#98. 'Fatal Attraction' Bonus Episode
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This short bonus episode opens with JVL relitigating Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice after rewatching the theatrical cut with his son G-Money over a boys-only weekend; he's warmed considerably to Ben Affleck's Batman and enjoyed the first two acts, though he and Sonny agree the third act is still a mess (one Sonny argues the Ultimate Edition mostly fixes), and JVL and Sonny spar over whether Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor should have played the character as a self-styled hero rather than a Joker-esque villain, while Vic cheerfully declares he's never seen and never will see these DC movies. The real event is Fatal Attraction (1987), which Sonny, watching in full for the first time, and Vic both agree is the scariest movie ever made, an Adrian Lyne-directed cautionary tale (paired with their earlier viewing of Lyne's Deep Water) about a lawyer (Michael Douglas) whose weekend affair with Glenn Close spirals into stalking, a boiled bunny, and a kidnapped child; all three trace the film's status as a Reagan-era cultural touchstone (the "I will not be ignored" catchphrase, its shout-out in Sleepless in Seattle) and discuss how the original suicide/Madame-Butterfly ending tested poorly and was reshot into the theatrical bathroom-showdown climax. JVL closes out with his contrarian pet theory that Glenn Close is the real great American actress people pretend Meryl Streep is, while arguing the casting undercuts the premise since neither she nor Anne Archer reads as plausible enough to justify Michael Douglas straying — a bit Vic and Sonny needle him over at length.
From the show notes
JVL has a few stray thoughts about Batman v Superman before the guys discuss Fatal Attraction , aka The Scariest Movie Ever Made.
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of the Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a reminder, the Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com, you'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends. On the main episode, we had discussed the erotic thriller Deep Water, directed by Adrian Lyne. Again, a name I haven't heard since Fatal Attraction, but he's done many other movies similar to this. So we decided to do our bonus episode to talk about this amazing movie from 1987. But before we get to that, there is Batman vs. Superman. JVL, you have deep thoughts.
JVL00:00:47What's going on here? So I have undergone a reappraisal of this based on watching it with Flash and G-Money last weekend. The girls were all away. It was just the... Boys. G-Money is a comic book kid. He loves it. So we put on Batman vs. Superman. We did not watch the Ultimate Director's Cut Edition because that is rated R. And I thought that might be a little bit too intense then for G. R for violence? I assume so.
Sonny00:01:16Yeah, it's R mostly for violence. There may be an F-bomb. I can't remember.
JVL00:01:21Well, so G-Money loved it. And it warmed my heart that when Superman and Batman started fighting, he started shouting at the TV, "Batman! Kill him! Kill him, Batman!" No one loves this Superman. Has G-Money seen Man of Steel?
Sonny00:01:39No. Okay.
JVL00:01:41No, so I was catching him up on the opening scene of it. Anyway, I know I didn't like it when we first saw it. And the final act is still a mess. And maybe that is fixed by the Ultimate Director's Collector's Edition. But I really enjoyed everything in the first two acts a lot. I really enjoyed Ben Affleck and came around to Sonny's contention that he's in fact the best Bruce Wayne. I liked just about everything in it.
Sonny00:02:15Yeah, he—
JVL00:02:17Aside from like the last 35 minutes.
