REVERSAL OF FORTUNE

The first in a multipart blog series inviting you to watch those forgotten movies from the 1980's and 1990's.....

Hollywood continues to undergo rapid changes at the weekend box office, noting that certain genre pictures are performing well with audiences worldwide, while other genres are underperforming. The current underperforming underdog is the serious adult films genre (not porno). Films such as "Duplicity," "State of Play," "The Soloist," and "The International" all underperformed at the box office. There are 2 problems with the adult genre films, the first is that major stars, writers, and directors all line up for these projects, all while little Oscars dance in their heads. It's not that major talent should not do adult films, it is just that they end up costing too much and making too little back at the box office. Also a given is that most of these adult genre films are playing well outside of the traditional 4th quarter serious Academy Award film period. But none of that is the real problem, the 2nd problem is that the 4 films above are simply not very good films, adult films or not.

Especially not when you compare the 2009 adult genre films with the adult genre pictures of the 198o's and 1990's. The pedigree of the 1980/90's are such incredible films as "Dangerous Liaisons", "Fatal Attraction," "Wall Street," and another fantastic film, "Reversal of Fortune." This 1990 film featured an Oscar winning performance from Jeremy Irons as Claus von Bulow, Glenn Close as Sunny von Bulow (who died in late 2008 after being in a coma for nearly 28 years: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/nyregion/07vonbulow.html), and the late Ron Silver as lawyer Alan Dershowitz. "Reversal of Fortune" was a brilliant legal film showing the "good" side of the legal system. Look for surprise performances by a young Felicity Huffman, a young Christine Baranski, and even a cameo by Julie Haggerty and the late, great Uta Hagen.

"Reversal of Fortune" was one of the Holy Trinity of film roles for Glenn Close followed with "Dangerous Liaisons" and "Fatal Attraction." Jeremy Irons also had some amazing films at the time, including another favorite adult genre film of mine called "Damages". (Glenn Close later starred in a great TV show of the same name, but of course, it was completely different from the Jeremy Irons film).

As I have said before, it is worth going back to see movies you may not have seen in 10-20 years. It will surprise you how well they hold up over time.

UPDATE: Someone at Entertainment Weekly reads this blog: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20283201,00.html