Brooks’s misguided mess about race and class in Los Angeles. While we’re on the topic of insane performances: the aughts perhaps saw no wilder, more teeth-clenchingly committed-nor more doomed-piece of acting than the great Téa Leoni’s go-for-broke turn in James L. Deeply silly and gay as hell, Interview with the Vampire will soothe your post-Pride blues.
He and Brad Pitt’s character, rueful bloodsucker Louis, have a romance that’s never quite called a romance, while Kirsten Dunst plays a child vampire in a terrific star-making turn that should have gotten her an Oscar nomination that year.
And speaking of humid thickness, you gotta see Tom Cruise’s borderline insane performance as Anne Rice’s most famous vampire, the foppish, moody murderous Lestat.
Finally, summer! And what better way to get in the mood than watching this lugubrious, high-camp 1994 gothic horror-drama, directed by Neil Jordan? The film spends most of its first half in the sweaty heat of New Orleans, so you can really immerse yourself in all the humid thickness of the season.
