winter-of-85

[winter-of-85]

I'm reading the original 1994 film script by Anne Rice for fic research and it's so fascinating.

The ending is so different from what we got in the movie. Here Louis is the one who offers to stay when he comes to find Lestat in New Orleans, and Lestat rejects him which was interesting.

Also in this version, Louis gives Lestat a small portable tv and headphones so that he can watch rock music videos and Lestat starts dancing and singing along to Like a Virgin by Madonna and presumably that's how he gets the idea to become a rockstar.

It's so interesting to see the original vision Anne had for the movie before the studio stepped in.

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I dunno, but having grown up in the 90s/00s with the ‘94 film.. it is admittedly very frustrating seeing new fans constantly trash talking something that was so foundational for queer people my age.

Like, no, it’s obviously not as gay as iwtv22, but it is still very very extremely very queer coded. And that coding is all we had for a long time. Like Lestat’s first, levitating bite with Louis? Lestat and the Fop? Louis’s heavy-breathing farewell to Armand? Louis and Lestat’s reunion? These moments meant so much to me growing up, before I ever even knew there were books. And then later reading those explicitly queer moments as I grew older?? It only further cemented the importance of the coded sexuality and how it allowed me to love this very queer thing without having to unpack its queerness with my family.

I just think there’s a lack of consideration for the era where queerness in media was something that had to be kept secret, and using that against the film as some sort of “gotcha” isn’t the move you think it is.

And, yes, Tom and Brad suck as people. We don’t have to debate that, I agree wholeheartedly. But this constant dumping on older fans for.. cherishing an old thing that meant a lot to them for extremely specific reasons? That really sucks.

(the gatekeepy older fans can rot though)

Like let’s be 100% real here: every adaptation of these books is deeply flawed because the books themselves are deeply flawed. Not just structurally, they have serious problems regarding race, sexuality, women, children… Anne did not create a perfect foundation to work with, and she herself was an extremely flawed and often problematic person. And no matter how much you want to imagine that the tv show is divorced from all that.. it never will be. And that’s not your responsibility or mine to contend with any of it. It is a piece of media. It has no bearing on you as an individual.

I guess what I’m saying is that this series is nearing its 50th (!!!) birthday, and we as fans are very fortunate to have not only this incredible television series, but two iconic films (yes, QotD is iconic but in like.. an ironic, highly camp way), a musical of.. dubious but magical quality, and not one or two, but SIX stunning comic adaptations.. I just think it’s time to stop pitting the show against the movie when it’s all part of this massive, deeply flawed yet incredibly beautiful, wonderfully queer body of work.

[winter-of-85]

Is love where it should be?

John Logan 

Rarely. And that’s an answer that John Logan gives us very subtly in Penny Dreadful, more specifically in my favorite episode, 1X04 “Demimonde”. 

Let’s set the stage: at the Grand Guignol.

There are sailors, retired elderly people, couples…in fact on the right we see a young couple in love: Ethan Chandler and Brona Croft. Suddenly, among the people a single woman emerges, with black hair and a slender figure, with a somewhat grave and hypnotizing voice, it is Vanessa Ives, who asks for a brandy.

This brief essay arises from the idea of making a small visual development of a reality that I think I glimpse more and more in today’s society. And it is that no other movie or series that at least I, and only I have seen, shows in such a crude way as John Logan does in this scene, how many couples are together to be, perhaps for multiple reasons, but that they live together without feeling true love, or even worse, with one of the two components in love with another person.

I have previously developed my POV of Ethan Chandler’s behavior in this scene according to Brona, who is one of the quieter characters in Penny Dreadful before becoming the formidable Lily.

Like every beginning of any couple, Ethan should really be in love with Brona Croft. And he is not. Plain and simple, he’s cheating on her. He appreciates her very much, and he is her lover, but just for the gratification of sex and company? The answer is yes, it underlies here. And Ethan & Brona embody more than half of today’s established couples, couples who even have children, or are married.

Everything is fine between Ethan & Brona until Vanessa greets Ethan, like a happy friend seeing an acquaintance in a play or maybe real computations at the movies, at a cultural event, recital, museum… or other places but of course always linked to the art, not the mundane, this is John Logan writing, when he was really inspired and he was serious about it, not like when he wrote that horrendous Penny Dreadful in Los Angeles and he was so naughty giving us that trash as a possible heir to this first masterpiece.

Well, Vanessa Ives here is not herself, but brought to reality that distorting element that makes the partner who is not really in love wake up from her disgusting lethargy, and makes him know what are you doing with that person? What is that useless and barren life that you lead with her, making her believe that you love her/him, when you are bored? You want something else… You want someone else.

Ethan’s expression when he sees Vanessa goes from surprise to joy, from joy to complete hypnosis, looking at Vanessa instead of Brona when he is introducing them saying “Brona, Miss Ives ….”

What he really cares about is in that room. Brona spare, she bores him.

Sadly, every day I see hundreds of couples who are bored, prey to a routine that binds them more than handcuffs, more than glue. And they are people who are wasting their best years and those of the loved one, because there is only one way to waste life: to let the best years go by to love, no matter how old you are without having someone you really love.

And what’s worse: desperate people in the face of resounding loneliness who don’t know how to wait or look for love, who don’t give fate a chance and settle for the first right or wrong person who crosses their path.

