes back
• 23:59
  to life, or comes back to life, quote unquote,
• 24:01
  a couple of times. He comes back to life, but
• 24:03
  also what I didn't understand, and again, these
• 24:04
  are just practical matters, right? Is that, so
• 24:07
  when Brad Pitt sees him at the end of the movie,
• 24:09
  and he's like, you know, decrepit and old, and
• 24:13
  sitting there, and you assume he's been sitting
• 24:14
  in this chair for like hundreds of years. Feeding
• 24:16
  on rats. Feeding on rats. And then somehow he
• 24:20
  gets the energy. to fly into Christian Slater's
• 24:24
  car and feed on him, and he looks great again.
• 24:27
  And he looks incredible. Yeah. I don't understand
• 24:28
  that. I just really, the plot point, and maybe
• 24:31
  you can refresh me on the book or something,
• 24:33
  I don't understand why they don't, vampires who
• 24:36
  have all these senses, who know everything, right?
• 24:38
  They're supposed to be, right? Omniscient or
• 24:41
  something. Why don't they know that Lestat isn't
• 24:44
  dead? That is an excellent question. Or, I mean...
• 24:47
  It and I honestly don't remember from the book.
• 24:49
  Okay, but I I also wonder if it doesn't matter
• 24:53
  because certainly if Lestat isn't dead It's not
• 24:55
  for lack of trying She tries to she feeds him
• 25:00
  these two boys that she is killed on purpose
• 25:04
  right they then try to set him on Alligators
• 25:09
  right and then they set him on fire when he comes
• 25:12
  back the first time and so Yes, it's not for
• 25:15
  lock and try. But I wondered whether, and the
• 25:17
  film isn't explicit about this and this may be
• 25:19
  one of your concerns or criticisms, I don't know
• 25:23
  whether she's being punished for being a child
• 25:25
  or whether she's being punished for killing Lestat.
• 25:27
  Because they said two things, right? We don't
• 25:29
  kill our own, we don't make kids into vampires.
• 25:33
  Yes, but I don't think anyone's blaming her for
• 25:35
  that part. Okay. I think they're in part punishing
• 25:37
  Louis for that. But I think that it is because
• 25:40
  she has deigned to kill Lestat. Okay. But that
• 25:43
  is her attempt. All right. And but what I mean,
• 25:46
  one thing I think we look my concerns or I won't
• 25:49
  say concerns. What I don't find exciting or interesting
• 25:52
  about Interview the Vampire, I actually think
• 25:54
  that both of them are miscast. Even though it
• 25:57
  is very easy to think about it's 1993 and you're
• 26:00
  like, who's going to play Lestat? Whom Anne Rice
• 26:03
  envisioned basically as Sting, this kind of vampire
• 26:06
  as rock star. And I'm like, why wasn't it Sting?
• 26:09
  I would have been better. Sting's not a good
• 26:10
  actor. No, but I get the vibe. I get the vibe.
• 26:12
  Yes, you get the vibe. But it was that. He was
• 26:14
  the model. And you can imagine 1993, Tom Cruise,
• 26:18
  so hot, so sexy, so versatile. But to me, he
• 26:22
  doesn't work. The one thing he does in the film
• 26:24
  that is nice is that, of course, with Lestat,
• 26:26
  we have levity and humor. So Louis the dour
• 26:29
  one, but then Lestat is making the jokes. I also
• 26:32
  think, though, Don't think Brad Pitt is well
• 26:35
  cast as Louis and for whatever reason I mean
• 26:38
  the both of them of course have done so much
• 26:40
  incredible work and other things But I don't
• 26:43
  you really do need and in you as an expert someone
• 26:46
  who works in the history of sexuality, right?
• 26:48
  We need your opinion on that Okay, so he's your
• 26:50
  phrase because race of course comes up in this
• 26:52
  film To me it need they basically just need to
• 26:57
  be more I don't want to say more gay, but the
• 27:01
  erotics of their relationship needed to be radically
• 27:05
  amped. Well, and I think what you're saying, and
• 27:06
  this is why True Blood works so much, okay, is
• 27:10
  that the energy in true blood from, now I'm forgetting
• 27:15
  the name of the actor, but the actor who plays
• 27:16
  the main vampire who's married to Anna Paquin
• 27:20
  in real life, and then Alexander Skarsgård who
• 27:23
  is unbelievable as a vampire. That energy. Which
• 27:29
  isn't homoerotic between the two of them, but
• 27:32
  I mean, they're off the charts. They just exude
• 27:37
  sex. And you could, and again, if there was homoeroticism
• 27:41
  between them, you'd believe it. The difference
• 27:44
  between True Blood and... Interview with a vampire
• 27:48
  is night and day in terms of the this kind of
• 27:52
  sexuality that vampires are supposed to have
• 27:55
  I mean in terms of people just being drawn to
• 27:57
  them and yeah, and while there are sort of moments
• 28:01
  of that I I agree with you in this I just I don't
• 28:05
  attribute it to miscasting as much as the vision
• 28:09
  like I don't know if anyone had the conversation
• 28:12
  we need to get to They are smoking hot in the
• 28:16
  sense of being hot guys. But separately they're
• 28:19
  smoking hot guys. But we need to get two vampires
• 28:24
  together who exude sex. And I don't think that
• 28:30
  it's there. It didn't bother me as much. Again,
• 28:33
  part of it was like, well, this was early 90s,
• 28:36
  that sort of thing, and True Blood is later.
• 28:40
  But I understand what you're saying. I do understand
• 28:44
  what you're saying. It would have been a better
• 28:46
  movie because I think the storytelling is really
• 28:48
  good. I think the filming and all, you see all
• 28:53
  these amazing places and you see a real change
• 28:56
  in time. And then this point about Brad Pitt
• 28:59
  having witnessed so much time and the pain of
• 29:03
  his eras. All of this is very, very interesting.
• 29:06
  So anyway. I, but I think the casting in terms
• 29:10
  of sexuality and sexuality between them could
• 29:13
  have been more intense. Well, but I think one,
• 29:16
  and I hear what you're saying about it being
• 29:17
  the nineties, but I think that what I kind of
• 29:20
  stumble over is, so the director of the film
• 29:22
  is Neil Jordan. Right. And the immediate film
• 29:24
  that Neil Jordan had done before this is The
• 29:26
  Crying Game. Right. And so you do this film that
• 29:28
  is very bold in terms of sexual relationships,
• 29:32
  gender performance, right? All of this stuff
• 29:34
  where in effect, the whole point of The Crying
• 29:37
  Game is this man, this IRA fighter, Stephen Rea's
• 29:40
  character, who thinks that he's, again, straight,
• 29:44
  then sort of unwittingly is sexually attracted
• 29:46
  to and falls in love with this person who is,
• 29:49
  again, I mean, we would say now, right? I don't
• 29:51
  even know how we would describe the character
• 29:53
  now. And of course, so much about The Crying
• 29:55
  Game was this quote unquote big reveal, where
• 29:57
  you see Dil's penis. And so you can kind of
• 30:01
  also imagine, I think, someone saying, oh, well,
• 30:03
  Neil Jordan is so bold, right? That he basically
• 30:05
  will take Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in this exciting,
• 30:08
  because of course, the book, the book is unabashedly
• 30:11
  homoerotic. I understand. It just absolutely
• 30:13
  is. But what I'm saying is, again, I am giving,
• 30:16
  I am... Even though I get what you're saying
• 30:17
  about The Crying Game, I never interpreted The
• 30:20
  Crying Game as an inherently erotic film. Fair
• 30:24
  point. It is definitely a sexually charged and
• 30:28
  interesting and layered film that explores these
• 30:30
  themes, but it isn't Body Heat. I agree. Almost
• 30:34
  nothing is. I want Body Heat. I want vampires.
