Phone Message Transcript: July 23, 1997
[appearing on Anne's fan phone line]

"Hi, Everybody. This is Anne Rice. It's July 22, 1997 and I have just seen a wonderful movie that is going to be a classic. I mean, this movie will live forever. I have got to tell you about it. I have got to encourage you to buy it. Of course, it embodies my philosophy of life, totally, but it is really, absolutely incredible. It is MICHAEL with John Travolta and Andie McDowell. It was just absolutely fabulous. It was written by Nora, it is a production of Nora Ephron. It was produced also by Shawn Daniel and Jim Jackson. Hello to you guys, because I remember you and you are good guys, and Nora Ephron, I have never meet you, but you are one fabulous director.

Now, this movie MICHAEL stars John Travolta. It has Andie McDowell, it has William Hurt, it has Bob Hoskins, and Gene Stapleton, and just other fabulous people. It is perfectly cast and it is perfectly timed. It's very tight and it is very bold. I think that it is a fabulous movie. It's everything that I believe in. It is a celebration of the sanctity of the flesh and the senses. I can't believe this movie was not a blockbuster. Go buy it. Buy it on tape. I really, you know, it is just wonderful. It is going to be one of those classics like Jimmy Stewart's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE or Cary Grant and THE BISHOP'S WIFE. Even beyond that, really. It is just so extraordinary. I just want to recommend it with my whole heart. I mean, usually, movies about angels don't work. It is very hard to pull them off, but right now we seem to be in a time when people can pull off the fantastic, you know. I mean, as you know, I think Mel Gibson did incredible things with BRAVEHEART. He brought back a kind of movie we thought didn't exist anymore and to see this movie with Travolta right after PHENOMENON, which was also good, it is just fabulous. Basically, that is the message, the heart and flesh are what really matter. I have very seldom seen such a finely crafted movie. It is terrific. I want to see who wrote the script, directed by Nora Ephron, screenplay by Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron and Peter Dexter and Jim Quinlan. I don't know them, but I am sure that they are all wonderful guys. The music in it is perfection. The music alone is going to make it a classic like THE BLUES BROTHERS. You can just watch it and all of the music is extremely meaningful. It is just marvelous. It is a profound movie. Now the buzz on this movie when it came out wasn't that loud, and frankly it is another example of the critics not being worth the ground they stand on.

I am just going to keep using this line to review or push the movies that I think are really worth your time and this is gorgeous. You know, I think I've mentioned in a few other messages that another absolute masterpiece was WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE. I think Leonardo DiCaprio is the actor I love more than anyone in the world right now. I wish that he would play the Vampire Lestat. I just wish, but I don't own THE VAMPIRE LESTAT, Warner Brothers does, so I don't have any control.

Next to WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE, I'd say MICHAEL is one of the near perfect movies that I have seen. Again, just from start to finish the humor, the blasphemy, the timing, the message of love, the anti-puritanical attitude, fabulous. Travolta just did it to the hilt. Nobody held back. I highly recommend it, and again, it's name is Michael. Now, Bob Hoskins is a great British actor. You've probably seen him in the Roger Rabbit film where he had an American accent, but he really is British. In fact, they are all great. I could on about all of them. Let me just remind you again, that's it, it's MICHAEL, it's out now, it's John Travolta. Get it. Save it. This is a classic. Get a copy or two to put away. Because it is simply not going to be forgotten. It is just too cool, it is too cool. The humor is too right on. The vision is too profound. The charity of the movie, the generosity of it is sublime. I am so happy for John Travolta, that he has made PHENOMENON and this, which were both beautiful movies with meaning. We are really in a time when as Christopher Reeves said a couple of years ago at the Academy Awards, " We can make movies that mean something morally." I think that Mel Gibson is proving that. I think all kinds of people are proving it. It is a great time. I just wish that I had control over the Vampire Chronicles and the Witch Chronicles so I could make them, but I will wait my turn. I'll have to see what happens, but as long as there are movies like this to watch, I am happy.

O.K. I am going to say good-bye. You know that we are having the big Coven party down here on November 1, 1997. The Fan Club handles that and they will answer your questions about it when they get their literature out. VIOLIN, my new novel, is scheduled to come out some time in October and I am busy writing ARMAND.

I just want to thank you for all of your support when I was going through what John of the Cross called " the dark night of the soul." You left me very consoling messages and I urge everybody who was hurt by the blast ripples that surrounded the death of Versace, please help, let's fight and save our innocence and that sunshine on South Beach. Each murder is as horrible as any other, but each murder is different in the way that it affects people and that one indeed had a horrible affect.

What else can I tell you? Oh, yea, Leila Josefowicz is the violinist that I highly recommend. If you want to hear one of the best concert violinist playing today. It's L-E-I-L-A and Josefowicz, here I go off into the void, is J-O-S-E-F-O-W-T-Z, something like that, Josefowicz, you'll find her. Anyway, there is a chance that I can get her down for the Sunday night after the Memnoch Ball and I would like to know how many of you are coming from out of town who would perhaps like some tickets. I have a variety of halls from small to big and I think that I can get Leila to come down and play us some Mozart and some Beethoven and she's really great and we may have to charge simply to see that people show up, so they don't take the tickets and go. If we do, all of the money will go to AIDS, to charity, I have already made the arrangements. I want it to be a free gift to you. I need to get some idea of how many of you are going to stay over on Sunday, November 3 and would want to see Leila in a concert. The concert would be about an hour and a half long and would be about 7:00. If you are interested in that, leave your phone number and your name on this line and the secretaries will copy it down and if you really, really want tickets to Leila's concert let us know and we will find better ways of distributing it as we go on.

I am just so happy tonight. To see a movie like this, the sadness and the darkness of these times sometimes is just almost unbearable. To see, this wonderful union of sensuality and humor and spirituality, it's just extraordinary. Congratulations to everyone involved in this film. I will be watching it tomorrow night probably again and the night after and I think that Travolta is marvelous. I think that Phenomenon is great. Of course, I still wish with all of my heart that Randall Wallace and Mel Gibson would make The Witching Hour so if you want to tell them and you see them on the street be sure to tell them. Say Mel, Anne really wants you to make The Witching Hour, you are the guy to play Michael and Randall Wallace you are the guy to direct it. He is the guy, by the way, who directed, wrote the script of BRAVEHEART, I believe.

O.K. just a little quick update, I gave you all of the quick updates. You leave me a message of one minute, that is all that I can set it for and I can't answer your numbers but I can take your numbers for the Leila concert and we can hire extra people to confirm your tickets for you. If you think that you are going to be in town that night Sunday, November 3, for the concert let me know. A lot of the people coming in for the Coven Ball won't be staying Sunday night, they'll be going out. I bring Leila in all the way from Boulder, Colorado. She's coming in by jet and she is an absolutely fabulous concert violinist. She has two new CDs out, I think one is "Hungarian Rhapsody" and the other is Russian, I forgot the name already. Go to any classical record store ask for cello violin, ask for Leila Josefowicz. She if phenomenal. She has the depth and the tone and the purity of an older violinist. She is just marvelous.

O.K. I am going back in there to watch WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE for the third time. I want to see Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio do that masterpiece for me. I am just waiting restlessly for Leonardo DiCaprio's next movie. I haven't gotten out to see the new movie that you have been telling me about with the great Gary Oldman, but I will. I absolutely worship him.

Leave me a one minute message. I love you with all of my heart."