Sonny00:02:18Well, the last—I mean, the last 35 minutes—I feel like the last 35 minutes pay off better in the Ultimate Edition because the whole thing is better. Like, what you lose in the theatrical cut versus the Ultimate Edition is essentially all of the connective tissue that makes Lex's plan to turn Superman and Batman against each other makes sense. It is really kind of stunning to look at what they decided to cut from this. What they cut was all—a lot of Lois's subplot gets cut, and basically all the stuff with the like weird Eastern European henchmen gets cut from that. So like things that you lose include like scenes in the prison where like the guy with the bat brand, you know, gets murdered and it doesn't matter. It's a movie that just doesn't work as well narratively. And it undercuts the main idea of the film, which is essentially—look, I say this, and I'm not doing shtick, but the idea of the film is essentially that Lex and Bruce are both right about Superman. They're just kind of coming at it from the wrong—they're coming at it from different POVs and Lex is not 100% right. But the idea of these movies is that if Superman showed up on Earth, it would be terrifying. It would actually be terrifying. And if you were a powerful human being and you were confronted by the idea of an extraterrestrial being that had the power to destroy an entire city just by kind of flying around and shooting lasers out of his eyes, it would be horrifying and awful. I mean, it would just be—it would be—and how you respond to that in either how Bruce responds to it or how Lex responds to it would be—I don't know,
JVL00:04:13would be interesting. So I have a question about Lex because the one—third act aside, the one thing I've—just as a choice that I really don't like about it is that Lex Luthor is played basically as if he's the Joker, which is to say he sees himself as the villain and not the hero. And this is Jesse Eisenberg, right? Jesse, right. And so—and that is—whatever. It's fine. That's a choice. And it's a perfectly valid choice within comic book canon. But I've always thought that the more interesting interpretation of Lex is that he thinks he's the good guy in all of this.
Sonny00:04:52Well, I mean, I think Lex does think he's the good guy in the sense—again, I think that Lex Luthor and Bruce Wayne both have the same idea for—about the Batman, which is that you need to be able—or I'm sorry, about the Superman, which is that you need to be able to kill the Superman. If you are a human being, you need to have a way to kill the Superman. And Lex just wants to do it on general principle, wants to get him out of the way and gone for good. And I think Batman has like—is more like we need to keep this bullet in reserve if we need to use it. But I think that—I mean, again, I think that is essentially—that is a rational response for a human being to have if a character like Superman showed up on Earth, regardless of how good he said he was, if Kal-El revealed himself to planet Earth by leveling New York City, absolutely leveling it, even in an attempt to stop other, you know, evil aliens from doing the same, the only rational response as a powerful human being would be to say, "I need to find a way to kill this guy." Because we don't want this to happen again.
JVL00:06:01Yeah, because otherwise he could steal as much intellectual property as he wanted. He used pirate movies left and right, and there would be no way for society to stop him.
Sonny00:06:10Imagine if he teamed up with Brainiac. Brainiac just absorbing movies out of the servers. And books, right? Books that he did not pay for. It would be awful. It would be awful. Anyway, the interesting thing about Batman v Superman is that both Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor are right about the Superman,
JVL00:06:34which is that you have to have a way to kill him. But again, Lex is played as if he's just flat insane, like the Joker. And I would have been much more interested in a Lex Luthor who was like minding his own business, being a mogul until he saw Superman. And then again, because he sees himself as the good guy, decides, "Boy, okay, gotta kill this dude somehow." Well, I think he
Sonny00:06:57gets pushed over the edge a little bit toward the... I tend to agree with you that he is like, I think I may have even written this for the Washington Post at the time, which is that he is kind of a weird mustache twirling villain. Yeah. Which again, it's a choice and it fits.
JVL00:07:13Lex is usually a mustache twirling vision, but in the more interesting Superman stories, Lex thinks that he's the hero of the piece. Vic, I think you might like it if you went
Vic00:07:24back and rewatched it. Rewatch it? I've never watched it. I don't care for these movies. I don't like these movies. I can't do this anymore. I can't do these DC comic book three hour... I just don't care. I don't care about Batman or Superman. I don't care. Nerd alert. Why not? We should put a nerd alert on this thing. Put a nerd alert on your face. There you go. Very mature, Sonny. Let's talk about Fatal Attraction. Sonny, you said that you had only seen it for the first time? In its entirety, from beginning to end.
Sonny00:07:57In its entirety. Look, I had seen bits and pieces over the years on USA or TNT or whatever.
Vic00:08:05Oh, and if you see it there, it's not even that good.
