Tag: review

How “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” Uses Dance Pop to Craft a Gay American Psycho | Pitchfork

Note: This article contains light spoilers.

There are plenty of murders in FX’s “American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” but no one dies in the most terrifying scene that has aired so far. Midway through the second episode, gay-hustler-turned-serial-killer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) picks up an older man at the beach. As they enter the john’s spacious hotel room, Andrew asks how many people he employs. “Five thousand, globally,” the guy admits, but hastens to add, “I can be submissive.” So Andrew covers his face in duct tape, hissing, “You’re helpless. Accept it.” Then he turns up the stereo and dances in his orange bikini-cut swimsuit to “Easy Lover” by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey until his mark stops struggling. At the last second, he pokes a hole in the tape.

The scene is chilling for many reasons. There’s the painful suspense of waiting to find out if Andrew will let the john die. (Because the season unfolds in reverse-chronological order, we’ve already seen him kill Gianni Versace (Édgar Ramírez) in the premier; we know he’s capable of it.) There’s the sadistic pleasure Andrew, who spends his days smoking crack in a $29.99-a-night Miami Beach motel room, takes in dominating a powerful businessman. And creepiest of all is Criss’ body language as he gyrates, his face frozen in determination while his arms flail. This is the moment we realize exactly how unhinged Andrew Cunanan is.

“Easy Lover” is a brilliant sync: a disconcertingly upbeat soundtrack to a man’s suffocation, with a touch of lyrical irony given Andrew’s line of work. But perhaps the most striking thing about using a Phil Collins song in this context is what the reference brings to mind: American Psycho, the Mary Harron film based on Bret Easton Ellis’ novel. Set in the 1980s, American Psycho finds yuppie serial killer Patrick Bateman frequently extolling the virtues of his favorite soft rock hits. He turns on the stereo when he’s feeling great, which is mostly when he’s toying with a victim. In one scene, he plays Genesis’ “In Too Deep” and extemporizes on Collins’ career before he fucks and slaughters two prostitutes. Andrew’s encounter inverts the roles of sex worker and john, adding another layer of queerness to this tale of a gay man who preys on other gay men. “Versace” is using music to frame its subject as an explicitly gay variation on the American Psycho archetype.

Thankfully, for those of us who have no desire to revisit “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” or “Walking on Sunshine,” the show doesn’t overstate its case by cutting in additional Bateman murder jams. While the music of American Psycho captures the banality of Reagan-era capitalist evil, it’s the female-fronted house and dance-pop tracks that would’ve played in a typical ‘90s gay bar that suffuse this season of “American Crime Story.” Released the same year Cunanan turned violent, 1997, Jocelyn Enriquez’s egregiously overplayed “A Little Bit of Ecstasy” blasts as Gianni and his partner, Antonio (Ricky Martin), arrive at the club for yet another hedonistic night out, and soon decide to leave because they’d rather be alone together. Later, Andrew dances to La Bouche’s “Be My Lover” and Lisa Stansfield’s “This Is the Right Time” at the same venue as he prowls for victims, clients, hookups, or all of the above.

Like the disco that soundtracked the sexually fluid nightlife of the 1970s, the songs selected by music supervisor Amanda Krieg Thomas layer mantras of pleasure over beats that thump like an overexerted heart. Their appeal in the context of a gay club in the mid-‘90s isn’t hard to grasp: This is the only public place where queer men can express their desires without fear, and the music heightens that temporary sense of invincibility. The only threat in a room like this is AIDS—until Andrew appears. As soon as he enters the frame, all you can hear in these otherwise liberating hits is artifice, recklessness, and caprice.