• 30:37
  I agree. That's what I'm looking for, is Body
• 30:39
  Heat. Okay? And that is, I think, the issue that
• 30:44
  maybe it's the director, maybe it's the actors,
• 30:46
  but the vibe of eroticism that we see in a Body
• 30:50
  Heat or something adjacent to Body Heat, Nine
• 30:53
  and a Half Weeks or whatever, should be an interview
• 30:56
  with a vampire. I okay and I agree and the other
• 30:59
  thing and this is another part of the reason
• 31:00
  why I brought up Polidori Which also comes
• 31:03
  up in in Dracula and we can start talking about
• 31:06
  the Dracula Dracula a few minutes But from the
• 31:08
  very beginning of this European vampire model
• 31:12
  with John Polidori in the early 19th century
• 31:14
  You absolutely have the sense that the vampire
• 31:17
  is erotically compelling Part of the original
• 31:20
  DNA vampires are supposed to be irresistible
• 31:23
  irresistible and you also also have this very
• 31:27
  much this, this sort of, I don't want to say
• 31:29
  queer coded, but you completely have a tradition
• 31:32
  even before and absolutely right of basically,
• 31:34
  I mean, we talked very, very briefly about Dracula's
• 31:37
  Daughter, a film that comes out in the 1930s
• 31:40
  where the whole point is that the female vampire,
• 31:42
  right? She basically only wants women victims,
• 31:45
  right? Again, very sexually charged. And so it
• 31:47
  is so interesting that by the time we get to
• 31:49
  the 1990s, both of these things are tradition
• 31:52
  going back for, again, since the early 19th century.
• 31:55
  But interestingly, because I just showed this
• 31:57
  in my class, so we're looking at The Cellular
• 31:59
  Closet, and of course, there's all these vampire
• 32:01
  examples in The Cellular Closet. But one of them
• 32:04
  also is the Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise. I believe
• 32:09
  that's a clip in there. And you do think by the
• 32:11
  end of it, huh? After seeing the whole movie,
• 32:15
  you think, when you see just the clip, you buy
• 32:16
  it, right? But when you see the whole movie again,
• 32:20
  you're like, wait a minute. This really wasn't
• 32:23
  as... Faring sexy. No, it couldn't be. But I
• 32:28
  just think it was Jordan and the vibe of the
• 32:33
  whole thing, not wanting to go to the erotic
• 32:36
  place. And one thing I will say about both, well...
• 32:40
  I guess Eyes Wide Shut would create erotic for
• 32:43
  Tom Cruise. But Brad Pitt isn't traditionally
• 32:46
  in erotic movies. Yes. You're right. And Tom
• 32:50
  Cruise, until Eyes Wide Shut, I would argue,
• 32:52
  isn't either. Fair point. For the most part.
• 32:55
  Fair point. I mean, again, he's not like a Michael
• 33:00
  Douglas. Yes. Exactly. Give me another one. William
• 33:04
  Hurt for that matter. Right. He's not occupying
• 33:10
  those like highly charged, sexualized roles.
• 33:15
  And I just think that might be another reason.
• 33:18
  And again, for us, as gorgeous as Brad Pitt is,
• 33:21
  and I mean, the hottest role for Brad Pitt is
• 33:24
  Thelma and Louise. Yeah, you're right. It is. You're
• 33:27
  right. I mean, it's 10 minutes of incredible
• 33:29
  smolderingness, you know, but it is interesting.
• 33:31
  And then we can sort of abandon. But I just keep
• 33:34
  thinking, you know, the tagline for Interview
• 33:35
  of the Vampire, the tagline was, you know, it's
• 33:38
  this close up, of course, of Tom Cruise looking
• 33:40
  sexy. Right. Right. And, you know, "drink from
• 33:42
  me and live forever." And you're like, well, man,
• 33:44
  we're in for it. And then so I do. I mean, it
• 33:47
  is I have no interest in watching the TV show,
• 33:49
  but it would be interesting again to think if
• 33:52
  this film is made today with those two actors.
• 33:55
  And with also Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Not at
• 33:58
  their ages, right? At the ages they were. But
• 34:01
  this is, I will say, then to start talking about
• 34:04
  Coppola, which I love and you despise. And you
• 34:07
  can just talk about it because I really like...
• 34:09
  But this is also something where now we've layered
• 34:12
  onto this traditional eroticism, right? This
• 34:15
  love story of like reincarnation. And I will...
• 34:20
  we discuss this a little bit and has to come
• 34:23
  up. So in Coppola's Dracula the two main strikes
• 34:28
  against it. I hate to say the casting of Winona
• 34:32
  Ryder and even more so even more so even Keanu
• 34:36
  Reeves makes it unwatchable in these absolutely
• 34:38
  two crucial roles pivotal central roles. Yes
• 34:42
  central of Mia and Harker. So we mean Mina Mina
• 34:46
  Mina Mia is my niece. So that is the only reason
• 34:50
  why I know why Mina. So one of the as I told
• 34:54
  you One of the things I do really, really like
• 34:56
  about Coppola's Dracula is that it is super faithful
• 35:00
  to the novel. And Coppola, very famously, when
• 35:04
  he collects the actors, when he's first casting
• 35:06
  the film, he has them read through the entire
• 35:09
  novel. And some of them are terrible at it. Some
• 35:11
  of them are better. And you would think he would
• 35:13
  have replaced them at that point. You would think
• 35:14
  so. But again, he's like Keanu and Winona, right?
• 35:17
  These Gen X people. It's 1993 or 4, whatever.
• 35:20
  Right. For box office dollars, it makes sense.
• 35:23
  Yes, it makes sense. It was awful. Absolutely
• 35:25
  awful. In part because the two of them cannot
• 35:28
  do English accents. It's actively distracting.
• 35:32
  It is actively distracting to hear them speak.
