Alan Cumming / Angela Lansbury

Thankfully, over at pop culture happy-hour, it's literally our job.

“We break down what's actually worth watching, listening to, and pretending you already knew about.”

So the next time someone says, "Did you see that, you can say?" Yeah, obviously. Follow NPR's pop culture happy-hour wherever you get your podcasts. This is Fresh Air, I'm TV critic David Beancoolie. The 79th Annual Tony Awards are this Sunday, honoring the best of Broadway from the previous season of stage plays and musicals. To note the occasion, we're revisiting interviews with two

dynamic Tony-winning stars from Broadway's past. We'll hear from Angela Lansbury, a six-time Tony recipient, including for the musicals, "Mame, Gypsy, and Swenie Todd," the demon barber of Fleet Street. And we'll start with Alan Cumming, who won a Tony for his role as the MC in the Revival of Cabaret. Both of them had a major impact on the New York stage, yet both came from the UK,

“Angela Lansbury from England, and Alan Cumming from Scotland. Alan Cumming was born in 1965”

and has been acting in television movies in the theater since the 1980s. As an actor, he's somewhat of a chameleon shifting looks and accents to fit the occasion and the role. He played Hamlet on stage, a filmmaker in the Spice Girls movie, and the Desklerk and Stanley Kubrick's eyes wide shut. He played Eli Gold in TV's "The Good Wife" and "The Good Fight," the blue-skinned nightcrawler in X2 X-Men United, and another blue-skinned character in the world of animation, providing the voice

of Gatsy's "Smurf." And while he continues to be involved in the stage, he won a second Tony in

2022 as a producer of the musical "A Strange Loop," he's now having lots of fun on television. On the Emmy-winning peacock reality competition series "The Traders," Alan Cumming hosts a group of guests assembled to solve a mystery, which of those among them are secretly working against him.

“This show is set in a castle in Scotland, and Cumming, as the host, leans into the outrageousness”

of it all. He wears kilts and flashy costumes, and whenever talking to the competitors on the traitors turns his Scottish "Brog" up to 11, as in this scene from the show's most recent season. "The first duty of society is justice," said Alexander Hamilton, and so, here we are, "Don't throw away your shot, please." "The tear-stand pages of traitors history are filled with the blood of the innocent at this table."

"And what a triumph it would be if you caught a traitor on the opening page." "Look around you, who at the table has your back, and who is sooner stab you in it?" "At the Tonies this year, the most nominated musicals are the lost boys in Schmiggadoon, each of which is up for 12 awards." Alan Cumming is an "in" that Broadway production, but he did star in the original TV version of Schmiggadoon in 2021 on television.

In the first season, which featured the same plot and characters now performed on Broadway,

he played Mayor Menlove. And in the 2022 sequel, a take on darker musicals that was subtitled welcome to Schmiggadoon, he played Dooley Blight, a butcher with a tragic past. It was a clear, loving homage to the title character of Swenie Todd, and Alan Cumming is so good in it, I hope he gets to star in the next official Swenie Todd revival. Listen. ♪ It's like lambs to the slaughter ♪

♪ He tried to take the butcher's wife ♪ ♪ When she refused he took her life ♪ ♪ Blamed up butcher for the crime ♪ ♪ And while he was doing time ♪ ♪ His daughter came of age ♪

♪ Forced to perform upon the stage ♪ ♪ And to be clear in the scenario ♪ ♪ The butcher is me ♪ ♪ But the rich man truly will pay for his sins ♪ ♪ And this time Dooley will be the one who wins ♪

♪ For there's a debt that has yet to be repaid ♪

♪ And the debt sweet death that will bring relief ♪

“♪ From the pain of the patron of the guilt and the grace ♪”

♪ I'll heed the call to them all ♪ Alan Cumming, of course, already has killed in one musical revival. On stage and in the movies, Joel Gray had originated the role of the Berlin MC at the KitKat Club, a den of debauchery surrounded by the rise of the Nazis in 1929 and 1930. He was great in that role, iconic, even.

Yet Alan Cumming has made it his own.

His cavalry revival originated at the Don Mar Warehouse in England in 1993

and came to Broadway five years later. Sam Mendes directed Rob Marshall provided the choreography and Natasha Richardson co-starred as Sally Bowles, the role played in the original 1966 Broadway production and 1972 film by Liza Manelli. Years later, he appeared in a revival of the revival,

opposites such very diverse yet equally dazzling Sally's as Michelle Williams and Emma Stone. Let's hear how Alan Cumming sounded in the 2014 round about theater production, the same company that had produced the 1998 Tony Award winning production. My name is Adam D'Amson, I'm a student, ladies and gentlemen. Good night, both of us are good evening, we get scum on sabah, do you feel good, yeah, thank you to me, we're not a company, yeah,

just do what we're confident, I am your host, we're not a real common, yeah, thank you, thank you. Alan Cumming, welcome back to Fresh Air and congratulations, you're so wonderful in the show, it's so terrific. Thank you, Terry. Thank you, thank you for coming.

