Megan Johnson Briones and actors Isa Briones, Jon Jon Briones and Teo Briones arrive at the East West Players “The Company We Keep” 52nd Anniversary Visionary Awards Fundraiser Dinner and Silent Auction at the Hilton Universal City on April 30, 2018 in Universal City, California.
via Isa Briones’ Instagram Story | 30 April 2018
carlinjames917: So, so nice to reunite with one half of my ACS VERSACE fam. Thinking about it, I’m easily the LEAST talented of the entire group. So blessed to share the screen with these two.
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#EastWestPlayers #Gala #VisionaryAwards#AcsVersace #Grateful #Actors #TVFamily#CunananFamily #ActorsLife#JonJonBriones #IsaBriones#CarlinJames #Grateful #FX #RedCarpet#FilAms
pacificrimvideo: The #cunananfamily of @ahsfx back together sans #andrewcunanan at the @eastwestplayers 52nd Visionary Awards honoring @jonjonbriones
The Assassination of Gianni Versace
FX’s American crime story has picked a real, high-profile murder, dramatize it, and nail it. Andrew Cunanan, a serial killer, pathological liar and creep show extraordinaire, is the leading player as the show leads to his three-month murder spree in United States. Cunanan’s role is played by Darren Criss who delivers an impressive performance by bringing humanity to the sociopathic character.
The devastating terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were such a monumental moment in recent U.S. history that it’s tempting sometimes to divide American popular culture into “pre-9/11” and “post-9/11.” Tempting, yes — but not so easily done. Looking back, it’s surprising just how many TV shows that we tend to identify with the ‘90s actually aired a sizable chunk of their episodes after the World Trade Center towers fell. Friends, Frasier, ER, Law & Order, NYPD Blue … They all carried on the spirit of the decade in which they were born, in an era when the world behind the television screen suddenly felt very different.
That schism between the seemingly benign atmosphere of America in the ’90s and the “we can die at any moment” anxiety of the ’00s is the subject of The Looming Tower, Hulu’s miniseries adaptation of Lawrence Wright’s book about the U.S. intelligence-gathering errors — and the stealthy forces of international malevolence — that led to 9/11. The differences between the ’90s and now also serve as subtext to both series so far of American Crime Story (both the multi-Emmy-winning hit The People v. O.J. Simpson, and the more under-the-radar The Assassination of Gianni Versace), as well as Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, Manhunt: Unabomber, Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac & the Notorious B.I.G., and Waco.
During the past few years, we’ve been living through a boom-time for true-crime stories, with the podcast Serial and the TV docu-series Making a Murderer and The Jinx fueling the phenomenon. And thanks to the huge success of The People v. O.J. Simpson (and the Oscar-winning documentary O.J.: Made in America, which aired in five parts on ESPN around the same time), trend-chasing TV producers have been on the lookout for more tales of murder and scandal, drawn from an era that its target audience might remember.
There’s undeniably something cynically opportunistic about this sudden boom. It’s not like Law & Order creator Dick Wolf backed an L&O-branded miniseries about Erik and Lyle Menendez because his writing team (led by René Balcer) had something profound to say about American life in the mid-’90s. The calculation for pretty much of all of these shows has likely been something like, “Boy, people really tuned in for those O.J. things … how can we get in on that?”
But here’s what’s surprising: Pretty much all of these series have been good.
[…] The Assassination of Gianni Versace has been even bolder. To tell the story of how serial killer Andrew Cunanan (played with impressive oiliness by Glee star Darren Criss) murdered five men in four months, the show begins with him shooting the famed fashion designer Versace (Édgar Ramirez), and then moves roughly backwards in time episode by episode, amplifying the tragedy by showing Cunanan getting less desperate and more hopeful. More to the point, The Assassination of Gianni Versace very purposefully portrays the more underground nature of gay culture in the ’90s — when AIDS was more of a danger, “outing” could kill a career, and marriage was out of the question.