• 35:35
  But one thing I again really, really like about
• 35:38
  it, and you can argue against me, is that it
• 35:41
  is so cinematic. And I told you that story about
• 35:45
  Richard E. Grant saying he had trouble putting
• 35:47
  together saying, okay, we went from reading this
• 35:49
  novel. We went from a script to what ends up
• 35:51
  on the screen, which is this utterly dazzling
• 35:55
  right over the top kind of rococo. We're throwing
• 35:58
  every possible image effect. And I mean, I really
• 36:03
  do find it to be incredibly intoxicating. The
• 36:07
  last thing I'll say, then I'll shut up and you
• 36:08
  can talk about it. No, I don't have to talk about
• 36:10
  it. I do actually like, as I told you, in, say,
• 36:13
  1931 Universal version, we don't have that sense
• 36:16
  of like, oh, wait, there are Americans here.
• 36:17
  And so I like that because it seems so bizarre,
• 36:20
  right, that we have this kind of cowboy thing
• 36:22
  going on in Dracula, which is faithful to the
• 36:24
  novel. And Coppola restored that. And I think
• 36:26
  that was an interesting choice. Well, again,
• 36:30
  as I told you, when we talked about this the
• 36:32
  first time, just wherever we were, I think we're
• 36:34
  going to see that other movie, which maybe at
• 36:36
  some point point we'll talk about. All the things
• 36:39
  you're saying are well taken, and I respect them.
• 36:42
  However, I don't think they actually have to
• 36:44
  do with the movie that I saw. Like people at
• 36:47
  a table reading, sure. But the movie that I saw,
• 36:52
  which again, I honestly feel like I've forgotten
• 36:55
  it by now is how much I did not like it. It was
• 36:59
  just terrible acting. and the contract i think
• 37:05
  the acting was so distracts about acting was
• 37:07
  so distracting and that watching those horrible
• 37:10
  scenes in the beginning with Keanu and you know,
• 37:14
  Gary Oldman. And in a lot of ways, Gary Oldman's
• 37:18
  so over the top. I mean, he's just... Love it.
• 37:20
  Love it all. And it's really campy. But the problem
• 37:24
  is they're in two different genres. I mean, Gary
• 37:26
  Oldman is in, as you're seeing, right, he's visually
• 37:29
  dazzling, like we're just gonna throw it all
• 37:30
  out there. He's in that place. Keanu's playing
• 37:33
  it straight with this terrible accent. And it
• 37:36
  doesn't go together. So it's really hard to watch
• 37:40
  because it's like two people in two separate
• 37:42
  movies. One person who got the memo and then
• 37:46
  the other person who didn't. And again, as you
• 37:48
  said, it would be one thing if Keanu Reeves'
• 37:52
  character was in one scene. Or the Winona Ryder
• 37:54
  character. But both of them are in the whole.
• 37:58
  Movie and you don't buy for a second that they
• 38:02
  are in love with each other. They have no chemistry
• 38:04
  They I mean Winona Ryder has way more chemistry
• 38:08
  with Lucy And with that character, I certainly
• 38:12
  buy that friendship but the rest of it is to
• 38:16
  me a trainwreck and it's just The fact that it's
• 38:21
  over the top, it felt like it was over the top
• 38:24
  for the sake of it rather than for some sort
• 38:28
  of cinematic purpose. And again, films can be
• 38:32
  over the top. Like a Moulin Rouge or something
• 38:34
  like that where it feels over the top. All the
• 38:37
  Basler men, right? It feels over the top because
• 38:39
  it's just Basler men. This felt like, let's throw
• 38:44
  in this thing or just... just a lot of elements
• 38:50
  that either were to be confusing, but the acting
• 38:54
  was really at the core of it. So awful. And you
• 38:59
  just want to like look away and not for the reasons
• 39:02
  of like vampires killing people, but for the
• 39:06
  reasons of just like, what is he? doing. Like
• 39:10
  why is Keanu Reeves seeing this? Like what and
• 39:13
  then even the cutting back and forth between
• 39:16
  Winona and Keanu getting married and like the
• 39:21
  stuff going on with Dracula and I don't know.
• 39:28
  I just didn't buy it. And again, part of of why
• 39:33
  I'm maybe even incoherent about talking about
• 39:35
  it was like, I just lost interest. And I just
• 39:39
  wanted to fast forward, get it over with. And
• 39:43
  I was hoping something good would happen. And
• 39:46
  it didn't. And I didn't get I'm a huge Gary Oldman
• 39:50
  fan. And I didn't find when we're talking about
• 39:53
  eroticism or talking about like vampire lore,
• 39:56
  it didn't find him irresistible. I didn't find
• 39:59
  the chemistry between him and Winona Ryder believable
• 40:02
  and so again it feels like again another wasted
• 40:06
  opportunity you have like smoking Gary Oldman
• 40:09
  and then like nobody really convincingly responding
• 40:15
  to him so I think that Your reasons for liking
• 40:19
  it and, you know, true to the book and all of
• 40:21
  that, I appreciate that. But just coming at it
• 40:24
  from just a purely, I'm watching this movie and
• 40:27
  I'm not thinking about anything else and I can
• 40:30
  barely watch it. Okay. You know, I will argue
• 40:33
  one more point in its favor though. And this
• 40:35
  is actually a reason why I'm not as excited about
• 40:37
  Interview the Vampire. To me, Interview is totally
• 40:40
  inert. That is, there's nothing that we fear
• 40:43
  in that film. There's no threat in that film.
• 40:47
  The whole point of Interview of the Vampire is,
• 40:49
  well, Louis is just kind of moping. Telling his
• 40:51
  story. Telling his story, and his story is about
• 40:53
  being moping. That's true. And that's it. And
• 40:56
  we have basically no... Although, one thing,
• 40:59
  I'm sorry to interrupt. We do, from the very
• 41:03
  beginning, wonder... once we're introduced to
• 41:07
  Lestat and to Claudia, what will happen to them?
• 41:11
  But we know they're not going to die. Right.
• 41:15
  And Claudia, of course, does end up dying with
• 41:17
  sunlight, but it's not that I'm not that concerned
• 41:20
  about it. We're dealing with basically immortals,
• 41:22
  right? We're dealing with immortals. I guess
• 41:23
  I was concerned about that. And I think it's
• 41:25
  also because there are no humans in the film,
• 41:28
  other than Christian Slater, whom we see every
• 41:30
  once in a while as the interviewer. But there's
• 41:33
  no sense of an arc in that film at all. And one
• 41:37
  of the things that I was thought about, I'm like,
• 41:38
  I kind of always forget what happens after they
• 41:40
  kill Lestat the first time. And we have - That's
• 41:42
  where they go on their world travels. But to
• 41:44
  me, it's just kind of like, one thing I do like
• 41:48
  very much about Coppola's Dracula is, and of
• 41:51
  course it is because it's faithful to the book,
• 41:54
  we have a very clear narrative arc, right? The
• 41:57
  whole, there is a danger presented to us that,
• 42:01
  okay, Dracula is, is he going to kill Mina? And
• 42:05
  this of course is the case in the 1931 Dracula,
• 42:07
  right? Is he going to kill Mina? Is he going
• 42:09
  to turn her into a vampire? And of course in
• 42:11
  the book, and even in the Coppola film, the big
• 42:16
  threat is not that Mina is just going to die,
• 42:19
  but that she will be damned for eternity. That
• 42:21
  she becomes unclean by consuming his blood. And
• 42:25
  then there's the whole sensibility that all of
• 42:27
  the other men have to, quote -unquote, save her.
