Review: A New Take on "Fatal Attraction" (Paramount+)

By Christopher James

You can’t capture lightning in a bottle twice. Paramount+’s new trip through its catalog is the TV series adaptation of Fatal Attraction, the 1987 blockbuster. In trying to modernize this erotic thriller, this new show impressively falls short in all regards. All of its new additions involve introducing grating new characters or dulling the iconic affair duo with the clunkiest of backstories. Rather than be a new story entirely, Fatal Attraction tries to shoe-in callbacks to the original with all the tact and subtlety of a woman boiling a bunny… oops. Making matters worse, the talented cast is left completely adrift - caught in the uncanny valley of putting their own stamp on iconic characters but unable to shake off imitating Michael Douglas and Glenn Close. In both cases, they are very pale imitations.

In short, Fatal Attraction is an epic misfire across all fields...

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Reader's Choice: Cruel Intentions (1999)

Wednesday nights are now devoted to you. We'll alternate between a Q&A and a Reader's Choice Movie. So you are essentially picking the topics each week. We started with Gattaca but y'all kept asking for Cruel Intentions so here we are again.

Believe it or not, I've never seen Cruel Intentions (1999) so I gladly accept the multiple requests to discuss. This is written and directed by someone named Roger Kumble and the name did not ring a bell. It turns out he's still working, mostly on television and he's working on a TV sequel to this very movie. I missed this news somehow but Sarah Michelle Gellar is reprising her role so this post is more timely than I meant it to be.

The credits also inform us that it's only "suggested by" Dangerous Liaisons.  That's a fancy word for adapted if you want to compete in Original Screenplay at the Oscars. (Not that this teen picture had any such designs.) I'm not sure if you know this but Dangerous Liaisons (1988) is one of my all time favorite movies. And Swoosie Kurtz is in this one, too! We begin with her as Sebastian Valmont's (Ryan Phillipe) therapist. Her broad gestures and funny notes remind us that this is a comedy. Of sorts. 

Swoosie, an unlikely victim in both Dangerous Liaisons movie

In both movies Swoosie is the mother of someone who couldn't have possibly come from her womb: Uma Thurman in the 1988 movie and Tara Reid in this movie -- so, downgrade. Tara must have been left on the editing room floor because this photo is all we see of her

His therapist is immune to young Sebastian's charms but she learns as he's leaving that her daughter wasn't. She screams at her nasty patient as he leaves the building and he flashes her this baby devil grin. [More...]

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