Outside the club, the pop songs Andrew loves can sound even darker. In a flashback from the premiere, Stansfield’s “All Around the World” plays as a younger Andrew tries on expensive suits owned by his rich friend Lizzie’s (Annaleigh Ashford) husband. While she scolds him for raiding the closet and he reminds her, “I have nothing,” the song emphasizes the disconnect between his worldly pretensions and his parasitic lifestyle. The first time we see him in episode two, Andrew is a fugitive speeding toward Versace’s part-time home, Miami Beach, in a stolen truck. After catching a radio news report about himself, he finds a station playing Laura Branigan’s “Gloria,”cranks up the volume, and screams along with abandon. As high on his own notoriety as Patrick Bateman was on frivolous bloodshed, Andrew is celebrating the murders of men—three of them gay—with an iconic gay disco anthem.

There is a crucial difference between the American Psycho approach to music and the way “Versace” uses it, though. Bateman is a caricature of vain, ruthless, materialistic finance bros—a monster brought to life by a dominant culture that elevated those destructive traits. His affinity for Phil Collins and Huey Lewis and the News is an indictment of those artists. (Ellis agreed: “I ended up feeling bad for Bateman’s loving attention toward the band [Huey Lewis], which, in itself is this kind of criticism of the culture,” he told* Billboard.) Their songs are just another blandly sinister accessory to Bateman’s vapid existence, like his tanning bed and his embossed, bone-colored business cards.

As interpreted by this season’s writer, Tom Rob Smith, Andrew Cunanan is less a reflection of gay culture than a plague on it. If the john he nearly kills before going after Versace hadn’t been closeted, it’s quite possible Andrew would have been caught before he killed the fashion icon. When Andrew leaves the hotel room, the traumatized businessman slips on a wedding ring, calls 911, then thinks better of it and hangs up. Andrew’s earlier victims, who we’ll meet later in the season, are also casualties of the closet. In that sense, Andrew is the personification of society’s homophobia, which he uses to isolate and manipulate his targets, as well as HIV, which can turn sex deadly. In Miami Beach, he hides from the FBI in plain sight, buying neon tank tops and Speedos to blend in with the throngs of innocent gay vacationers. Music is one more layer of camouflage. Andrew’s grotesque enjoyment of “Gloria” isn’t a criticism of the song—it’s a perversion of its liberating meaning, and a threat to the culture that cherishes it.

How “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” Uses Dance Pop to Craft a Gay American Psycho | Pitchfork

Just another pretty face: should Hollywood stop giving bad guys a face-lift?

One of Hollywood’s most time-honored traditions is praising actors in recognition of the physical transformation required for certain roles. The awards come flooding in, as do vague references to Stanislavski’s method, and the clickbaity headlines set the internet ablaze: Matthew McConaughey packs on 40lb for his turn as a gold-miner! Christian Bale ate a single can of tuna a day for The Machinist! Cameron Diaz uglies up in Being John Malkovich!

Watching the spectacle of celebrity mutation excites us both as gossip-mongers and moviegoers, since we appreciate dedication to craft as much as we do a grainy on-set photo of Matthew McConaughey cradling his pot-belly like a stray dog he’s just encountered.

But just as often as these good-looking people make themselves less so in the name of art, actors are cast as substantially less attractive real-life people and don’t undergo the same bodily metamorphosis. CGI, hair and makeup go a long way, but for every Charlize Theron-as-Aileen Wuornos or Robert De Niro-as-Jake LaMotta, there are times where we’re asked to accept a character as “ugly” because their hair is frizzy or their teeth imperfect. But let’s face it: sometimes, by no fault of their own, actors are simply too attractive for the role.

This came to mind when the former Disney Channel star Ross Lynch playedJeffrey Dahmer last year, and when Zac Efron was cast as Ted Bundy in an upcoming biopic, and when Margot Robbie channeled Tonya Harding, and, most recently, as Taylor Kitsch and Darren Criss appear, respectively, in the new seriesWaco as Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh, and as serial killer Andrew Cunanan in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.