• 42:30
  And I think that that is interesting because
• 42:33
  even when we have sympathetic Gary Oldman, you
• 42:35
  know, I've crossed oceans of time to find you,
• 42:38
  he kills Lucy. It kills Lucy. Lucy turns into
• 42:42
  a vampire and starts feeding on children. And
• 42:45
  we have the feeding of children again. And so
• 42:48
  that actually is something. You have drama at
• 42:51
  the end. This is something, of course, Coppola
• 42:53
  does so well. The whole classic sun setting,
• 42:57
  and they're racing to get to the castle. This
• 43:00
  very heightened, very typical moment of suspense.
• 43:03
  but that it is the case that it is Lucy's, sorry,
• 43:07
  Amina's soul that sort of is in the bargain.
• 43:10
  And again, in the whole thing of Interview With the
• 43:11
  Vampire, I'm just kind of like, well, they're
• 43:12
  just kind of sitting around, as you know. They
• 43:15
  are. But I think maybe to me, what you're describing
• 43:18
  is Stoker and not Coppola. No, I think that's
• 43:22
  fair. But I do think the way that, again, he
• 43:23
  visualizes that, I think that's really, I like
• 43:26
  that a lot. But I totally agree. I want the recast
• 43:30
  version, right? I'll watch a recast version with
• 43:36
  the appropriate actors playing these roles because,
• 43:39
  again, the Stoker version is fascinating, but
• 43:43
  I don't want to see it ruined by these bad actors.
• 43:47
  Well, actually, one more thing before we talk
• 43:49
  about sinners. It is, of course, also the case
• 43:51
  that in Coppola's version, we do have the erotics
• 43:54
  of the vampire back. Right, very explicitly.
• 43:58
  And in a sort of weird way. Because he needs
• 44:01
  to maintain this kind of faithful love story,
• 44:03
  but also he basically needs to do it with Lucy
• 44:05
  in this kind of vampire weird way. So that's
• 44:08
  a little bit awkward, but he's not shying away
• 44:10
  from it. No, he's not shying away from it. And
• 44:13
  actually, Lucy is one of the better actors in
• 44:16
  the film. Sadie Frost, yeah. I'm good with Lucy.
• 44:20
  Um, and I feel bad that she had to be surrounded
• 44:23
  by that mess. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So Sinners.
• 44:29
  Okay. I saw Sinners this summer. Um, and you
• 44:34
  saw it, what, this week? A couple of nights ago.
• 44:35
  A couple of nights ago on HBO or whatever. I
• 44:37
  have not seen it. All right. So, um, I'm curious
• 44:40
  to hear what you think. Well, um, I thought...
• 44:45
  What I really liked about it, I thought the idea
• 44:49
  of having a vampire story set in 1930s Mississippi
• 44:54
  Delta was interesting. I actually thought that
• 44:58
  we were going to delve a little bit more into
• 45:01
  this kind of Robert Johnson, you know, selling
• 45:04
  the soul to the devil, blues man, crossroads
• 45:07
  thing. I thought that the film was going to lean
• 45:09
  a little bit more into that because of course
• 45:11
  that's such a fascinating story in terms of like,
• 45:13
  well, the devil is now here. I thought that Michael
• 45:17
  B Jordan was incredible. I thought he was terrific,
• 45:20
  absolutely terrific. The one, I thought that
• 45:24
  it started off very, very slowly. I thought it
• 45:27
  kind of probably could have been edited down
• 45:28
  in the first hour. I also think the clan bit
• 45:32
  at the end didn't really fit. I thought it was
• 45:35
  kind of unnecessary. Not every single film about
• 45:38
  the South in the 1930s needs to have a clan scene.
• 45:42
  But what I did think was really interesting about
• 45:44
  it, and this is where I'm going to go back to
• 45:45
  Polidori for a second. So bear with me and
• 45:47
  then I'm going to shut up. What we have with
• 45:51
  this John Polidori story this got a template
• 45:53
  that he creates is. The vampire is the thing
• 45:57
  that you fear will penetrate into your society
• 45:59
  right so Polidori frames the vampire for the
• 46:02
  first time as this kind of libertine nobleman right
• 46:05
  it had not been the case in European folklore
• 46:06
  before but now we have a handsome seductive man
• 46:09
  who is going to destroy virgins and do all of
• 46:12
  this. By the time we get to bram stoker the idea
• 46:16
  is that it's about immigration. And this is something
• 46:19
  dwelt upon in the novel, that these Eastern Europeans,
• 46:23
  Dracula's vampires, they're going to infiltrate
• 46:25
  London. Colonization, metaphor for imperialism
• 46:29
  and all of that. But also understood very literally,
• 46:33
  where it's not just a metaphor for imperialism,
• 46:34
  but the idea that Roman Catholics, even though
• 46:37
  obviously he himself is Irish, but Roman Catholics,
• 46:40
  Eastern Europeans, these people with these bizarre
• 46:43
  superstitions, are going to come to England.
• 46:46
  They are going to kind of infiltrate. that are
• 46:48
  going to water down, you know, English Protestantism
• 46:51
  that is so visible, right, in that film. I'm
• 46:54
  sorry, in the book. So what I think is interesting
• 46:56
  about Sinners is that, of course, our mid -triars...
• 47:00
  start out, they are white people, right? And
• 47:03
  they're Irish, but it is whites. And so the idea
• 47:07
  that you basically have in effect, this very
• 47:09
  happy, you know, kind of content family style
• 47:12
  almost, you know, we're all at the juke joint,
• 47:15
  sort of African American community. And so here
• 47:18
  now, again, the infiltrators, the evil people.
• 47:22
  Are white people and I think that that that whether
• 47:25
  Coogler intended that or no and I think that to
• 47:27
  me is one of the richest most interesting things
• 47:29
  it is those and and again, I think I think he
• 47:33
  did intend for it to be a commentary on racial
• 47:37
  appropriation racial interchange You know all
• 47:42
  that kind of stuff, but also the idea about whether
• 47:47
  or not racial cooperation can only occur in the
• 47:52
  land of the dead. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so it's
• 47:55
  not so much a question, I mean, about traditional
• 47:59
  vampire stories about, right, like you live forever
• 48:02
  and you can be omnipresent, all that. But it's
• 48:06
  really about we can't get along in the real world.