Sonny00:08:07Yeah. Well, I mean, that's the thing. I said I would stumble onto it. I would watch 15 and I'd turn off. I'd be like, "I want to watch it. I want to watch it in full at some point." I never really did until a couple of weeks ago because it's on HBO Max and I wanted to watch it ahead of Deepwater because it's, again, same director, Adrian Lyne, dealing in similar material, the erotic thriller. So, it's the most terrifying movie I've ever seen. Yes. Yeah, it's scary. It's scary. It's the most terrifying. So, the basic plot of the film is Michael Douglas is a lawyer who one day when his wife is out of town. Ann Archer. Ann Archer. He's married to the absolutely lovely Ann Archer. The lovely and the nice and lovely and also very pretty and stunning Ann Archer. Wholesome. He decides to cheat on her with Glenn Close, which JBL, I know you have thoughts on that disparity. But in the context of the film actually.
Vic00:09:04I would be drawn to her because she's in the publishing industry as you know.
Sonny00:09:07She's a big deal. Isn't she? Isn't she like an editor or something? She was, yeah. She's an editor. She's an editor at a publishing house.
JVL00:09:11She could get me one of those $5 a word gigs on food or vodka. No, I was like, "Oh, you're an editor at whatever publishing? Okay."
Vic00:09:19Yeah, you're at Random House. Oh, my God.
Sonny00:09:21Please. Okay. You had me at Random House. Okay, go ahead, Sonny. They meet at a party and they kind of flirt a little bit. And then the next day, they have a midday conference with each other. Ann Archer is out of town. Glenn Close comes on very hard to him. And he's like, "Hey, all right, fine. Let's go. Let's go bang it out in your loft in your Chinatown." I think that is. Is that the neighborhood that you said?
JVL00:09:46Yeah, the different location. The meatpacking district before it was nice. You got to get up on the freight elevator. Before it was nice. And they have a
Sonny00:09:56nice little weekend together. And then she goes crazy. She tries to kill herself. And she's like, "You'll never leave me." And he's like, "I got to get out of here. I got a family." And she keeps calling their house. And she's showing up. She's following them out into the countryside. Boils the bunny. She kills the bunny. She kidnaps the child. Kidnaps a child and takes her to Coney Island or something. And I was like, "This is the most terrifying thing I've ever seen." Because he's made a bad mistake. You know how they used to show car crash videos when you're in driver's ed? Yeah. Yeah, sure. Or they show VD videos. Show this to couples doing pre-cana. You should have to watch this movie Before you get married. You should have to watch this movie before you get married as a reminder that when you cheat on your wife, bad things will happen. Bad things will happen to you and you will deserve it. I mean, that's the other thing is he totally deserves it. The family doesn't deserve it, but he deserves it. He was bad. He made a mistake and he has to be punished for his sins. To go back to Deep Water, by the way, which was
Vic00:11:21days and days ago when we recorded that episode. Did you think the guys who were murdered deserved they had it coming?
JVL00:11:31Yes. Everybody in that movie had it coming. All of these 47 year old adults who don't seem to have jobs or children responsibilities who are constantly having parties, having parties
Sonny00:11:45like they're middle aged MTV Spring Breakers. Yes, they all deserve to die.
