TIFF 50: Benoit Blanc looks for grace in "Wake Up Dead Man"

by Cláudio Alves

If Wake Up Dead Man is the weakest Knives Out mystery yet, the blame lies at the feet of its outsized thematic ambition. In that regard, the new flick outdoes its predecessors and then some, touching on the same satirical points and terminally online observations of our socio-political present while stretching hands up, toward the heavens, in search of an ineffable grace. Rian Johnson thus tackles religion and belief and absolution with a Gothic twist and perverse glee, a complex proposal further complicated by the way he keeps playing with the whodunnit model in his usual deconstructionist manner. The director boldly adds Poe and Carr to the pantheon of authors he'll crib from in a metatextual game that reaches out an invitation to its audience. Share the pleasure of my mischief, it whispers in your ear…

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Triple Crown of Acting: Who's Next?

by Eric Blume

Kieran Culkin will have to wait a bit longer before he can add a Tony to his SUCCESSION Emmy and A REAL PAIN Oscar. | © Searchlight Pictures

Back in 2016, I wrote an article here when one of my favorite actresses, Jessica Lange, won a Tony for Long Day’s Journey into Night, thereby joining the club of elite actors who had achieved the Triple Crown of Acting (competitive Oscar, Emmy, and Tony). Only 24 actors have ever achieved this, and since Lange eight years ago, only two people have joined that list (Viola Davis in 2017 with her Emmy; Glenda Jackson in 2018 with her Tony).

I thought it would be fun to take a look at who is a realistic possibility to join that club.  I’m reminded of it because, until just a few days ago, there was a chance that person was going to be Kieran Culkin!  Culkin had been largely predicted to be nominated for a Tony Award (and possibly win!) for his performance in the revival of Glengarry Glen Ross.  Alas, Culkin was shut out of the nominations on May 1.  Had he won, he would be the first person to win all three awards in such tight timing (he just won his Emmy for Succession and Oscar for A Real Pain within the last three  years).   It took Jessica 33 years and Glenda 47 years!

So since it's not going to be Kieran Culkin, let’s take a look at who might be next.  I’m working on probability here, not possibility:  meaning that I’m not counting likelihood for actors who rarely or never work in that given medium.  Here are some thoughts…

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Fatal Attraction Pt 2: She's not going to be IGNORED, Dan!

by Nathaniel R

In Act 1 of Fatal Attraction (for a three-part retrospective), we met the happily married Gallaghers and their longsuffering dog Quincy, who was neglected for almost a whole weekend. The cause was Husband Dan's (Michael Douglas) sexually explosive weekend with a new co-worker Alex (Glenn Close). Dan ignored a handful of fire-engine red flags.

When we left our players, Alex was suicidal and Dan was headed back to his normal life. He will now attempt to pretend that nothing at all has happened. You can guess how how that attempt plays out!

"What are you doing here? It's 8:00 AM."

40:08 As we return to the film in progress, Dan tells his executive assistant Martha that he's 'in the shitter' and way behind at work. That's what happens when you fuck Glenn Close all weekend...

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Fatal Attraction Pt 1: Everything AND the Kitchen Sink

Three-Part Mini-Series
Every once in a blue moon we'll take a movie and baton pass it around the team and really dive in. This time Nathaniel's going solo. But if you like this approach to investigate a movie we've gone long and deep before on the following films: Rebecca (1940), West Side Story (1961), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Cabaret (1972), Silence of the Lambs (1991), Thelma & Louise (1991), Aladdin (1992), and  A League of Their Own (1992) -Editor

by Nathaniel R

Did you know/remember that Fatal Attraction was released in Paramount's 75th year? I did not but it's a detail that feels somehow right. Founded in 1912, the second oldest of Hollywood's few surviving major studios (Universal predates it) celebrated its diamond anniversary in zeitgeist style with one of its all time most profitable and leggiest hits. The Adrian Lyne thriller, which we'll discuss in three installments, was the second highest grossing film of 1987 and left the kind of cultural footprint that most movies can only dream of; it kept people talking for months on end, it ignited Hollywood's late eighties /early nineties erotic thriller craze, it made Glenn Close into a superstar by casting her against type (this detail is mostly forgotten but we'll get there), indirectly helped Michael Douglas win his Wall Street Best Actor Oscar, and took a B genre film all the way to the Oscars with six nominations.

While box office success and Oscar success (objective, mostly) has never automatically correlated with quality (subjective, mostly), you did once-upon-a-time have a much greater chance of the former by doubling down on latter. Which is just what Fatal Attraction did. All these years later, it really holds up as an example of Hollywood making grade A art with a B genre. So let's see why in scene-by-scene form...

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Happy Birthday Glenn Close!

Photo via Glenn Close's Instagram (she's great at social media!)

The great and still Oscar-less Glenn Close is 78 today. If seven is a good luck number than we wish her two more years of good luck towards landing Oscar nomination #9. I bring Glenn up because I promised a longtime reader a retrospective on Fatal Attraction (1987) so long ago that he probably knows how she feels still waiting for that naked gold man for what has been an inexcusably long time. Given that it's Glenn's birthday and given the long-ass wait, I felt compelled to commit publicly to discussing this movie this upcoming weekend scene-by-scene style  like we haven't done since just before the pandemic (only I'll do this one solo). It's such a great thriller and it really holds up. 

Anyway, before we dive into Glenn's most zeitgeisty moment, let's have a chat about her Oscar history...

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