• 48:09
  And so if we're all vampires, then Are our differences
• 48:14
  kind of we can we can mel together we can embrace
• 48:16
  tradition and we can all you know live more harmoniously
• 48:21
  but it's supposed to be a. Bad thing. It is.
• 48:26
  That's a bad thing. And certainly, I mean, the
• 48:27
  way that I read it, it's it's a satire of the
• 48:30
  white liberal, right? It's a satire of the white
• 48:32
  liberal who's like, Oh, no, no, basically, we
• 48:34
  can, we can all have equality and all this wonderful
• 48:37
  stuff. The only thing is you basically have to
• 48:39
  give up your, your identity, your personhood,
• 48:42
  right? You have to become a killer, a literal
• 48:44
  killer in order to embrace this, this sense of
• 48:47
  racial equality and happiness and the sort of
• 48:49
  peace and love. And so I absolutely read that
• 48:51
  as a satire on the a white liberal who's just
• 48:54
  like, oh, no, no, we're going to this kind of
• 48:56
  utopian place where all of this wonderful stuff
• 48:59
  will happen. And so to me, it really was kind
• 49:01
  of an affirmation of a particular kind of segregation,
• 49:05
  a reality that says, again, we are. And in some
• 49:09
  ways, I mean, it was interesting to me to compare
• 49:10
  it. I'm sure you thought this this way, too.
• 49:13
  It is interesting to compare it to his vision
• 49:16
  of Wakanda. Right. It's the exact same kind of
• 49:19
  thing. You have, in effect, a closed racial society.
• 49:22
  Right. Of course, in the case of Wakanda of Africans
• 49:25
  in this film of African Americans. And obviously,
• 49:29
  there's different ways in which. Non -africans
• 49:32
  and non -african -americans engage with that
• 49:34
  but the sense of like no this closed society.
• 49:37
  That's the good one And there's the temptation
• 49:40
  right that comes from these other directions
• 49:42
  Sure, and I I agree with that. I think to me
• 49:46
  again I agree with what you're saying about the
• 49:50
  you know sort of most of the film I mean until
• 49:53
  the vampire part. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's a storytelling
• 49:56
  about the lives of these characters, and then
• 50:00
  Mississippi Delta, they've come back, smoke and
• 50:04
  stack, they're kind of on the lam, they're gonna,
• 50:07
  one night of this, again, incredible night, and
• 50:09
  this juke joint, and it's, to me, what's most
• 50:13
  powerful scene is when, you know, all of the
• 50:17
  retelling of black history, black culture, and
• 50:20
  that, in the future, really, and the future,
• 50:22
  and right, and like, all of this. possibility,
• 50:25
  right? The possibility of cultural enlightenment,
• 50:29
  engagement, however you want to think about it.
• 50:32
  And all of that is ruined by the presence of
• 50:39
  these vampires but also by the what's interesting
• 50:43
  to me is it's also ruined by the reality of sharecropping
• 50:47
  which is that you know sharecropping people because
• 50:49
  they aren't paying with dollars and so there
• 50:52
  have to be you have to let these people in because
• 50:55
  they can pay and there's only so many favors
• 50:57
  that can go around to let the other people who
• 51:01
  have come who are so impoverished and who are
• 51:04
  in in this you know oppressive script in this
• 51:06
  oppressive economic system, that they're paying
• 51:11
  with fake money or whatever. And so it's... I
• 51:16
  think to me what Coogler's at as well is that
• 51:20
  there's this literal price you have to pay to
• 51:25
  keep your kind of quote culture alive, which
• 51:28
  ends up with these devastating consequences.
• 51:32
  And that by letting these white, of course they
• 51:36
  don't know that they're vampires, right? But
• 51:38
  that by letting these white... Folks come in
• 51:42
  and then end up literally sucking the blood out
• 51:44
  of of this night. You know, really, really shows
• 51:47
  you has I think his criticism. I agree with you.
• 51:51
  This is sort of criticism of white liberalism,
• 51:54
  but also the vulnerability of black culture.
• 51:57
  But and what's interesting about that, though,
• 51:59
  is that is that it's very specifically. the Hailee
• 52:05
  Steinfeld character who lets them in, right?
• 52:07
  They're not let in when they first come to the
• 52:09
  door, right? They're told like, you know, get
• 52:11
  the fuck out of here. And it's this very specific
• 52:14
  exchange, right? Where she and Stack are talking
• 52:17
  and it's like, okay, well, I will go out and
• 52:19
  talk to them, right? Maybe, you know, we can
• 52:21
  see if they're like decent people or whatever.
• 52:23
  And of course we're told what? That she is her...
• 52:28
  Grandfather is half black right that if I remember
• 52:31
  and she was part kind of part of the family Yeah,
• 52:34
  she's this kind of you know trusted figure She
• 52:37
  said her mother her mother had what been active
• 52:40
  in the family of Smoke and Stack she has a relationship
• 52:43
  Yeah, right with with Stack with stack so she's
• 52:47
  well so so her own whiteness plays these interesting
• 52:51
  roles and both being a liminal figure right
• 52:55
  and somebody who is part of she's the only white
• 52:57
  person who's part of the black community In an
• 53:01
  interesting way right back to her own hit her
• 53:04
  own history But then she's also this figure they
• 53:08
  can kind of like suss out whether these people
• 53:11
  Are like legit and whether or not they should
• 53:14
  be invited back in Well, and that's I mean to
• 53:17
  me. That's what was both. I don't know. I don't
• 53:20
  want to say disturbing That's not the right right
• 53:23
  word but but of course narratively right narratively
• 53:26
  she is necessary it is necessary that she is
• 53:29
  white narratively it is that she can go out and
• 53:31
  have this conversation that she is the first
• 53:33
  person to be turned and that that but then of
• 53:35
  course it's also Again i don't use the word disturbing
• 53:39
  but it is the fact then in terms of our greater
• 53:43
  sort of concept of the damaging aspect of her
• 53:47
  whiteness that since she can come back and she
• 53:50
  is trusted so in a sense i mean i think i mean
• 53:54
  that's why i keep coming back to this idea of.
• 53:57
  Fully closed community not close to people because
• 54:00
  of course we have the chinese couple right you
• 54:03
  are. invited in, right, who are part of also
• 54:05
  this kind of family. And so, but she, in her
• 54:09
  whiteness, she is absolutely the threat. Again,
• 54:12
  it is narratively required that she be white
• 54:14
  for exactly that purpose. But I find that also
• 54:17
  to be, in terms of the, I mean, the message to
• 54:19
  me is so screamingly clear, right, in terms of
• 54:23
  that desire for a closed community that does
• 54:26
  not. Open itself in any way to whiteness because
• 54:29
  even also right even coming back to Clarksdale
• 54:32
  having the kind of real estate transaction with
• 54:35
  the guy who ends up being in the plan it really
• 54:38
  I mean it's one of the most interesting things
• 54:39
  to me you can tell me what you think as an American
• 54:41
  historian so. someone asks, and it might be Preacher
• 54:45
  Boy, says to Smoke and Stack, like, why did you
• 54:48
  leave Chicago? Right. And of course, we then
• 54:50
  find out it's because they have pit the Irish
• 54:52
  and Italian mobs against each other. Sure, sure.