Vanessa is the right person for Ethan, and he knows it.

In the case of today’s women and men who hate being alone, there are even today elements that seal their possible “hunt” for someone who is called to fill this void they suffer from being alone and that they mistakenly call “love” .

The hallmark is usually a pregnancy, wanted or not. Or maybe a wedding, the purchase of a property, or a long trip.

In any case something that binds them, and that is a cruel game of the subconscious. Because no matter how many children a couple of these characteristics have, no matter how many joint plans, companies or jobs, real estate or businesses, life insurance or therapies… sooner or later that distorting element will appear that will wake up the one who is not in love, and It will make you see the barren life that you are living next to that man/woman you appreciate, but who you do not really love.

And is that distorting element always a person? The answer is no, absolutely and emphatically no. It may or may not. Sometimes it’s a job, a simple movie, a call, a visit, a vase that falls to the ground or a situation in daily life that pushes us to the limit….it’s that clear and simple.

The distorting element here in this scene is Vanessa drinking her brandy in the camera shot that picks up the kiss between Ethan and Brona.

Vanessa’s image is in the middle, a reference by Logan to the fact that she was called to break this relationship if Brona had not died.

One of the things I’ve loved most in my life about Penny Dreadful is how current it is, being based on the principles of the Victorian era that it represents.

It is as if Logan has worked them to reflect current situations. The dramatic psychology of the characters is so recurrently new, unconscious and current.

Logan answers himself, love is, and exists. But not where it should.

The wrong couples fly by every place, and there are more and more. The worrying number of them intensifies when we become aware of it as here.

Thank you Ethan Chandler. 

And many more to you, Logan, again another exciting point of reflection for the convulsive current times and the hypocrisy of many of those who we think are perfect couples, when they are just a big mistake, and they know it. 

And lucky are those who really love each other, who are soulmates. 

But Ethan & Brona weren´t one of those last. 

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❝ don't we all want to paint ourselves into something better than we are? ❞

— dorian gray:; penny dreadful

you’re writing on the mirror,

love notes on your knuckles

darling, have you got soul?

i do not, i said i do not

have it my body.

come to the land of illusion,

i want to be pressed

down, on your cold clay skin.

there are worms in my head,

my spirit sleeps with skeletons

in a secret graveyard,

underground, i do not feel

the soil, nor the rain, or frost.

i am the most harmful wound

in your ribcage.

oh but in your dreams, i see

my body, dressed in devil’s robe,

you lie naked for my eyes.

you dance with me

to the music of eerie whispers.

you tear me apart,

i am your rag doll.

you swallow those pills

and die over and over.

go ahead and warp yourself

in shroud, if you wish.

if you wish them

empty walls and white tables,

poisonous food, dead flowers

on our graves and rotten flesh.

let them bury your epitome

beside me, underground,

where tiny pieces

of my soul still remain.

— kayo.

[winter-of-85]

[winter-of-85]

You (No. 30), 1995, Robert Vano

[winter-of-85]

Finally, official confirmation that the director's cut of Interview with the Vampire still exists! The original film negatives were thought to have been lost or destroyed; thankfully, that doesn't seem to be the case. Now who's door do I need to knock down in order to make this materialise in time for the 30th Anniversary next year? Neil Jordan. David Geffen. I'm looking at you. 👀 Artwork by Vlad Rodriguez. 4K mock-up by yours truly. 

#interview with the vampire #the vampire chronicles #anne rice #neil jordan #david geffen #iwtv #the vampire lestat #lestat #lestat de lioncourt #4k ultra hd #Vlad Rodriguez #directors cut #vampire #vampires #gothic horror #horror #lgbtq #lgbtqplus #lgbtq positivity #lgbt fiction #tom cruise #brad pitt #kirsten dunst #antonio banderas #christian slater #warner bros

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Miguel Ángel Silvestre, Esquire Spain (2023)

📝 Gonzalo Cordero Lorite

📷 Jesús Isnard

👔 Jesús Cicero

🎶 Madonna - Erotica (WØ 12" Mix)

#miguel angel silvestre #esquire #esquire spain #fashion #madonna #jesus isnard #sense8 #lgbtq

[winter-of-85]

Guy turns on his hose to help out a thirsty bobcat hanging out in his backyard during a heatwave 

(Source)

[winter-of-85]

Miguel Ángel Silvestre, Esquire Spain (2023)

📝 Gonzalo Cordero Lorite

📷 Jesús Isnard

👔 Jesús Cicero

#miguel angel silvestre #esquire #jesus isnard #magazine #fashion #sense8 #lgbtq

[winter-of-85]

Beach Rats (2017) // dir. Eliza Hittman

[winter-of-85]

John Logan didn't give us enough of this! Ethan and Dorian needed a few more sessions together. At least some more sweet gentle gay kisses. Penny Dreadful, a masterpiece that was underappreciated then and now. Josh Hartnett will forever be gorgeous.

#penny dreadful #josh hartnett #reeve carney #eva green #john logan #lgbtq #lgbtqplus #lgbtqiia+ #lgbtqia #lgbt fiction #lgbt representation #lgbtq positivity #lgbt rights #gothic horror #horror #television series #vampire

[winter-of-85]

Baroque fantasy

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Keanu Reeves & Carl Marotte, WolfBoy (1984)

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