#Louis review

[louisupdates]

[Translated from Spanish]

Louis Tomlinson electrifies CDMX

Fernando Del Angel | June 2, 2024

Saturday night at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez was a celebration of music and community. With the punctuality that characterizes great events, at 9:00 PM, Louis Tomlinson took the stage, and the voices of the fans rose in a perfect chorus, chanting each lyric of his favorite songs.

The set design left no one out; Large screens allowed even those in the most distant part of the venue to see the artist's every gesture and smile, feeling as close as those in the front row. The pyrotechnics exploded in the night sky, adding a dramatic touch to the evening, while the fans, in a moment of collective spontaneity, cheered: “Louis hermano, ya eres mexicano!” [Louis brother, you are now Mexican!], thus sealing the brotherhood between the singer and his audience in Mexico.

Entire families gathered to enjoy the show, with parents accompanying their sons and daughters, sharing the joy of live music. The light from the cell phones shone like fireflies in a night field, each one adding to the atmosphere of unity and celebration.

Louis Tomlinson, with his charisma and talent, achieved more than a concert: he created an experience of connection and joy. Attendees not only witnessed the artist's talent, but also actively participated in the creation of a collective memory, a moment of pure musical happiness that will resonate in his memories for a long time.

More photos

[burningvelvet]

black sails created an 18th century legendary pirate captain who is canonically queer, ginger, depressed, repressed, polyamorous, murderous, morally gray, downright insane, thoughtful, contradictive, manipulative, funny, strong, idealistic, proto-feminist, utopian, kind, proto-anarchist, anti-colonization, controlling, obsessive, stoic, strategic, intelligent, quiet, delusional, traumatized, filled with uncontrollable rage, consumed by grief and shame, a literary nerd obsessed with greek mythology and classics, a proto-romantic in the philosophical sense - whose whole story is the prequel story of a character from a classic novel who was dead from the very beginning of said novel - and they expected us to be normal about all this and to get over all this and move on from all this?????????

[heliza24]

I want to talk a little bit about Daniel in the Interview with the Vampire show, because the new trailer material has me stuck thinking about him, and also I’ve never written about how meaningful he is as disabled character to me before.

I don’t see many people thinking about show!Daniel in these terms, but he’s a canon disabled character. And I think the way he is written is just SO good. The acerbic wit, his relationship to doctors and his medication, his rueful acceptance of the way his disability has changed him. It is all so correct!! It’s really incredibly rare to have not only a disabled character written this well but specifically a chronically ill character written this well. His illness is always present; it doesn’t get forgotten about by the story. It gives Daniel insight into the vampires (more on this in a min), but it also gives Louis and Armand leverage over him. When Louis triggers his Parkinson’s symptoms? Deeply not ok. But that’s what made it such a great scene, and really made Louis feel dangerous and threateningin that moment. Armand and Louis arranging Daniel’s meds is a sign of great care and also great power over Daniel. It’s the perfect way to communicate the complicated power dynamic in their relationship.

I also just fucking love that this show takes place in 2022 and doesn’t erase the pandemic. Covid is a very present concern for Daniel and I cannot describe how validating that is for me as someone who is clinically vulnerable to Covid and who has had to really limit my life and take a lot of precautions because everyone else has decided to stop caring whether they pass on Covid or not. The fact that Daniel gets on a plane to Dubai is a BIG DEAL. He’s risking his life to talk to Louis and Armand before he’s even in the room with them. He really wants to be there. I have to make a similar calculation every time I travel, and trust me, getting on that plane knowing getting sick could spiral you into even worse health or kill you is really hard.

I think making Daniel disabled and including the pandemic is kind of a genius level decision on a thematic level. Of course Daniel is now facing down his mortality, which gives him a whole new lens on the vampires and the fact that he once asked them to turn him. And the pandemic further highlights his fragility, and is also possibly being used as a cover for drama that’s happening in the vampire world. But I think it also really sets Daniel up as a foil to Louis.