• 54:55
  Right, they're on the lam. Yes. But then, but
• 54:57
  what they say, right, I don't remember if it's
• 54:59
  Smoke or Stack, says, well, basically Chicago
• 55:01
  is just like Mississippi, but with taller buildings.
• 55:04
  Right. And so that was also really interesting
• 55:07
  to me, because of course, one of the biggest
• 55:08
  questions is, Why come back to Mississippi again
• 55:14
  Clarksdale this place is written with clan people
• 55:17
  and I don't know I thought that was it has to
• 55:20
  again it has to happen narratively But in terms
• 55:23
  of - And I guess I took that and I don't know
• 55:27
  whether they were, whether Coogler was trying
• 55:30
  to in some way insert the Emmett Till story.
• 55:33
  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of subconsciously
• 55:37
  into all of this. He's from Chicago. Of course.
• 55:40
  He's lynched in Mississippi. Yeah. There is always
• 55:43
  that, you know, that's the most frequent reference
• 55:46
  that would come to mind. and of course that happened
• 55:49
  that coming much later in 1955 but part of me
• 55:53
  read that you know again the the south there's
• 55:58
  there's always been this You know kind of tug
• 56:01
  between the south is a place of danger and the
• 56:03
  south is a place of refuge Yeah, and that within
• 56:07
  black communities the south is a place of refuge
• 56:09
  because There are all these you know from it.
• 56:12
  There's familiarity. There's family. There's
• 56:14
  food. There's church There's all the things that
• 56:16
  we see in the movie, right? There's also within
• 56:19
  these rural communities the opportunity for smoke
• 56:23
  and stuff, they're insiders. And they're not
• 56:26
  necessarily insiders for the Klansmen, right?
• 56:27
  But they carry a weight that in, say, Chicago,
• 56:31
  they have to build credibility. They are people
• 56:34
  from the South. There's suspicion of them. And
• 56:37
  so that they're able to come back to, you know,
• 56:39
  they have this money to invest in this juke joint
• 56:42
  with this man who they know is... probably, you
• 56:44
  know, up to no good and not looking to help them
• 56:50
  in a sort of social justice way anyway, but is
• 56:53
  gonna help them maybe in a financial way. And
• 56:56
  of course, they don't know that he's plotting
• 56:57
  later to like come kill everybody, right? But
• 57:00
  the idea that there's, again, I think Kugler's
• 57:04
  also trying to talk about the uneasiness of rural
• 57:09
  life and that... that really ambiguous line between
• 57:14
  familiarity and unfamiliarity. And that the vampires
• 57:17
  themselves, to me, are meant on a kind of meta
• 57:22
  level to represent the unfamiliar from the familiar.
• 57:26
  That you know people, that you grew up with people,
• 57:28
  that you have this history, that Southern history
• 57:31
  is... all about generations and generations and
• 57:34
  oral history and stories and storytelling and
• 57:36
  all of that. And that once people become vampires
• 57:40
  and become unfamiliar and you don't want to let
• 57:42
  them in, right? And the only reason, again, the
• 57:46
  Chinese woman who does eventually let them in
• 57:49
  to save her daughter. To kill them. To kill them,
• 57:53
  right? turning unfamiliar to you who you believe
• 57:59
  to be familiar and who you believe to be trusted
• 58:01
  is Something I mean, that's true of all history
• 58:04
  is true of all humanity, right? But in Southern
• 58:07
  history and the southern sort of lore it has
• 58:09
  a particular place and I feel like what I really
• 58:12
  like about sinners and I mean, there's a lot
• 58:15
  of There's unevenness of places, I agree with
• 58:18
  you on the editing, but what I loved about it
• 58:20
  was just how ambitious it is. In terms of the
• 58:24
  storytelling, in terms of the visuals of capturing
• 58:29
  Mississippi in the 30s and the fantastic Michael
• 58:33
  B. Jordan who carries the movie in two roles.
• 58:40
  The vampire of it, while it does feel kind of
• 58:44
  almost erratic, Right, but it is this hybrid
• 58:47
  genre and I think it's interesting and ambitious
• 58:49
  and when I saw the first time I left thinking
• 58:52
  You know, I'm I'm glad a movie like this exists
• 58:56
  and there's a lot to talk about There's a lot
• 58:58
  to show, you know with students and I don't think
• 59:02
  it's a perfect work and I don't think that and
• 59:05
  I think there's some of it that you know, you
• 59:07
  because I'm not sure about that, but It's very
• 59:11
  very provocative and I and I think that particularly
• 59:15
  in terms of capturing American history and racial
• 59:20
  complexity in a way that isn't particularly neat,
• 59:24
  particularly within the black community. I think
• 59:26
  he does a really good job. So, and I don't think
• 59:30
  it's, although it does come away with white people
• 59:33
  bad, black people good, it does come away with
• 59:37
  that. uh conclusion and but also then that some
• 59:41
  members of this community of this African -American
• 59:44
  community have been unwittingly seduced right
• 59:47
  into joining that kind of love and fellowship
• 59:49
  environment again not given a choice right we're
• 59:51
  talking about choice earlier with interview the
• 59:53
  vampire sure i mean it was one of the you know
• 59:55
  this will sound weird but what it reminded me
• 59:58
  in thinking about this in terms of their return
• 1:00:00
  what it really reminded me of somewhat oddly
• 1:00:03
  is in the heat of the night right where again
• 1:00:05
  you have Sidney Poitier right who goes from Philadelphia
• 1:00:08
  back down to Mississippi. That's a great, that's
• 1:00:11
  a great. And the same sense of like, okay, this
• 1:00:13
  is familiar, this is not familiar, and that he
• 1:00:16
  is used to his particular role in Philadelphia,
• 1:00:19
  right? The famous, you know, they call me Mr.
• 1:00:21
  Tibbs line, you know, when he smacks the guy
• 1:00:22
  across the face, which is, you know, so fantastic.
• 1:00:25
  And it really did remind me of that. But I will
• 1:00:27
  say something that I really liked about it, and
• 1:00:29
  we had just been talking about this in my grad
• 1:00:31
  class, is that, of course, what we also see is
• 1:00:34
  we see African -American Christianity, obviously
• 1:00:37
  in preacher boy's father, but then we also see
• 1:00:39
  kind of neo -African religion in Smoke's wife.
• 1:00:43
  I can't remember her name. Anyway, and so I really
• 1:00:47
  liked that, that that was also not necessarily
• 1:00:50
  ambiguous or ambivalent, but we do have the juxtaposition
• 1:00:54
  of these two particular religious paths without.