JVL00:11:51The the cheaters deserve to die. The guys who know that they're banging and other dudes
Vic00:11:55wife deserve to die. Just checking. Okay, good, good. Okay. I mean, honestly, if you show up,
Sonny00:12:00if you're the if you're the piano instructor or whatever, and you show up at the you show up at the house and you know, the husband's going to be there and you're doing, you know, and you know, and you know that people have been talking about how he killed somebody that's even crazy easily. That's even I'm sorry. You've you've forfeited your right to live. Yeah, that's right. Or if
Vic00:12:20you wear a moon swatch. Also, if you wear also so. Okay, but back to Fatal Attraction. It's really interesting, because it starts off very, very casually, as Sonny mentions, they meet at this party, and then they have this, it's a very 80s kind of a cafe where you know, where a yuck yuppies can hang out and have a little Chardonnay together. They're having drinks, a yuppies, you like that. And then she mentions about like, you know, being mature adults, and, you know, how we can handle, you know, we can handle this, you know, like, you know, how we go about this as mature adults, and, and as if that this is like, like, it's so easy to do this. And for Michael Douglas, apparently it was, I mean, his character was like, Yeah, okay, let's, let's do this, you know, because, hey, this is what we do. And, and we'll keep it cool. And then, you know, maybe I'll call you from time to time. But you know, like when the wife is away, but it's just a little thing on the side, and in whatever else, and then of course, it devolves into this, this nightmare. And that's where I mean, when things start to break down, it just gets more harrowing. And harrowing until the scene with an art, the scene with an archer looking for her daughter. Right? She doesn't know she's driving to the school, right? And you have kids that age, Sonny,
Sonny00:13:35it's scary. What would you do? Terrifying. Also, that movie that we didn't talk about this at all with Deepwater, the Deepwater, just as a piece of filmmaking looks very cheap. It's a it's a cheap looking movie. It does not it is not. It does not feel like a theatrical motion picture in certain regards. Like, for instance, the like rear projection when they're driving. Yeah. Oh,
JVL00:14:00yeah. Like a weird shuddery effect. Like you're watching a Hitchcock movie. Yeah. Yeah. It was
Sonny00:14:05it was not it was not very it was not well done. It was it was not well done. And I whereas this fatal attraction, it does. I mean, there's this one great shot. There's this one great shot in like in the school where they're looking in the hallway and like the the adults are just like black and in shadows and Ann Archer's freaking out. Yes. I like it just is a it's it's really it's it just looks good. It looks like a real stomach. Also, when he's in
Vic00:14:30the he's in the car and he plays her tape and she's talking to him in the she made a recording for him and stuff. It's just absolutely, absolutely frightening. Terrifying. Terrifying movie. You
Sonny00:14:42should have to. Again, every everyone before they get married should have to watch this movie as a reminder. When you do bad things, bad things happen to you. Yes. Also, also use the kitchen sink.
JVL00:14:54Yes. Fatal Attraction is an interesting movie for a couple of reasons. Uh, it became a real
Sonny00:15:02cultural touchstone. So Sonny, you're not an enormous hit. It was an enormous hit, but not
JVL00:15:07just an enormous hit. It was a thing that people, even people who didn't see it, everybody knew about it. The idea of boiling your bunny became a catchphrase. Uh, in fact, it's referenced, I will not be ignored. It's referenced in sleepless in Seattle, right? There's that famous scene where Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks are sitting around with the, the friend and he's like, did you see fatal attraction? I saw feel right. And in America, it's all fake. Right. Yeah. Um, and part of the reason I think this happened is because it was a very of the moment return to morality in America. So this is a movie in 1987. It's the end of the Reagan years. Fatal attraction, I think would have been unthinkable.
Vic00:15:54As a movie in 1977, right? Right. Because in the, in the seventies it was the ice storm,
JVL00:16:01right? Like nobody would have bought the moralizing of like having sex outside marriage is crazy and can turn into very bad thing. Right. It just, even, even, even it would, it was more
Vic00:16:13of the, the zeitgeist was even like, you know, fast times at Ridgemont high. Hey, she got pregnant. Hey, you have the abortion. Hey, okay. Everybody's great. Everyone have a party.
JVL00:16:21And this was like, you know, America was coming out of the seventies Hayes and the, you know, decades always happened later than you think they do. Right. I mean, the old joke from David from is that the seventies are actually when the sixties happened and the eighties, as we understand didn't really happen to the late eighties. And this is part of it. And it, uh, it belongs to this class of movies that really takes up cultural space. Even the movie itself doesn't quite deserve it.