In Waco, Kitsch tries to expunge himself of Friday Night Lights heartthrob Tim Riggins to play Koresh, pseudo-prophet, alleged sexual abuser, and leader of the Branch Davidian religious movement. Kitsch plays the part formidably, but you can’t help but wonder how Waco would look if the camera weren’t so enamored by its lead, who broods and smizes so frequently it’s as if he’s been conditioned to play up his looks. Then you remember it’s Kitsch, and he probably has been.

Although he shares something of a resemblance to Andrew Cunanan, Darren Criss’s performance in Versace is similarly gratuitous in the way only an excessively handsome person could make it, and the end result is a particularly doe-eyed brand of menace. I’ll hold off on any pre-emptive judgment of Efron’s turn in the new Joe Berlinger-directed Bundy biopic, but I’m not optimistic about that one, either.

Hollywood is of course a business, one that’s in the business of prettification; often, our enjoyment of its product is incumbent on our suspension of disbelief. But that becomes more difficult with biopics, particularly those concerning subjects of ill repute. When serial killers and cult leaders and disgraced figure skaters are made more attractive – read: packaged for box office consumption – than they really were, is something lost in the process? Are the films forcing upon us a redemptive arc that hasn’t been earned?

First, let’s look at the scholarship: there are, to put it mildly, competing schools of thought among academics about the conflation of beauty with evil. In a 1998 essay, the philosopher Mary Devereaux looked at the case of Leni Reifenstahl’s 1935 film Triumph of the Will, regarded by most cineastes as one of the most important, visually engrossing films ever made and, also, a heinous lionization of Adolf Hitler and the Nuremberg rallies (pardon the obeisance to Godwin’s Law).

Devereaux argued that the film’s valuable insofar as it makes you question the Platonic notion that beauty and moral goodness proceed from one another.

“Indeed, one of the most shocking things about Triumph of the Will is that it so clearly demonstrates that beauty and goodness can come apart,” she wrote, “not just in the relatively simple sense that moral and aesthetic evaluation may diverge, but in the more frightening sense that it is possible for art to render evil beautiful.” Some scholars are purists, and others still feel that the moral can’t be divorced from the aesthetic, and that the gussying up of reprehensible people amounts to a reappraisal, a muddying of the ethical waters.

Triumph of the Will is of course a loftier, more high-stakes case study than the ones at hand; Hollywood has so far stopped short of casting a preternatural beauty to play Hitler. But there’s something to be said about the industry’s insistence on endearing us to crummy people by making them sexy. If it’s not manipulative and cynical, it is disingenuous; these casting decisions are oriented around bankability, not believability.

In the best-case scenario, the performance, like Robbie’s in I, Tonya, is still gutsy and commendable, even as the film itself lazily deploys scrunchy hairbands and braces to sell its version of Harding (her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly also gets a not-insignificant sprucing up at the hands of the uber-handsome Sebastian Stan). At worst, they result in tone-deaf marketing, like how Jennifer Aniston, in Cake, was meant to be “ugly”.

“This isn’t about culling conventionally attractive people from your TV screens,” wrote Lindy West in a Jezebel piece called Why We Need More Ugly People on TV. “It’s not about telling you who you ‘can’ and ‘can’t’ find attractive. It’s about decoupling women’s value from their desirability, and embracing the idea that people are more complicated than that.”

Maybe this is why, when we talk about the lengths actors go for roles, the reverse facelifts they execute in the name of authenticity, we so readily wax poetic about their commitment and artistic zeal. Because, most of the time, studios are actually quite lazy in this regard. It’s a point of fact that when we watch a movie or television show the actors therein are considerably better-looking than us laymen. But Ted Bundy was no centerfold, and it seems just a bit unscrupulous to reimagine him as one.

Just another pretty face: should Hollywood stop giving bad guys a face-lift?