• 1:00:58
  but then also this kind of mixing because I loved
• 1:01:00
  it with the garlic right so we also have been
• 1:01:03
  this entrance of kind of again European folklore
• 1:01:05
  right how do you get rid of a vampire we have
• 1:01:07
  the garlic we have the stakes to the heart right
• 1:01:09
  all of this stuff and so I thought that that
• 1:01:11
  was really nice kind of a juxtaposition of these
• 1:01:14
  different religious traditions that to me didn't
• 1:01:16
  seem messy, right? It seemed like really natural
• 1:01:19
  and organic. And I liked that. So this kind of
• 1:01:22
  borrowing from vampire lore that was very traditional,
• 1:01:25
  but then also these other traditions entering
• 1:01:27
  in. And as I will repeat, I did want just two
• 1:01:32
  more little seconds. Reflecting on the whole
• 1:01:36
  Mississippi Delta blues, right? Satan's music
• 1:01:39
  and obviously there's some of that in the film
• 1:01:41
  Yeah, but I that's the one thing where I really
• 1:01:44
  wanted stronger connections between our kind
• 1:01:46
  of Irish vampires and The sense that this music
• 1:01:50
  music is the music that this music is the music
• 1:01:52
  of the devil And so I just thought that that
• 1:01:53
  was like kind of a lost opportunity and made
• 1:01:56
  again a film that I thought especially, I thought
• 1:01:58
  the second half was so exciting. I thought it
• 1:02:00
  was just really so well done and interesting.
• 1:02:02
  Well, it is. And I think, again, the ambition
• 1:02:05
  of the film to begin with, I agree with you.
• 1:02:07
  I mean, there's so much that this film says and
• 1:02:10
  can say. And that the second half of the film,
• 1:02:14
  especially, and that scene with them all dancing
• 1:02:17
  together and all that music, both dancing, the
• 1:02:20
  scenes, the montage of... Black culture past
• 1:02:24
  and present and Chinese culture and Chinese culture
• 1:02:27
  and but but then also once they're vampires outside
• 1:02:30
  Irish music and that's really really interesting
• 1:02:34
  and thoughtful And again to me just a level of
• 1:02:39
  smartness Yeah, that I just appreciate from an
• 1:02:43
  academic perspective like he clearly is is like
• 1:02:46
  reading things and yeah things and and to carry
• 1:02:52
  the film the way that Michael B. Jordan does
• 1:02:54
  is really amazing. And I probably need to watch
• 1:02:58
  it again because I saw in the theater and it
• 1:03:01
  is so beautiful in the theater. I mean, that's
• 1:03:03
  the other thing is that the filming of it and
• 1:03:07
  the Mississippi Delta, the way that they are
• 1:03:09
  capturing all of these different locales and
• 1:03:13
  the costumes, all of it is really amazing. And
• 1:03:17
  I'm just a Ryan Coogler fan in general, but I
• 1:03:20
  feel like this, which was really his first, you
• 1:03:22
  know, like non -creed, non -IP, non -IP, exactly.
• 1:03:29
  Really kind of original filmmaking was an encouraging.
• 1:03:36
  And again, it's interesting that you bring this
• 1:03:39
  in with the vampires because in some ways it's...
• 1:03:42
  It's leaning into vampire genre lore and in some
• 1:03:45
  ways it's really not it's about something else
• 1:03:48
  and because we don't know where the where the
• 1:03:51
  vampires came from right we have no conception
• 1:03:53
  we see this sort of. original vampire in the
• 1:03:56
  film, the one who goes up to the house of the
• 1:03:59
  married couple. But we don't know where he came
• 1:04:01
  from, we don't know how long he's been around,
• 1:04:02
  we don't know anything other than the reference
• 1:04:04
  at the very beginning of the film that we're
• 1:04:07
  told explicitly that the Irish also have this
• 1:04:10
  ability through music to kind of have this membrane
• 1:04:13
  between the living and the dead. cut split and
• 1:04:16
  so when it has this initial narrative that this
• 1:04:19
  is happening with african -american music we
• 1:04:21
  are told that the irish too and so that was pretty
• 1:04:23
  much the only thing i could figure out like okay
• 1:04:25
  is this a figure of the irish vampire Is this
• 1:04:29
  a reflection of that thing that was talked about
• 1:04:31
  with music again? I didn't find that to be super
• 1:04:33
  cohesive, but that's what sort of made sense
• 1:04:36
  to me in terms of where this figure is. But the
• 1:04:38
  other thing that I mean, we can go. I mean, this
• 1:04:40
  might be taking us to another level, but if we're
• 1:04:42
  thinking about vampires and we're thinking about
• 1:04:44
  sort of doubling among men, and we're thinking
• 1:04:47
  here about using twins, which is a really interesting
• 1:04:50
  trope for vampires, right? If we're going to
• 1:04:53
  think about. Lestat and Louis, if we're going
• 1:04:57
  to think about Dracula and his vampire friend.
• 1:05:02
  But the idea of the vampire as an erotic figure,
• 1:05:06
  which... We see a lot of eroticism in this film,
• 1:05:10
  pre -vampire and less to a degree. But also,
• 1:05:13
  but when during the turn. When Stack is killed.
• 1:05:15
  When Stack is killed. But the relationship between
• 1:05:19
  Smoke and Stack as who's going to be a vampire,
• 1:05:21
  who's not going to be a vampire, that to me is
• 1:05:25
  very interesting if we want to, for another time,
• 1:05:28
  think about the idea of actual male twins. What
• 1:05:34
  might what that what might that mean in terms
• 1:05:38
  of vampire lore? That's okay. I take that point,
• 1:05:42
  but I have to I just have to add in the context
• 1:05:45
  of the film It has to be stack Who is killed
• 1:05:49
  and who becomes a vampire? It has to be him right
• 1:05:52
  right because he is the one who basically has
• 1:05:53
  the relationship with the white woman and so
• 1:05:55
  in a sense it becomes almost punitive i think
• 1:05:58
  and what i mean i'm talking about their relationship
• 1:06:01
  i know i know i know i know i know that's what
• 1:06:03
  you're saying and but what i think is interesting
• 1:06:06
  is that you know i'm thinking about about black
• 1:06:09
  panther. You know all the brian kugler and i
• 1:06:12
  didn't see creed or any of the creed iterations
• 1:06:14
  but in black panther brian kugler clearly has
• 1:06:18
  he has sympathy with the villain. And we always
• 1:06:20
  kind of have these moments where it's like, oh,
• 1:06:22
  all of a sudden we're talking to the villain
• 1:06:23
  as if he's a nice guy. And of course we have
• 1:06:25
  that here, where we have the scene with Buddy
• 1:06:27
  Guy, real -life Buddy Guy at the end, where we
• 1:06:30
  learn that, in fact, this couple, they've just
• 1:06:33
  been, and I was like, well, wait a minute, now
• 1:06:34
  everyone's kind of hugging it out, which to me
• 1:06:37
  seems strange because presumably... stack and,
• 1:06:40
  what's her name, Hailee Steinfeld's character.