(LQ) Cody Fern for the LA Times Emmy Contender Series | 30 April 2018
One of the most highly anticipated series of the year, American Crime Story returned to television with its second season, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, focussing on Andrew Cunanan’s murdering spree in the 1990s. It comes off the back of its first season, The People vs. O.J. Simpson, which was met with widespread critical acclaiming, winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Series, along with awards for its stars Courtney B. Vance, Sarah Paulson, and Sterling K. Brown. To say that The Assassination of Gianni Versace had a lot of weight on its shoulders to be good would be an understatement, as The People vs. O.J. Simpson set up the anthology series to be one of the best in all television, and to say that it delivered to those high standards would be difficult, but what we have is a high quality series nonetheless.
In terms of the show’s narrative structure, it takes a different approach to the first series as we start with the titular murder in the very first scene, and then work back episode by episode, before the finale focussing on the aftermath of Versace’s murder. This gives us a different approach to the way that we view the characters, which is vital in a series such as this which tells such a tragic event. The first we see of the murderous Andrew Cunanan, played brilliantly by Darren Criss, is of him preparing to murder, and then murdering fashion designer Gianni Versace, who is precisely portrayed by the excellent Edgar Ramirez. As we work backwards through the series, we unravel more and more information about Cunanan, as we see him not falling into the normal characteristics of what we see normally portrayed in serial killers in fiction. This is because, as crazy as the story is, its a true story, and the producers of the show have a fine balancing act in the way that they portray these characters, almost all of whom end up with a demise of some sort or another. They pull this off to great effect, as the covering of multiple time periods allows us to see the characters at their highest and lowest points, in particular Cunanan, who becomes the focus of the series and leads to the real question trying to be answered- why did he do the things he did?
In his portrayal of Cunanan, Darren Criss does an outstanding job in what is a complicated role. He completely runs the show, as he gets to be flamboyant, confident, yet slimy and creepy, helped by the dramatic irony that comes with the show as we see what Cunanan is capable of, and with this in mind stops the audience for having much sympathy for him. Criss’ dedication to the role is admirable, and with a lesser actor in the role, the show may completely collapse, that’s the level of intensity he brings to the table. In supporting roles, Edgar Ramirez is uncanny as Versace, and he really takes control of the scenes that he is in. Some have complained about the lack of insight we see into Versace’s life, yet personally I found it satisfactory due to the way that Ramirez really gets down to the nitty gritty of the character in the limited scenes that he is in for us to get an impression of what he was like. In recurring roles, Cody Fern and Finn Wittrock are mesmerizing as David Madson and Jeff Trail, respectively, with the episodes that they appear being real highlights of the series, in particular “House by the Lake”, which is an incredibly intense episode with the opening 10-15 minutes almost being like something out of a horror film. Also in Guest Roles, Judith Light brings real emotional heft to her role as Marilyn Miglin, particularly in “A Random Killing”, which is a real tour-de-force for her, and Jon Jon Briones is really terrific in the final two episodes of the series as Andrew’s father, with his scenes with Criss towards the end “Creator / Destroyer” being another series highlight. However, Penelope Cruz’s performance as Donatella Versace came across as quite wooden, and didn’t quite match the tone of the series, which is a shame due to her being such a talented and experienced actress, especially alongside mostly character actors, who very much steal the show from her.
Taking on a different challenge from the first season, with this being more of a character study and asking why, rather than a ‘whodunit’, FX has made American Crime Story to be a force to be reckoned with the way that it can seemlessly approach different kinds of crime, which bodes well for the upcoming seasons of the show. Does the series match the dizzy heights of The People vs. O.J. Simpson? Not quite, but it does manage to tell this story in the right way- honouring the victims of these crimes, it’s deeply reflective and portrays the real tragedy of the events, and does it in its own stylistic way that is fitting to the 21st century television audience.
American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace Review
jamie_grooming: CODY FERN @codyfern ⭐️ for @latimes Emmy Contenders Interview. Grooming by me #codyfern #latimes#emmycontender #werkkkk #lov
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