Sonny00:16:54It's fine. The movie, the movie is fine, but it definitely, God, I was reading a review. I was reading a review from 1987 when it came out that really kind of. That w it was from like two weeks or so before it came out. Right. So before it, it actually becoming an enormous, an enormous cultural touchstone, but the, the, the author, maybe it was Janet Maslin in the New York times. I can't remember. But, uh, the, the author of this review was just, just hitting all of like, look, this is a movie, uh, uh, where, you know, AIDS is kind of off in the distance. It's not quite there, but you know, it's, it's something we're, we're all thinking about, uh, women's lib, you know, the, the idea that women can be assertive and, you know, in charge of their sexuality, um, while also still wanting to have an emotional connection with people, the idea of, you know, the, the, the family unit, the Reagan era family units is, is, uh, is, is all very much there. It is, it is just a total. Melding of all these ideas at once. Uh, and it's no, I like, again, it is actually just viscerally terrifying to watch. I like, I, it is, it is the, it, it is a horror movie in a very real way.
Vic00:18:07Did you, uh, did you, uh, I don't know if you've seen that scene before Sonny, but you know, when they get away, just the two of them and, uh, uh, Michael Douglas and Ann Archer, and you know, she's running the bath. He at the same time simultaneously has a kettle of water that's about to boil. So when suddenly she appears in the mist, right? Because it's in the mirror and she appears in the mirror and with the knife and she starts cutting her own self on her leg as she's talking to Ann Archer and Ann Archer's like crying, like, oh my God, this is all, you know, I'm going to die. And then when the struggle starts happening, uh, Michael Douglas doesn't notice until he notices the ceiling is wet and the water is dripping down and then water damage and water damage. I would have run up there in a rage. That's a real terror. You know, that's, Yeah.
Sonny00:18:52I would have run. I would have run up there. Don't you know about mold? We just bought this house. Come on.
Vic00:18:57Ladies, stop fighting. Turn the water off.
Sonny00:18:59You know? Uh, no. So did you know that they had, they reshot all that? Yes.
Vic00:19:04Uh, well, I knew the ending was originally she killed herself. That's right. And they tried to frame him. It was supposed to be like a madam because she's obsessed with madam butterfly and it was going to be a madam butterfly ending. And that's, I think what Glenn Close wanted, but audiences did not.
Sonny00:19:17They tested it and it didn't work. They, I actually talked to, uh, so there's this guy, Kevin, gets who wrote this book called audience ology. He does, uh, the, the audience testing and he did the audience testing on this, I believe. And, uh, they, they did, they, they shot it. They put it out for the first round of test audiences. Audiences just did not, did not buy the, the ending. They didn't like it. They, it wasn't, it was not cathartic in any way. And so they were like, okay, well, how do we make it more cathartic? Oh, that's it. We should have an archer shooter. Shooter. Shooter. Yes.
Vic00:19:52Shoot.
JVL00:19:52Ah, uh, it's very anti-feminist ending in a weird way.
Sonny00:19:57Well, but no, but also still feminist because she's, you know, a woman is taking charge. She's a subjugated housewife. Uh, also it's also very like kind of humorously clunky there at the end, the, the random shot of him opening the drawer and seeing the gun, like, okay, here's the gun that we're going to be using later.
Vic00:20:16Oh, right. The check. I was gone. Uh, uh, I also think, you know, from what I hear. Uh, you know, if you are into that sort of thing, if, if you're, you're having an affair, one of the things that weighs on you, this is what I've been told. I, I, this is, this is for real. This is what I've been told is, you know, it's, it's, you're bearing the secret and you're in this sort of ostensibly happy relationship and the, the wife is happy. Everything is great, but you know, it's not, even though you're playing along. So you can be going somewhere, you go out to the movie or something, and you're going out on a date with your wife, but in the back of your head, you're still thinking about what you did. That was told to me by somebody. That's true. You only hear on the bonus episode. Uh, and, and it weighs on you. And then, and I thought about that in Fatal Attraction.
Sonny00:21:04Who told you that Vic? What was that? Who told you that?