Get Ready For Judith Light On Tonight’s ‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’

Through two episodes, you may think you have a good idea of the story that The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story is telling you. The tragic opulence of the Versace lifestyle, gay chameleon Andrew Cunanan moving through the gay underworld of Miami and beyond, Penelope Cruz as Donatella upholding the family legacy through grief and pride. Was Versace HIV positive? How well did he and Cunanan know each other? Did Donatella really hate Gianni’s longtime lover? Was the police investigation botched? These are all the questions that seem to be driving the show through two episodes. Well, starting tonight with episode 3, titled “A Random Killing,” The Assassination of Gianni Versace steps towards becoming the show that it’s really about. And it does so featuring one of the all-time best single-episode performances in a Ryan Murphy series from Tony- and Emmy-winning actress Judith Light.

“A Random Killing” steps away from the Versace story entirely, focusing on Andrew Cunanan’s encounters with Chicago real-estate tycoon Lee Miglin. If you know the Cunanan story, you know Miglin was his third victim, murdered in his Chicago home. Whether Miglin knew Cunanan before his death — whether the two were sexually involved leading up to and including the day of Miglin’s death — has been a point of speculation that has been vigorously denied by Miglin’s surviving family. Ryan Murphy and writer Tom Rob Smith clearly have their own take on the story and don’t really mince words about it. But we also get the character of Marilyn Miglin, Lee’s wife and home-shopping cosmetics queen.

Marilyn, as played by Judith Light, is a quintessential Ryan Murphy character. She’s a perfectly put-together older woman who, by episode’s end, is holding her life together by the tips of her impeccably manicured fingernails. She keeps up appearances but she’s haunted by something she refuses to put a name to. In the real world, we can make up our own minds about whether Lee Miglin was gay or closeted or having sexual relationships with male escorts. In Murphy’s depiction of the story, Marilyn Miglin’s vehement denial of the circumstances of her husband’s life (and death) double as a vehement defense of her own life.

It’s also somewhat wild that it’s taken this long for Ryan Murphy to loop Judith Light into his stable of actors. She’s pretty much everything he tends to value in a performer: older actresses who haven’t been well served by the television (and movie, though Light has kept her career on TV and the stage for the most part) roles being offered to them. Light got nationally famous starring opposite Tony Danza on the ABC sitcom Who’s The Boss?, but before that, she was a two-time Daytime Emmy winner for the soap opera One Life to Live, where she played a character who, in her most notorious and well-remembered storyline, has a courtroom breakdown confessing her secret life as a prostitute.

In the years since Who’s The Boss?, Light’s career might have gone the way of many sitcom stars of the ’80s, but the fact that she held on, returned to her Broadway roots, won a couple of Tony Awards in the process, had that great role as a publishing matriarch on Ugly Betty, and has recently been such a strong presence on Transparent, it all adds up to the perfect Ryan Murphy muse: a steel-spined actress of a certain age who’s experienced the best and the worst of the entertainment industry and has come out on the other side. It’s all there in Light’s performance as Marilyn. She gets a monologue at the end of the episode that would make her a shoo-in for a Guest Actress Emmy Award, if only the guest-actress categories included limited series. Maybe it’s time they should, because between Robin Weigert’s brief but brilliant work as the therapist on Big Little Lies last year and Light’s work this year, there is some phenomenal acting that is slipping through the cracks.

And while Judith Light’s award-worthy acting is a big reason to tune in to tonight’s episode, you should also be there for when the series makes its pivot. It’s not that the Versace case ceases to matter, but it becomes less of the focal point of the show. Versace’s killing was the last in a string of murders. And while, in real life and on the show, it’s not easy to string one constant motivation for Cunanan’s actions throughout all five murders (rumors at the time that Cunanan had been diagnosed HIV-positive and was acting out of vengeance against men he’d slept with have been debunked), Murphy and Smith have done a good job laying the groundwork of a homophobic society. Starting tonight, we begin to see the insidious role that the closet plays in the Cunanan murders. Here’s where the show stops being a B-minus true-crime story and starts becoming an A-grade tragedy.