There’s a lot of analysis of the vampire chronicles that reads vampirism as a metaphor for queerness. But I would actually propose that it’s a much neater parallel for disability and illness in a lot of ways. So many of Louis’s initial experiences after being turned resonated with me, as someone who became chronically ill in my 20s. My appetite and relationship to food completely changed, much like Louis. My relationship with the outdoors and the sun changed, because of dysautonomia and allergy reasons. I was very mad, and very depressed, and I too have missed out on birthday parties and big life events like Louis did because I was too sick to go. Hell, you can even say that the way that Louis is treated as evil by his family, that the way vampires literally can’t be a part of society during the day, is reminiscent of ableist exclusion and ugly laws. (Ugly laws were laws that forbid disabled people, especially those with visible differences, from being out in public, and they were on the books in many American municipalities until the 1970s.) You can look at Lestat being an out and proud vampire in the first few episodes on the season and imploring Louis to leave his shame behind as a queer thing, but you can also view it as a disabled thing. Disabled people are portrayed as monstrous so often (and in a way that has gone relatively unexamined compared to say, the queer coded villain trope) that sometimes it’s just easier to embrace that label: I’m the monstrous Crip, but at least I’m not ashamed of or disgusted by who I am anymore.

I do think the real strength of this adaptation is that while you can find parallels between queerness or disability or other forms of marginalization with vampirism, ultimately it’s not a one-to-one parallel. It speaks to the real world but ultimately it is a gothic horror story about supernatural monsters. So I don’t mean to say that vampirism directly equals disability, because it does not. But I do think that making Daniel disabled was an intentional choice to help draw out some of those parallels, and I think the text is richer for it.

So Louis and Daniel have had these kind of parallel experiences of uncontrollable and difficult things happening to their bodies. It sets them up perfectly as foils, and even, I would argue, as the A plot and B Plot protagonists. This is one of my favorite ways of kind of examining the structure of a TV show (or maybe it’s that most of my favorite shows seem to be structured this way?). When TV was all episodic, it would be common to refer to the A plot (mystery of the week), B plot (interpersonal drama happening as the mystery gets solved) and C plot (any overarching plot tying the season together) in an episode. Now that stuff is serialized, there’s often a main protagonist, who has the main dramatic question and the most agency, and then there is often a secondary B plot that explores similar themes and mirrors the A plot, or presents a second main character who is the ldifferent side of the same coin” to the main protagonist. (My favorite example of this is Flint and Max in Black Sails, and I’ve also made the argument that Wilhelm and Sara fit this pattern in Young Royals.) In IwtV, Louis is obviously the main protagonist of the show, especially in the A Plot, which is the stuff taking place in New Orleans/Paris. But I would argue that Daniel is the protagonist of the B Plot set in Dubai. At the very least they’re intentionally set up as mirrors of each other:

They are both unreliable narrators, who are struggling with the way memory contorts (through memory erasure, illness, deliberate obfuscations, and just the passage of time). The most recent teaser trailer, where we hear Louis saying “I don’t remember that”, with panic in his voice, further underlined this similarity between Louis and Daniel to me. I don’t know if it means that Louis has also had his memory tampered with, as I’m assuming Daniel has, but I do think it means that Louis is going to be struggling with feeling out of control of his own narrative more in season 2, a thing that was already starting for Daniel in season 1.

They are also both locked into power struggles with people more powerful than they are. The fact that Louis is under Lestat in the flashbacks and above Daniel in the Dubai scenes in terms of power/status makes it all the more interesting. And, if we want to go ahead and assume that the Devils Minion’s years have happened in the past by the time we get to Dubai— it’s possible that both Daniel and Louis are united in being the less powerful partner in their own respective fucked up gothic romances.

They’re also both the audience’s entry point into their respective stories. Louis’s narration guides us into the world of vampires. Daniel’s questioning satisfies our human curiosity in Dubai.