“You said I think that this revival was your birthday present to yourself, what does that mean?”

Did you initiate the idea of reviving it again? No, no, I didn't, but it was Sam Mendes who called me up a few years ago and I mean there's been sort of various attempts to redo it or to put it on since it ended, I mean I finished, I did it for a year from '98 to '99 and it actually finished I think in 2004 on Broadway but anyway, so a few years ago Sam said you know, I think it's a good time that kind of the the rights are going to be up and so therefore someone else will do it and

you know maybe the and the estate wants us to do our production again and I just sort of thought it would be, and the thing about the birthday is that I'm 49 and so I'll be 50 in January, January 27 next year and so I in my 50th year I am singing and dancing on in a Broadway musical and I'm dancing a kick-line with you know girls who are 24 and so that was that was kind of the birthday present to myself that I would be hitting 50 doing things that I couldn't do when I was 25.

Oh that is nice, you couldn't kick like that or they just might be opportunity. I was so I was so I was shaping on fit when I was 25. I've kind of I think even when I did it it's 15 years ago I wasn't as fit as I am now. So what do you love doing the role? Well I mean just on a day to day going to work and doing that it's it's such fun it's you know so kind of energetic it just takes up every single element of being an actor it's your your body is

used to its capacity both physically, vocally and emotionally as well but also in a kind of

“larger way I think it's really important show in that the reason it's done again the reason”

we're doing it again is that it has something to say you know it's about the the rise of Nazism and the fact that if you're not incredibly vigilant oppression of some kind can slowly creep up and take over and I think that the way that the show is like fun and you just oh it's sexy and there are fairly as and no and then you slowly it slowly goes dark you as an audience member have kind of become complicit in that and that sort of mirrors the way that you see

Nazism creeping in and people think oh I'll be fine don't worry nothing's you know it'll go away and then slowly it doesn't and it's too late. I would like you to describe your character physically what you're wearing what your hair looks like. Well initially I've blot a jet black here right now which is not natural Terry I'll confess and and so I jet black here sort of you know

in 1920s kind of floppy on top short of the back in the sides in the first question my

wears I wear a leather coat but I shortly take that off and I've got this I've got kind of like a black

strapy thing it kind of like suspenders you know it's almost like I'm topless but I've got this

suspender thing with a little bow tie at my chest at my um where to go that bit in the middle of the sternum and then and then and then and I kind of it's almost like a cantilever system to hike up my manhood if you if you will. Yes your manhood is kind of like a talosized in the heat it's in bold it's in bold letters yes it's sort of like a wonder bra for the meal junk what is your take on on the host the MC that you play and the club the kit cut club

that you're in do you have a backstory for him in your mind I'll tell you my sort of very slim back story as he was a rent boy a boy from the streets of Berlin who then kind of you know started working this club and was kind of kind of funny and so you got kind of as you got

a bit older I got a job and the kit cut club is basically a you know a day and of inequities it's

got a little show but there's kind of you know sex going on there's drugs going on it's a very low life kind of place so that's that's basically all my story for this man who used to be you know he has a background as a sex worker who then becomes who you can sing a bit and I don't know his name I don't know where you know I don't actually don't think that's

“important I don't worry about that because there's a larger broader more overreaching thing”

about this character he's kind of like this he guides the audience he's like a puppeteer or most or a sort of a paid pipe but as if you like you take the audience on this journey kind of

tells them what to think it's certain times guides them into certain things and then ultimately

because he's got their trust can betray that trust or also make them worry for him and for what's going on in the show so it's it's almost like a sort of a Brechtian character of standing outside the story and commenting on it as it's happening you've portrayed this character in three separate versions of this Sam Mendes production first when you were 28 years old in 1993 then when you were 33 years old in 1998 and now in your 49 years old in 2014 and I've seen the new production and I've seen

excerpts of both of the other productions and there's things that are very similar one of the