Get Ready For Judith Light On Tonight’s ‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’

TV tonight: A harrowing episode of ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story
FX, 10 ET/PT

The unsettling second season of American Crime Story is slowly revealing the story of spree killer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss), and this episode focuses entirely on one of his earlier victims, Chicago real estate magnate Lee Miglin (Mike Farrell). The episode, one of the best of the season, is occasionally hard to watch. But Judith Light puts in an exceptional performance as Miglin’s devoted wife Marilyn, whose hard exterior is broken by the violent crime. Of all nine episodes, this one feels almost like a short film, more about Lee than his killer.

TV tonight: A harrowing episode of ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Versace Season 2 Episode 2

Another episode of Versace’s assassination is amongst us and so much more was revealed. From Versace’s unknown illness, to family relationships, to an insight in Andrew’s life pre Versace murder. For this episode, the story unfolds in reverse chronological order and recounts the events preceding before the main event. A chilling bedroom scene involving an elderly man, duct tape, scissors and Cunanan dancing takes centre stage, alongside Andrew’s ability to lie more easily than people tell the truth.

So much of the story is yet to unravel; what or who made Andrew the killer he is? Was it the lack of support from friends and family as a gay man? Was violence a key point of his life? Why is he so enthralled by successful elderly men? So many questions and yet no answers! With seven episodes remaining, I have my fingers crossed that all will be revealed.

For now though, I would like to share with you five of the best moments from American Crime Story: The Assassination of Versace, season 2, episode 2:

Versace’s Cremation

“After everything he survived – to be killed like this.”

After a heated argument with Antonio, Donatella has a private one-on-one cremation for Versace, dressing him up in his fanciest suit. This scene was incredibly powerful and emotional; seeing Donatella mourning her brother’s death is so heartbreaking. She always shows such a strong persona, so it was very appreciated to see a much more vulnerable side of her. After Versace’s ashes were delicately wrapped up, Donatella took him on her private jet, where she hinted at Versace already having a close-to-death moment previously. In the very first scene of the episode, Gianni is shown seeking treatment at a hospital with his partner Antonio. Although nothing is specifically said in the episode, there have been previous talks of Gianni having HIV/AIDS in 1993 – 1994, which lead him to become too sick to work and on bed rest for a while.

Donatella’s devastation and anger is shown when she says to his ashes, “After everything he survived — to be killed like this,” shows that Versace was a strong man and managed to cheat death, only to be murdered three years later.

Versace and Donatella’s relationship

There are still pieces of Versace and Donatella’s relationship that we’re missing, but in this episode, we saw a little more of a bond between the siblings. When Versace is dealing with his illness, Donatella has a fear of losing her brother, and what a touching scene this was. “What is Versace without you?” “It will be you.” “Who am I without you?” “You will find out.”

Later on in the episode, Donatella pushes Versace to reach his potential when she believes he is stuck in a rut and another fashion designer will soon swoop in and take his spotlight. With her push, Gianni wows the crowd with his models and designs, and although he doesn’t say the words, the silent exchange between him and Donatella says that he is thanking her. I can’t wait to see more moments between the two of them, as this is a bond that seems unbreakable.

Donatella and Antonio’s relationship

It’s incredibly clear to see that Donatella and Antonio never really saw eye to eye. During Versace’s illness and struggling to keep his company relevant, an argument erupts between the pair starting with Antonio claiming that Donatella has never been supportive of he and Gianni’s relationship. Donatella opens up to Antonio about how she feels, claiming that he has never been a real partner to her brother and has given him nothing throughout their time together.

“You knew he wanted a family. Why didn’t you give him one?” “What have you done for him? What have you given him? Stability? Safety? Children? If you had given him anything, I would have given you respect – but you have given him nothing.”

I would love to know whether or not Donatella and Antonio put all their tension behind. If they did, it’s a shame they had to do it due to a tragic loss!