I think one of the things that makes the show so special is the way that these two protagonists interact. In a lot of shows the a plot and the b plot stay pretty separate. I love talking about Black Sails for this because I think it’s such a good example; Flint and Max never exchange dialogue the entire show, even though they’re so clearly affecting each other the whole time. But the way that Louis and Daniel clash in Dubai is so exciting. We see them both wrestling for control of the narrative. It’s thrilling to watch and it just hammers home the theme of how complicated and changeable stories can be.

I am SO excited to see how the Dubai scenes play out in season 2 because of it. I really can’t wait. I’m really hoping we’ll see Daniel and Louis’s relationship evolve in surprising ways, and I’m holding my breath that we’ll get a lot of Armandaniel material to work with. (I have a whole other post drafted that’s much less smart than this one and is just me waxing poetic about Devil Minion’s theories which I may post at some point. You have been warned.)

I do have two wishes for Daniel in the new season, and they’re 1: that he gets to have romance/sex, because disabled (and older!) characters are so often seen as unworthy of being desired, and I would like to see that challenged and 2: that he continues to refuse to be turned/is not offered a vampiric cure for Parkinson’s. The magic cure for a disability or chronic illness is probably my least favorite disability trope, because it serves to erase disabled characters and representation from the narrative, and I want to see my experiences continue to be reflected in Daniel’s. That means that whatever ending Daniel’s story has will probably have at least a bit of tragedy baked into it, but I’m ok with that.

[perseidlion]

The Interview With the Vampire TV show is a perfect example of how adaptations do not have to follow the source material closely to be an excellent adaptation.

(This is a spoiler-free commentary, but it does discuss the dynamics of the characters in general.)

I read the books back in the day, and of course, saw the original movie. Despite a laundry list of big changes, the series still feels extremely true to the books because it captures the spirit. It gets the characters and their fucked-up dynamics right. It doesn't shy away from them being melodramatic monsters. It keeps to the rules established in the source material. The show also makes sure to preserve key moments and key scenes, but always with a twist.

Since they did that, they were free to shift things in time, amp up and adapt certain dynamics, and change the race of characters in a way that deepens the story and complicates already extremely complicated power dynamics.

The original movie stuck more closely to the era and the appearance of the characters as described by Anne Rice, but I don't think the story loses anything by changing those two elements. In fact, it gives it modern relevance and room for political and social commentary.

I have never ascribed to the idea that an adaptation has to be slavishly accurate to the source material to be a good adaptation. It just has to be smart enough to identify what to keep and what can change. An adaptation adapts. Honestly, I find it boring when I see exactly what was in a book up on screen with no surprises. Where's the fun in that?

The difference between a good adaptation and a bad one is not how accurate it is to the source material, but how well the adaptation respects what made the story compelling to begin with.

What's important here?

Lestat is dramatic and powerful and a monster who is deeply charismatic, but also manipulative.

Louis is overdramatic and self-hating, but oddly drawn to Lestat.

Claudia is fierce, but bitter about her eternal childhood.

Their relationship is deeply toxic but with true affection. They are monsters, but monsters capable of intense love and devotion - to the point where it has the power to destroy them.

THAT is at the core of this story. THAT is what they keep intact. This frees up all sorts of avenues for play around a few key plot beats.

This room for play also gives opportunities to expand on thinner characters or rewrite them entirely. It's been a long time since I read the books, but I don't recall Daniel standing out as more than a framing device, especially in earlier books. But in the show, he's one of the best parts. Not only does he take a much more active role in the story, he delivers some of the most hilarious and cutting lines of the entire series. If the show had stuck closely to the source material, we wouldn't have this Daniel.

It was also smart of them to make Claudia a few years older. The eternal child element is preserved, but the layer of arrested teenaged hormones and womanhood that will never blossom adds an extra layer of angst and sadness. She is stuck forever in a state of rebellion, never allowed to settle and come into her own.