“differences is that you know you've gotten older and I think that changes the character you know the”

rent boy turned MC in this kind of CD club at age 28 is different from that same character at age 49 because that character hasn't made it out of that club still there at age 49 so in that sense he becomes kind of even darker I think that's absolutely true I think this production of the production is darker partly because I'm older and because this sort of sex element of the show the sensationalist kind of thing in 1998 when we came to America was so shocking and took up so much of people's

perception of the whole show was this you know depiction of sexual freedom and hedonism and gay sex and bisexuality and all sorts of things that I think in a way took over a little too much and now I think you know partly because of that production but partly because the world has changed that is still an element it's still fine it's still very much part of what the story is about but it doesn't overshadow everything and also it has allowed the kind of darkness to come out a little bit more

you know in speaking about the sexuality of of this production it's sexualized in a different way

“than say the movie cabaret which I think a lot of people are familiar with in the movie version of”

cabaret Joel Joel Gray starred in the role of the the MC of the host and I think he played it kind of he's great in it and I think he played it kind of like a ringmaster in a circus of sexual deviance and I think deviance is what they would have been called at the time I'm trying to use a word from the period and you play it like you are sexually seducing us into your kind of debauched world I mean I do feel like I'm saying you know the gesture

I do the very beginning of the show is my finger I'm going come here come here come here and that's I think I sort of overriding metaphor for what I think that character does and he's going come on come on you know you want to it's going to be fine and and then of course and the audience does want to and they do come and then of course that's when they become complicit in the whole

a sexual orientation gay by sexual who knows into everything as I think whatever whatever you want

“it you came out as bisexual I think the same year that cabaret was revived in the United States in”

1998 with his starring in it and you've been married for how long you have a husband I mean I have a husband I've admired to him for it hang on since 2007 so seven years so did you time coming out with the production of cabaret it was all a huge press campaign all of a massive back in a very clever no I that's the point of sexuality actually power yeah kind of is and what I think you're getting at I'll give you a little press here that I hope will answer your

question I've always felt as bisexual I used to be my two women before that I'd had a relationship

with a man I then had another relationship with a woman and then I since then I've had you know relationships with men so I thought I but I still feel I still would define myself as bisexual

“partly because I that's how I feel but also because I think it's important to I think sexuality”

in this country especially it's very seen as a very black and white thing and I think we should encourage the grey you know I mean I don't kind of go around in my life thinking oh my god I'm going to have to have sex with a woman soon because I'm said I was bisexual I just that's what I feel inside it's like saying you're straight or you're gay or you're bisexual it's just what you are and whatever you're doing in your life is almost it runs obviously parallel but it's kind of

secondary to how you are inside and so that's how I've always felt and I still do even know you know

I I'm very happily married to a really amazing man and I wish to be so for the rest of my life the other thing is that the coming out thing in 1998 when I came to America there was such a huge explosion of interest in this show and in me and I I hadn't really you know I was kind of well known in Britain but I hadn't really ever discussed my sexuality in a public way like that and because of playing this character and and I know all the kind of slight you know

Puritanical shock waves that were sending around America a lot of people were just constantly constantly constantly asking me about it and so I decided to take matters into my own hand and I did an interview and I cover a story for out magazine and I thought that was a good forum for it to be discussed calmly and I'd alterly and so I'd so I did that so it was kind of as a result of all the speculation and if it was really funny I remember people saying so I'm the first question in

an interview for something like you know witty tomb would be so are you gay now I go why do you fancy me and then go oh no just someone in my office was asking as I really well you know just

I thought really is that the most important thing and sometimes it is the most important thing because

people can't if people don't have a black and white answer they can't get beyond that and so you

“have to kind of I think you just got to get out the way and that's why I did and it wasn't like”

I it's one of the things when you become famous and people are more interested in your personal life often than your work it's a weird thing because you think oh I I seem to be sleeping with more boys nice should I do a press release you know it's a it's a really difficult one to know when to ten nights Alan Cummings speaking with Terry Gross in 2014 he starred as the MC in Cabaret three times in a 1993 London production in 1998 where he won a Tony for his performance

and again in a 2014 revival coming up with here more from Alan Cummings and we'll hear from another world-class Tony award winner Angela Lansbury she earned six Tony awards over her lifetime including for her performances as Mama Rose in the Broadway production of Gypsy and the pie shop owner Mrs. Love it in Sweeney Todd more after a break I'm David being coolie and this is fresh air So you see everyone in Berlin has a perfectly marvellous homemade some people have two people

ability to play and I'm the only man yeah I like it say like it say it's a one

with one second come on he won't be the key if you're just joining us we're celebrating