Andrew Cunnanan’s story reversed

The premiere of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Versace started off in the present, with Cunanan killing Versace. This time, we was taken back two months to the day Andrew first arrived in Miami to find Versace. At the point of present day, Cunanan has already killed four people and landed himself a spot on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Now we’re going to sit back and watch those four murders take place, alongside still seeing how Andrew is doing in the present.

Andrew’s false identities

Darren Criss consistently puts on the most terrifying performance of Cunanan, and with all of these false identities forming within seconds of each other, the creepiness has gone from 80% to a whopping 110%! With his simplicity of practicing everyday conversation in the mirror to himself to reflect his individual personas, you really do get the chills. I applaud Ryan Murphy every second for giving Darren this role… although I may never look at Blaine Anderson the same ever again.

He begins the episode as Kurt, a fashion student from Nice who travelled all this way for a few words with Versace. With his newfound friend Ronnie, he describes his close personal friendship with Versace effortlessly and with the elderly man he seduces, he tells the story of the lobster and black pepper his mother used to pack for his school lunches. The question is, are any of these stories true or at least connected a little to his real life? Or he just that good at manipulating and lying? Who knows!

A rather interesting moment, though, was the final nightclub scene where Andrew is approached by a guy. When asked what he does, he replied with, “I’m a serial killer!” He then covered his back by rambling a list of jobs that he supposedly does from a banker to a writer — and the episode ended with him telling this guy his true identity. “I’m the person least likely to be forgotten. I’m Andrew Cunanan.” Wowza! I can’t wait to see more of his identities throughout the season. Bravo once again, Darren Criss!

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Versace Season 2 Episode 2

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Versace season 2 premiere

He wanted to be famous… so he killed a man who was. Join us on examining the shocking 1997 murder of legendary fashion designer, Gianni Versace.

The premiere of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Versace centers around serial killer Andrew Cananan. With the series, we get to explore the motives behind such a memorable and tragic death. The inspiration behind this exciting new series was Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in US History — a book that journalist Maureen Orth published in 1999.

Ryan Murphy took the first episode in a whole new direction, in which we witness the murder of Gianni Versace within the first ten minutes, and then we go back in time to 1990 where flashbacks are given to show how these two men were connected to one another. We also see Versace’s sister, Donatella, dealing with the loss of her brother and making sure that his legacy lives on. The episode ends with the police on a manhunt to find Andrew and failing. However, Andrew is an extremely clever man and I cannot wait to follow the rest of this hunt.

Check out the 5 best moments of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Versace season 2 premiere:

1. Aesthetically pleasing

Although the story is tragic and all in all devastating, Ryan Murphy shows such beauty within this episode. It starts off so blissfully over Versace’s breathtaking villa, the sun-kissed 90’s Miami beach and genuinely good looking people with their tanned and glorious bodies out on what should have been a normal and joyful day. It shows such a flawed beauty throughout and you can’t help falling in love with every moment of it, until Murphy turns our bliss in to shock within seconds.

Oh and you know, the faces of Darren Criss and Penelope Cruz may have also played a role in us falling in love.

2. Versace and Cunanan’s first meeting

As it is well recognised, Andrew Cunanan was known to create extraordinary tales in order to impress others. He fed on the wealthy and famous lifestyles and who better to make his victim than pop culture icon and billionaire, Gianni Versace? The episode showed us that the two had met in 1990 (seven years before Versace’s death) in a San Francisco night club. Andrew approaches Versace, where at first, Versace is quite ignorant and is too fascinated in telling his stories to pay attention to Andrew. Soon enough, Versace remembers him from a previous event in his own villa and Andrew is honored that he would remember such a brief moment. Versace eventually invites Andrew to attend the opera with him, where the two bond over Versace’s love for fashion and how he can have an input in to Andrew’s novel that he hopes will one day become a movie where Versace can design the looks.