Vic00:21:08That's for the bonus bonus episode. Those are for the high rollers, man. That's like for our friend, Dan, you know, people like that, they get the real dirt. Okay. No, but, um, there's a scene where, um, after, you know, Michael Douglas is like, I'm done with her. She's nuts. I have nothing to do with her. And he is being very affectionate with Ann Archer in the bedroom. Like she's getting her me. She's doing it in that little makeup room. She's sitting there in the mirror and she looks so beautiful and he's trying to make it up for her. She doesn't know why he's being so nice. She just likes it. She's, but he's trying to, without having to tell her, oh, by the way, I just, you know, screwed this other woman a couple of times, but rather I'm just, you know, he's trying to make it up for himself and it's just, it's just, you know. Making you crazy and tying your, tying you in knots. So I didn't have that reaction. I love the look on your faces.
Sonny00:21:59Like wondering what am I, who am I talking about? Not sure. Not sure what's going on. Why am I sweating by the way?
JVL00:22:04Okay. I do want to say a word about Glenn Close. So I love Glenn Close as an actress. I have always thought of Glenn Close as the real version of what everybody pretends the Meryl Streep is. Ooh, wow. Ouch. Yeah. As a. You know. I, I agree. A great American actress. She is fabulous as the woman who has gone crazy and is a tremendous villain in this. But. The suspension of disbelief required to view her as a sexual object.
Vic00:22:43This is your thing. I know you.
JVL00:22:44In the beginning of this film is just a bridge too far and is made worse by the casting of Ann Archer. Because she's so. And worse by the casting of Michael Douglas. Right. Michael Douglas is this clear playboy, right? If you cast a, a less leading man type or you cast Ann Archer as somebody who was like.
Vic00:23:05Right. Like Michael Douglas's friend played by Stuart Pankin. Yeah.
JVL00:23:09Then maybe, but like the, the whole premise just sort of blows up on the launch pad for me.
Sonny00:23:16I, I can, I understand what you're saying. I, I do think that there is, there's something in the writing here that makes it work, which is that she is very take charge and forward about it. Um, and if we, if we are to believe, if we believe Michael Douglas's character, that this is the only time he's ever done it, that this is a, you know. Oh, right. He says that. He would never, he would never have considered that he was led astray by this.
JVL00:23:40Your one time, the one time you do it is with the. It's not gonna be. Alexander Daddario or Ana de Armas.
Sonny00:23:47Oh man.
JVL00:23:48Wow.
Sonny00:23:48You know, they weren't on the scene then.
JVL00:23:51I'm sorry. Like at that point, you know.
Vic00:23:53No, I, you know, I, you know, a friend of ours, I, I hate to use the profanity here, but a friend of ours used to say, remember what he used to say? He used to say, show me a supermodel and I'll show you a guy who's tired of the supermodel, you know, and this is how is he married to Anna Archer? And does it, doesn't he value her? And that yet awful things like this happen all the time. And you're right. Cause we see this movie and Anna Archer is lovely and she's has a normal sized forehead. That's that's the big difference. Here. But for me, I could see, okay. If I'm going to put myself in Michael Douglas's position here, I hope I don't get in trouble for this, but you know, you go to a party, you see a woman, ah, you know, she seems to be very racy. She's very alpha take charge. As Sonny says, she probably does all sorts of interesting things. And then you find out she edits.
JVL00:24:41I, I just think this part is called for a more of a Marion Cotillard character.
Vic00:24:46Oh my gosh. No today.
JVL00:24:48Cause that could give you both, both the erotic and then the crazy, but you could see why anybody would fall into bed with her. And then you could be absolutely terrified of her. Yeah. Yeah.
Vic00:24:58No psycho eyes. And yet, okay. I'm willing to do this because she's really hot.
JVL00:25:01Also French. And the French, the French helps.
Sonny00:25:05And has a, and a smaller forehead. I'm sure it's fine.
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