“the Tony Awards this Sunday by listening back to Terry's 2014 interview with Alan Cummings”

who won a Tony for his 1998 performance of the MC in Cabaret Cummings starred as the MC three times in a 1993 London production on Broadway in 1998 and again in 2014 they all were directed by Sam Mendez here's coming singing the song Money from the 1998 performance of Cabaret Man he makes the world go round it makes the world go round a mark a yen a buck or a pound a buck or a pound a buck or a pound is all that makes the world go round

that link can make the world go

“if you happen to be rich and you feel like a nice entertainment you can play for a gay”

escapate if you happen to be rich and alone and you need a companion you can make to the link for that night if you happen to be rich and you find you are left by your lover I call you moon and you wrong but I thought that you can take it on the chain corner cabin begin to rock out around your 14 carat yet Man he makes the world go round a buck or a pound a buck or a pound a buck or a pound

Man he makes the world go round a buck or a pound a buck or a pound a buck or a pound that we can be sure

“that's Alan coming singing money from the 1998 cast recording of Cabaret and he's starting now”

in the new revival of it I really do love the way you sing I don't want to hear how you prepared to sing for this role but before we talk about that I want to play you something that John Canter had to say I interviewed John Canter who wrote the music Fred Abroad the lyrics for Cabaret and I asked him what he did before composing the music for Cabaret and what he

listened to and here's what he told me for Cabaret I listened to a lot of German jazz and

Vaudeville music also of the late 20s and very early 30s and then promptly forgot about it it sounds like a very kind of crude way of doing research but it works for me you listen and you listen and you listen and then put it away and don't think about it anymore and I have this absolutely belief that the styles of the music that you've been listening to seep into your unconscious and come out in your own language and that was John Canter on fresh air

in 2003 so John Canter said that you know he listened to all this music and then just let it seep in as opposed to actually thinking about it when he was composing what did you listen to and did you have that attitude too that it would just naturally seep in? I'm a big believer in seepage I am the first time around I read a lot of stuff about the Vaimar Cabaret's and I'm just generally the history of that time what was great when we did it in London the first time

was Steven Spender who was one of the chums of Christopher Isherwood and double its orden those boys who were you know in Berlin at that time he was still alive then he came into rehearsal to ask and to sort of you know talk to us and we got to ask him questions so that was

amazing that someone who's actually really there and I said it was so funny because they said you

know just be very respect for don't you know stay off the whole sex thing blah blah so we're asking questions I could tell we were getting along and I said so Steven you boys from Oxford

this so you really went there to get shagged didn't you just want to get boys and he was like

of course we did and and I just I love the idea that this kind of amazing

period of history has been chronicles so amazingly by Christopher Isherwood and many other people but in this case by him was actually I'm a you know a happy accident because they really just went there they're from England you know pure dynamical shameful England and they went to Berlin where you could have sex with people all the time and go to dirty bars and no one would

“know so that was a key for me into getting into this role and to understanding what it was”

like in that time so you've met and performed with Liza Manelli yes what did she mean to you before you met her um and it's hard she almost it's almost like she was like a movie star from a long long time ago like the kind of like a like a silent movie star or something she had that kind of sort of missed swirling around her and I had seen the movie of Cabaret and I just I it was more like a lot of the thing it's hard to describe it was more like I was aware of the effect the effect she

had on the world and on people rather than knowing that much about her just you tell me it wasn't

till I was 30 I didn't really I'd never been to America I you know it was aware of you

American culture and things that in Britain but I didn't ever sort of engage in it fully because

“I don't know why I just didn't and then of course when I met Liza she came into my dressing with Fred”

Eb and uh is in this tiny dressing it was like kind of size of a shoe box and she came in and gave me a hug and said I don't know I want to be a friend forever which is such a darling thing to say and then everybody's so afraid of Alfred and when I finished talking to Fred I realized Liza had pushed herself against the wall and had her face in my wet towel which is hanging on a hook on the wall in order for me because room was so small in order for me to talk to

Fred and I was Liza you're squashed into my towel she's like I don't know I'd be squashed into your towel forever for you she's just she's just the most lovely hilarious person and I am and so I've been doing these concerts with her and stuff and just I now I just think

“lovely Liza and we have a real laugh and I think we just get on I don't know why we just we just”

have a really great understanding of each other. Did you give you any advice about Cabaret? Well I can't really say it. That sounds good. It's more just a kind of uh like when she came to see McBeth the McBeth I did last summer or the last two summers she said this thing which is a really great I'm actually love it I love this thing I'll just do a paraphrase it but she says she you know just for us about to go on I was really terrified

she went darling take no prisoners and if bleep the wounded and I think that's great I mean obviously not literally but um as I go get a man just you know don't let anything hold you back

isn't great sort of way of thinking about performing and um I am always a big I'm a big