3. Versace’s death

We all know when it comes to Ryan Murphy he has absolutely no chill on how much gore and realism he will put in to his shows, and he once again showed no signs of toning this one down with the in depth glance of Versace’s death. It is clear in the beginning that Andrew has aimed for Versace’s face, but at this point, we don’t know for sure.

Later on when Versace is rushed to the hospital, we see him with two gunshot holes in his face as he lays dying amongst all of the doctors trying to keep him alive. They pronounce him dead at 9:12am on July 15th, 1997 at the University of Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital. Gianni’s death really did tug at my heart strings, and being that I knew little of his death before watching this, I was so enthralled by his story and his legacy that this just wasn’t fair. This man deserved a whole lot better than was given. Will my opinion change as the story unravels? Who knows!

4. The focus on LGBT and homophobia

The main focus was the underlying theme of homophobia circulating Cunanan’s murders. The murder happened 20 years ago, and to say the way we respect and look at the LGBT community today as of then, has come an extremely long way. Andrew was an openly-gay male prostitute who drew himself into the wealthy and glamorous lives of older gay men before killing them. He killed four in total before adding Versace to his list, and the significance of his death goes beyond the moment of tragedy, in which the show highlights important issues that were undiscussed at the time of his death. For instance, his partner Antonio D’Amico, who was with Gianni for 15 years. The police didn’t want to accept this and instead suggested that they were ‘business partners’. Versace’s death finally goes public and the police finally pay attention to Cunanan’s identity.

5. Darren Criss

There were many magnificent actors in the debut episode of season 2, however I think all applause should head in Darren Criss’ direction, as he portrayed Andrew Cunanan spot on. Reading more into Andrew’s life, his father left him and his family to avoid arrest for embezzlement and he and his mother got into an argument about his sexuality. Andrew’s aggressive behavior was shown in this argument when he threw his mother against a wall, dislocating her shoulder. Due to this, he had examinations for his behavior and reports later recognized that he possibly suffered from antisocial personality disorder and a personality disorder characterized by lack of empathy.

What I really loved about Darren’s portrayal of Andrew is when he comes face to face with a TV broadcasting the events of Versace’s murder, he watched the TV with no sign of emotion, until he sees a woman’s reaction where she covers her mouth in horror and shock. He then covers his own mouth up to convince people he was also in shock and managed to fill his eyes with emotion. That just showed so evidently how unaffected Andrew is to his murders. I can’t wait to see how this murder starts to affect Andrew — whether it fills him with guilt or pride, Darren is going to be outstanding as always at telling us the story!

American Crime Story: The Assassination of Versace season 2 premiere

Paste’s TV Power Rankings

4. The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story
Network: FX
Last Week’s Ranking: Ineligible

On the morning of his 1997 murder, the Italian fashion designer (Edgar Ramirez) strolls through his Miami Beach palace in a flowing, fluorescent robe, the camera retreating skyward as he breakfasts by the pool; the corresponding image of his killer, Andrew Cunanan (the magnetic, frightening Darren Criss), peers in on the con man as he tosses off his matching pink cap and vomits into a toilet, then pauses for a glimpse of the message etched into the bathroom stall: a rough drawing of two dicks, with the caption “Filthy faggots.” From here, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, which premieres tonight on FX, unspools in reverse, tracing the lives of its two main characters back to their childhoods—and among its constants is that unutterable word, that unforgivable commonplace, that useful descriptor, that reclamation. The “crime” in this season of American Crime Story is the assassination of Gianni Versace, certainly, but it’s also, doubtless, homophobia itself, socialized and self-inflicted, individual and internecine: At the heart of the anthology’s magnificent second act is a potent, political, possibly even dangerous reconsideration of what it means to be called a faggot, and then what it means to become one. —Matt Brennan

Paste’s TV Power Rankings

The Assassination of Gianni Versace is a television masterpiece

We’ve got ourselves the first masterpiece of television for 2018.