Having her be a young Black woman also deepens her attachment to Louis, visually, socially and symbolically. They are different from Lestat and they understand each other in a way he never can. She's still very much the Claudia from the book but with layers added to deepen her character and add new, fresh dynamics and complications.

It's also delightful to see the show take the homoeroticism that was subtextual in the early books with Louis and Lestat (and in the original film) and making it unapologetically text. Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles have always been incredibly queer and subversive, but it's amazing to see that side of it fully embraced and stated plainly with no ambiguity or qualifiers or hints. It's queer and that queerness is woven into the fabric of the entire narrative. Louis and Lestat are the toxic beating heart of the Vampire Chronicles.

It's also important because we need messy, dark, fucked-up queer narratives. Sweet, coming-of-age stories and romances are of course, important - especially for younger queer people. But us older queer folk not only want to see ourselves in multiple genres, we want permission to see imperfect, messy, and yes, even evil characters. It's a way of reclaiming the monstrous queer that was villainized for so long and making it our own. We want to find something beautiful in the dark.

If we all thought about it, we could probably think of dozens of examples where a show or movie went far off-script from the source material and was still an excellent adaptation.

Interview With the Vampire is just the most recent and one of the best examples of a stellar adaptation that respects the source material but also builds and expands on it.

I look forward to seeing how they surprise me next season.

[soupy-sez]

Interview With The Vampire, S01E01

[sallysetoncore]

amc iwtv is crazyyy bc the whole premise is that there are two chekhovs guns pointed at you the entire time. one has kind of tried to shoot you before and makes jokes about it. the other one has actually never fired a shot and makes a point about this. which gun is going to shoot you? (its the second gun)

[sunkissedlouis]

louis' vodka shots with the birthday girl / fan & short review of the vodka | faith in the future world tour in riga, latvia (after show) 09.07.23

[theusernameiwantisntavailable]

It is so pivitol to me that you guys know that in my nothing goes wrong ever and everyone lives all is well grieves trio au, that Bernard becomes a chef for one singular reason. He moves away to go to a chef school (I'm gonna seperate them temporarily in every au it is vital) and when he comes back opens an Italian restaurant as physically close to the Aquista headquarters as possible. Darla does absolutely everything in her power to shut it down but it doesn't matter what she does it fails miserably each time

[pricelessreviews]

[notfeelingthyaster]

you can actually see the thoughts going through his head: "zis focking shit zis BULLSHIT book full of LIES what ze fuck, fuck louis, fuck our love, fuck arman, fuck claudia, fuck the fucking zord, fuck me, i shall zet a BIG FIRE and put zis abomination down your throat monsieur zeniel, fuck you"

[louisupdates]

[Translated from Portuguese]

Louis Tomlinson shows that he is much more than an ex-boyband

Text: Ygor Monroe May 12, 2024

British singer Louis Tomlinson, former member of the iconic band One Direction, landed in Brazil with his long-awaited "Faith In The Future World Tour", providing fans with a more mature experience on the stage of Allianz Parque, last night (11). In front of a fervent audience, the singer was acclaimed at every moment of the show, witnessing the support of his admirers.

In a moment of emotional introspection, Louis expressed his gratitude, emphasizing the lack of support in his solo journey "I don't have a radio. None of that. I don't have radio support. Look at this place! It's unbelievable. I made these albums specifically thinking about the live moments. But I've never anticipated places of this size. Listen to the FITF songs and feel your support in this huge place, I have no words. I'm trying to find them. Thank you, thank you, thank you," said the singer.

[Louis Tomlinson during a show at Allianz Parque in São Paulo | Photo: Move Concerts/Disclosure]

The "Faith In The Future World Tour" tour is one of the singer's most ambitious projects, and is part of the work explored on the album of the same name released in November 2022. Throughout the show, both the singer and his band demonstrated extreme mastery and resourcefulness, in addition to a very mature instrumental technique in relation to his last world tour.

