"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Posts Tagged ‘Vincent Perez’

Queen of the Damned

Wednesday, February 4th, 2026

I always kinda wanted to see QUEEN OF THE DAMNED and I think we can all be proud of me that I managed to get it in before it turned 25. Pretty much still a new release! If you’ve forgotten though, it’s basically a new cast, new filmmakers sequel to INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE, with Tom Cruise’s vampire character Lestat now played by Stuart Townsend (SIMON MAGUS). He also narrates the movie and man does it make for a funny opening. He explains how he got sick of immortality “So I went to sleep, hoping that the sounds of the passing eras would fade out, and a sort of death might happen.” He’s Dracula-ing inside a coffin in a crypt with a cool skeleton sculpture on the lid.

“But as I lay there, the world didn’t sound like the place I had left, but something… different. Better.”


Cut to a series of close ups: a kick drum, guitars, tattoos, nipple rings, etc., as rocking out occurs. A band is jamming in his old mansion and the sound wakes him up. He slips into their jam session and appoints himself lead vocalist. You gotta just assert yourself, right? Fake it ’til you make it. When they ask him “Who the hell are you, man?” he says “I am the vampire Lestat.” They laugh and then realize he’s serious and then he turns them.

“From that moment on they were my friends, my children, my band. Giving the world a new god. Me.” (read the rest of this shit…)

The Crow: City of Angels

Wednesday, July 12th, 2017

a survey of summer movies that just didn’t catch on

August 30, 1996

I don’t remember ever hearing anybody say nice things about THE CROW part 2, CITY OF ANGELS, so let me start out with one: this is a gorgeous looking movie. Part 1 production designer Alex McDowell (LAWNMOWER MAN, CRYING FREEMAN, FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, WATCHMEN) returns, this time with cinematographer Jean-Yves Escoffier (GUMMO, GOOD WILL HUNTING), to tweak and expand on the aggressively stylized gotholopolis look he created for Alex Proyas’ THE CROW.

This time it looks more real, and has a yellow tint on its foggy (maybe it’s smoggy?), trash-strewn streets, representing the heat of Los Angeles, I hope, and not the piss that it clearly smells of. I don’t know my skylines, so I’m not sure I would’ve understood that they changed the location from Detroit without the subtitle or the cool shot where a row of palm trees burst into flame one-by-one as the crow (the bird that seems to be responsible for resurrecting murder victims, not the vengeful harlequin ghost he enables) flies past them. There’s a great tracking shot of the bird flying over the (model) city, and a profile shot of the ghost speeding on his motorcycle, his feathered friend right in front of him. The movie definitely achieves on levels of technical craftsmanship. (read the rest of this shit…)