• 1:06:42
  Presumably they've just been murdering people
• 1:06:44
  for the past several decades. Just walking around.
• 1:06:46
  And now they're hugging it out with Buddy Guy.
• 1:06:48
  And so I was kind of, you know, as much as I
• 1:06:50
  liked the, you know, sort of stylings, right?
• 1:06:52
  But that to me I thought was again a very Ryan
• 1:06:55
  Coogler kind of moment. Oh, the villain's not
• 1:06:57
  so bad after all. You know, we're hugging it
• 1:06:59
  out. Well, also he let him live. He said he was
• 1:07:02
  gonna let him live and he let him live. And let
• 1:07:05
  him have a full career and let him go on to be
• 1:07:07
  a jazz musician. and then all that. So, yeah,
• 1:07:11
  I mean, it's - I thought that was, yeah. A nice
• 1:07:13
  little comment. Okay, well, I think this is all
• 1:07:16
  the time we have, but let's talk for a second
• 1:07:17
  about book recommendations. Okay, okay. And as
• 1:07:20
  maybe you can guess, my book recommendation is
• 1:07:23
  going to be John - Paula Dory's The Vampire.
• 1:07:26
  And that's Vampire with a Y, by the way. It is
• 1:07:29
  super, super short and it has a lot of problems.
• 1:07:32
  Paula Dory was a doctor by training. He was Lord
• 1:07:35
  Byron's kind of private physician when Byron
• 1:07:37
  was running around womanizing. And but it's so
• 1:07:41
  short, but it really is interesting in creating
• 1:07:43
  this template. As I said, the all of a sudden
• 1:07:46
  with Paula Dory, the vampire is the handsome,
• 1:07:49
  seductive nobleman who was a womanizer, much
• 1:07:52
  like Lord Byron, who was the model for that.
• 1:07:55
  And so it's a really interesting thing to read
• 1:07:57
  in terms of understanding all of the media that
• 1:07:59
  comes after it. Okay, well I'm gonna go back
• 1:08:03
  to one that was a hot book when it first came
• 1:08:06
  out was then turned into a movie which is Midnight
• 1:08:08
  in the Garden of Good and Evil, which I haven't
• 1:08:11
  read for a while, but certainly Lacked up when
• 1:08:15
  it first came out No pun intended. No pun intended
• 1:08:18
  John Berent and this is about sort of southern
• 1:08:23
  gothic culture and It's very much taking place
• 1:08:27
  in the world of Interview with a Vampire and
• 1:08:30
  Rice's world and really thinking about gender
• 1:08:33
  inversion and thinking about eroticism and thinking
• 1:08:37
  about the occult and all sorts of things like
• 1:08:41
  that. So while it isn't necessarily a vampire
• 1:08:43
  book, it does go along with actually both Sinners
• 1:08:47
  and Interview with a Vampire. Actually, it's
• 1:08:51
  funny, Jim asked me the other night, Are all
• 1:08:55
  vampire movies now about the South which of course
• 1:08:58
  True Blood is true And it's interesting the way
• 1:09:01
  that that has migrated No pun intended to from
• 1:09:05
  again the European folklore the Transylvania
• 1:09:09
  right all of that to then in an American context
• 1:09:13
  the South being the home for vampires, which
• 1:09:17
  I find to be just a really interesting idea because
• 1:09:22
  the most recent iterations of vampire movies
• 1:09:25
  that take place with vampires in the United States.
• 1:09:30
  Wait, where's Twilight? Is that the Pacific Northwest?
• 1:09:32
  That is the exception. Because of course you
• 1:09:34
  can't have California, right? Because there's
• 1:09:36
  too much sunlight. Twilight is the outlier. And
• 1:09:44
  yeah, it took place in the Pacific Northwest.
• 1:09:47
  But certainly True Blood and Midnight in the
• 1:09:50
  Garden of Good and Evil and some of these occult
• 1:09:54
  and voodoo. Look at New Orleans. New Orleans
• 1:09:59
  is tied to vampires. in lots of ways. So anyway,
• 1:10:05
  that's what I recommend. And the series True
• 1:10:08
  Blood, which I don't know if we'll talk about,
• 1:10:10
  but is really terrific. And it starts out so
• 1:10:14
  strong, particularly the first couple seasons.
• 1:10:16
  So, so, so good. And in a lot of ways is what
• 1:10:20
  I want in my vampires. I will amend my first
• 1:10:23
  statement. Okay. Vampires were on the mind when
• 1:10:26
  I was watching Truth. All the time. Because if
• 1:10:32
  you watch Alexander Skarsgard as a hot, mostly
• 1:10:36
  naked vampire for hours upon hours, there's nothing
• 1:10:40
  - You don't have to ask me twice. You don't have
• 1:10:42
  to think about much. Bill Moyer? Is that his
• 1:10:47
  name? Now I'm going to - Yeah, what's his name?
• 1:10:49
  Yeah. I can't remember. No, it's not Bill Moyers
• 1:10:51
  because that's like the interviewer. It might
• 1:10:52
  be Stephen Moyers. Stephen Moyers. But what is
• 1:10:55
  interesting about him, he was in a British TV
• 1:10:57
  show about vampires called Ultraviolet. Oh, I
• 1:11:00
  remember Ultraviolet. And Idris Elba is one of
• 1:11:03
  the stars of Ultraviolet. And you introduced
• 1:11:04
  me to that. I love it. I love Ultraviolet. It
• 1:11:07
  was a great, great show. It was so interesting.
• 1:11:09
  And again, Stephen, whose last name was... Why
• 1:11:11
  can't remember this? Stephen something. We should
• 1:11:14
  probably look this up. Married to Anna Paquin.
• 1:11:16
  Are they still married? I think so. But he's
• 1:11:19
  been in two vampire shows, which is really interesting.
• 1:11:20
  Well, he makes an amazing vampire. I just miss,
• 1:11:23
  and he has that sultry, smoldering, you know,
• 1:11:27
  sucky! And he's great looking in ultraviolet.
• 1:11:30
  He's like really, really sexy in ultraviolet.
• 1:11:32
  He's all that. He's all that. Well, on that note,
• 1:11:37
  I guess we will say what? Happy Halloween. Happy
• 1:11:39
  Halloween. Don't get too sick on all the candy
• 1:11:42
  you may consume or not consume. Stay safe. Don't
• 1:11:46
  get the razor blades. No razor blades in the
• 1:11:49
  apples. Check the apples. Those apples that people
• 1:11:51
  are giving out. Check the apples. And until next
• 1:11:55
  time, Harvey's out. His story