The comparison between his previous visit to Brazil in 2022, and the recent show revealed a significant change in the composition of the audience, now more mature and aligned with the thematic depth of the singer's songs. Far from being just a teenage nostalgia, Louis now positions himself as an artist who challenges the limits of conventional pop, embracing an alternative aesthetic that manifested itself even in covers of renowned bands, such as Arctic Monkeys.

The grandeur of the show was amplified by the imposing stage structure, full of big screens and special effects, while the interactivity with the fans reached an emotional peak on the catwalk that extended as a second stage. The singer, with his usual shyness and charisma, did not hesitate to come down to hug some fans, sharing intimate moments and revealing the special connection he has with Brazil.

The show also featured the charismatic Europeans of the band Giant Rooks, from Hamm, Germany, founded in 2014. In 2019, they won the 1Live Krone Award and the Preis für Popkultur. Their debut album, "Rookery", was released on August 28, 2020. The band even did a show that left everyone impressed, and without a doubt it is one of the bands for the festivals of our circuit to keep an eye on.

In the final balance, our dear "ex-One Direction" no longer lives in the shadow of his past. Even respecting and reflecting a lot about him in his future, the singer has resourcefulness, maturity and mastery of everything he does on stage. With a more shy but charismatic tone, the "Faith In The Future World Tour" was a key change for the new era of the singer, which becomes more promising with each passing day.

Louis Tomlinson, FITFWT24: São Paulo [11.5.2024]

[tbslhabit]

Thank you Dork for an excellent review.

[dailytomlinson]

After this incredible concert, change of style, we had the chance to discover Louis Tomlinson (Ex One Direction) on stage. We must admit that we didn't know him too well... We were a little doubtful about seeing an ex-member of One Direction... and yet, Louis Tomlinson is definitely one of our beautiful discoveries of the day. The artist knew how to put an absolutely crazy atmosphere and made us discover his very rock repertoire with a little pop touch that manages to make the majority of the songs totally addictive. By the way, here it is now in our tracks liked on Spotify.... We advise you to go and discover this artist who, like Harry Styles, has managed to get out of this image of a boy band singer for teenage girls.

[rickchung]

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (Vampire humaniste cherche suicidaire consentant, dir. Ariane Louis-Seize) x VIFF 2023.

This is a surprisingly fresh take on teen vampires in the form of a low-key Quebecois coming-of-age indie comedy about trying to consume human blood and find victims ethically. Sara Montpetit and Félix-Antoine Bénard star as a 68-year-old undead woman in the body of a teenage girl and a depressed high schooler with suicidal tendencies. They form a sweet but strange bond as they try to earnestly help each other achieve their unconventional goals in life. Its exploration of the more mundane but annoying parts of vampiric life makes for an altogether humorous endeavour.

Screened at the 2023 Vancouver International Film Festival as part of the Altered States series and screening again at the VIFF Centre from Oct. 21–30.

[nalyra-dreaming]

“With Louis' memory not as reliable as the vampire had believed it to be, and Armand now present in their conversations, Daniel is forced to balance on an even more dangerous tightrope in speaking with two powerful creatures whose temperaments could turn in an instant. What makes his predicament even more convoluted is that Daniel seems to be remembering bits and pieces from his previous interview with Louis, and as the details that were previously blurred for many years finally make their way to the surface, the revelations that arise could have destructive consequences for current relationships.“

“Louis, but also through the couple's shared willingness to bury the pain of mutually inflicted wounds. When 2022's interview resumes, it's unclear whether Armand is sticking around to offer a different perspective on the story or correct Louis' version of events, but what becomes increasingly obvious is that there are some details the two are not in unison on, and the subsequent rising tension between the longtime paramours makes for some of the best moments of the season.“

“Yet, even if Louis initially presents himself as a more hostile witness at first, one has the sense that he still wants to unlock the inner recesses of his own mind — whether Armand tacitly gives his permission or not. Louis and Daniel's dynamic has been steadily moving away from that of interviewer and subject in favor of something that feels much closer to confidant and confessor, which wouldn't be possible without the actors' continually deepening rapport on-screen.“