Ryan Murphy has caught us all on his web once again. This time with American Crime Story – The Assassination of Gianni Versace(ACS).

For those who don’t know, Murphy is the creative genius behind many successful series over the past decade including Glee, American Horror Story and the first season of ACS – The People v. O.J. Simpson.

Murphy has become a household name for his successful adaptation of true-crime into masterpieces of TV.

The second season of ACS, supposedly deals with the 1997 assassination of famous Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace, played by Edgar Ramírez, who was gunned down in front of his Miami Beach mansion by serial killer Andrew Cunanan, played by Darren Criss.

But the series runs way deeper than that.

Versace’s assassination actually occurs within the first 10 minutes of the premiere, which by the way, are the most intense, beautifully dramatic series of shots television has seen in a long time. The cinematography, the music, the editing. The opening sequence of “The Man Who Would be Vogue” is a fantastic piece of art all by itself.

As we get into the episode, we start exploring the immediate aftermath of Versace’s murder as police begin the manhunt for Cunanan. We meet Gianni’s sister, Donatella, played by Penélope Cruz, and his partner of 15 years, Antonio D’amico, played by Ricky Martin.

But as they audience immerses into the story, Murphy’s peculiarity shines through as the audience realizes that Versace’s murder is not the highlight of the story but rather the knot that ties the murder of five gay men together.

If we think about it, we all know very little about one of the most sensationalized murders in America. All we really know is that Versace was gunned down in front of his mansion and that Cunanan committed suicide on a boat eight days later as his manhunt came to an end.

And what most of us seemed to forget: Versace wasn’t the only victim of Cunanan’s selfish, egotistic, jealous rage. There were four other men whose names are all but forgotten.

With the insight of two gay men serving as writer and executive producer respectively, ACS offers a deep look at the big role homophobia in the nineties played as part of the American culture that allowed four murders to go unnoticed until Versace’s murder. Even though he was also gay, he had something the other four victims lacked: money, fame, and power.

The casting of ACS is powerful and inviting. Despite not being the central figure of the story, Criss’ portrayal of Cunanan will probably earn him an award or two due to his fabulous job conveying Cunanan’s psychopathy in ways that show him as he truly was: an obsessed, jealous, pathethic man who couldn’t deal with failure or rejection.

Meanwhile, Ramírez’s physical transformation to resemble Versace is, to say the least, impressive. His portrayal of Versace not only as the titan of fashion he was, but as a generous, caring and openly gay man in the nineties promises to provide us with a unique insight of the designer that has not previously been shown.

One aspect many of us didn’t expect was Martin’s fantastic acting. Yes, he’s been a phenomenal performer for decades but acting I wasn’t so sure about. I wasn’t expecting much from him but his acting skills came through as soon as we see Versace dead on the mansion steps. We can feel D’amico’s grief in our bones.

When it comes to the technical aspects of ACS, Murphy’s artistry and his capacity to bring together the very best people of the industry together to make a phenomenal team is to be celebrated.

Every single aspect: the cinematography, lighting, music, editing, and casting are all out of this world. The quality of the production is impeccable and a gift for the eyes.

The Assassination of Gianni Versace is a gift to all the television lovers who appreciate fantastic storytelling integrated to a high-quality, movie-like production.

The Assassination of Gianni Versace is a television masterpiece

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Wednesday nights belong to complicated antiheroes. Or American psychos. “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” (10 p.m., FX, TV-MA) really should be called “The Andrew Cunanan Story.” Offering flashbacks within flashbacks, it recalls his descent into decadence and delusion as he embarked on the killing spree that would end at Versace’s front gate.

In lesser hands, Cunanan (Darren Criss) might seem like a one-dimensional psycho. Here, he’s a killer, but also occasionally witty, charming and seductive, allowing this profile to make us think about our culture’s obsessive love affair with unearned status and wealth.

ON TV