“Even though Armand and Louis are a power couple tethered by past tragedies, and Louis continues to be tortured by Lestat's ghost, Season 2 allows for the exploration of more than one attachment within the group — and, surprising absolutely no one, these vampires are exceptionally messy when it comes to relationship drama, especially when they've had centuries to brood about their feelings. Meanwhile, Daniel somehow fits into the story's biggest triangle more unexpectedly, turning it into more of a square through connections that transcend a merely visceral hunger for blood.“

(Some parts of the) Review by Collider

[zot3-flopped]

Zayn Malik became the first former One Direction member to venture back on stage following the death of Liam Payne in October. No direct mention was made of his late bandmate during his set, but Zayn departed the stage to a projection displaying Liam’s name, the dates 1993-2024, and the simple message “Love you Bro” with a heart emoji.

An audience of twenty-something women lingered on, hugging each other and singing along to the recorded version of Zayn’s song Stardust, investing a lot of emotion into a suddenly rather elegiac lyric: “Feels like stardust / Floatin’ all around us / Shootin’ right across a / Big black sky.”

It was genuinely touching, and slightly at odds with the controlled hysteria of the rest of the occasion.

I am not saying I was the only man amongst 2,300 attendees at Leeds O2 Academy, but I honestly couldn’t see another around me, nor make out a male voice amidst the deafening roar that greeted Zayn’s arrival onstage.

This was a partisan audience who have loved the 31-year-old singer and songwriter since he was the moody, doe-eyed one in the 21st century’s biggest boy band.

They came to scream, and did so in all the appropriate places, listening reverently to Zayn’s fluid falsetto and sensual balladry, then signalling the end of every song by emitting a collective sound many decibels louder than the accomplished, all-female band itself.

Zayn seemed delighted and abashed. “F--k yeah!” were the first words that came out of his mouth. “What do I say? Amazing!”

Bradford born and raised, his Yorkshire accent was thick with pleasure as he declared love for his home county. “It’s good to be back up north, can’t lie. Got a doner kebab yesterday. Miss that s--t!”

His presence in the flesh was far removed from the moody international playboy image projected in photographs, or the sophisticated lover of his solo recordings.

He was dressed in baggy hip hop casual wear and a Tupac T-shirt, with a red baseball cap pulled tight on his head, and he looked somewhere between thrilled and terrified.

He spent the entire set either clutching his mic with near desperation or shuffling awkwardly around the mic stand, arms hanging limply by his sides, nodding with his eyes closed.

Zayn postponed the opening night of his first solo tour last week to attend Payne’s funeral, so this was understandably a nerve-wracking occasion. It has been nine years since Zayn became the first member to quit One Direction, and he has made his personal discomfort and artistic dissatisfaction with the boyband format known.

Such was his anxiety and disillusion with performing that it has taken him this long to venture out on the road. He seemed to understand he has ground to make up. After a strong start (2016 album Mind of Mine was a global number one) his recorded career has drifted into the doldrums.

Leeds O2 Academy is a respectable venue, but it’s a long way down from the stadiums he used to play with 1D.It was a qualified success. Zayn can sing like an R’n’B angel, riffing through the octaves and fluttering on a fluid falsetto.

He was always the best vocalist in the band, and he’s even better performing his own material, thoughtful and emotional songs that blend R’n’B tropes with timely flavours of acoustic country and rock.

Zayn has the makings of a superstar but it’s hard to understand how anyone can be famous for that long and be so entirely lacking in stagecraft.

He could do with an injection of his former bandmate Harry Styles’s swagger and charisma instead of looking like he’s still nervously auditioning for Simon Cowell on The X Factor. Maybe it will come as the tour rolls on. The best you can say about Zayn is that he’s moving in the right direction.