believer in that you just have to dive off the cliff and um and so is Liza. Alan coming speaking with Terry Gross in 2014 after a break another Tony award winner Angela Landsbury she won six Tony awards over her lifetime including for her performances as Mama Rose in the Broadway production of Gypsy and the pie shop owner Mrs. Love It in Swini Todd will listen back to Terry's 1980 interview with Lansbury in which she discusses playing Mrs. Love It

and what it was like to work closely with Stephen Sahnheim this is fresh air in honor of the Tony awards this Sunday let's continue our celebration of Tony award winners we love Angela Landsbury delivered unforgettable performances for her starring roles in the Broadway musicals name Gypsy and Swini Todd her work on stage earned her five Tony awards plus a lifetime achievement Tony award in 2022 Landsbury who was born in 1925 died in 2022 at age 96

and while alleged on the stage she conquered other media as well she starred as Jessica Fletcher on the CBS mystery series murder she wrote for 12 years on film she appeared in the 1940 form movie Gaslight when she was only 19 and provided the voice of Mrs. Potts singing the

Swini Todd swept the Tony awards with eight wins including Best Musical and a Best Actress Award

“for Landsbury. The show was about a murderous barber in Victorian London. Landsbury played Mrs. Love It”

Swini Todd's accomplice she baked his victims into pies. I wonder what the first things

were they told you about it to explain what the show would be like. Well they took it for granted that I knew the legend because coming from England originally I know all about Swini Todd when I say I know all about Swini Todd. I know that he was almost a grand genial character that was sung about and little dogeral rhymes were written about you know Swini Todd will get you if you don't watch out he's a character almost like Jack the Ripper in English folklore and he turns

up and people's quote his name all the time. This is the third musical that Stephen Sahnheim had a contribution to of course he wrote this but he did a lyrics for Gypsy which you started in.

“Yes it's the third time I've worked with him actually. I see the kind of composer who will sit down”

at the piano with you and sing his songs for you to give you an idea of what he had in his mind.

Absolutely. Steve always auditions all his own work and the thing he loves to do when he

has a new song you want you to come over and hear it and when he's got a few he'll say come on over I want to play you the song that I've written for you in such and such a place in the script and pop over to his house and he'll sit down the piano and he'll sing the song. Kills himself laughing when he was playing the worst pies in London can you imagine try to play that and make all the sound effects and you know all the beats and so on which he'd done with

with the dough and the rolling pin and all of that he'd worked it all out every piece of business and that song Steve had written it was right there on the music she swaps the fly she hits the

dough she pops her mouth at whatever she does you know that moment and no wonder with the

present beat watch it this when you get nothing for that I live to see the day man they think it was a quick funny book and the most what I'm dying in the street Mrs. Mooney has a pie shop does a business but I've noticed something weird likely all the neighbors can't have disappeared after one to two or one what I call and to the public position to pass wouldn't do when my shop just a thought of it's a

nothing like a sick had I'm telling you then pussy cat is quick now denying times is hard so even harder than the worst pie he said London only la la la la the movies man just revolting old crazy and printing it looks like it's melting a ice like well pity a woman alone with limited wind and a wasp on a London I want to talk to you about the character that you play now you had said that

finding the character was left completely to you and you went back to books written about twenty taught in the original book to find out a little more about the character now you manage in the reduction to convey simultaneously meanness and humor ability to be murderous within ability to be extremely warm and friendly and hug-able lovable and you have the audience on your side as you're participating

in in these murders what are some of the ways do you feel that you're able to convey all of that and have have the audience with you like that I'm in this love it is it is really a conglomerate of all of that knowledge that I have of English theater going way way back she is almost a choreographed character she is so broad in her scope the idea is that she can do anything she can

slit your throat and you will love her as she's doing it because she does it with such a total childlike joy and amorality that anything goes now this is everybody's dream of a companion somebody who will adapt instantly to anything you would like to expect from her at that moment

“now that's what we all long for sweetly taught lucky devil found the very one now occasionally”

she goes she goes off on her own little tangent such as when she confides to him that her dream in life is really to retire by the seaside but if she didn't and if he didn't provide her

because she absolutely adores him and always did now these are all the things that I know about

“Mrs. Love it I have to try and sell you on the fact that this is the case about this this”

old bag lady but I do understand these things about her and so that is what I am playing all the time she is a victim of the gutter she is on the edge of the establishment absolutely anything goes the fact that they have no money and no food for the pies the most obvious thing in the world to her is to utilize those poor fellas coming down the shoot when you know me brother he is just popping to my head not keep thinking

things are downright shame things are no full waste such a nice plump fry what's he's nice at has nori can't be traced

“business needs are lit that's to be erased think of it as proofed as a gift if you get my”

proofed now seems an awful waste I mean with the present means what it is when you get it if you get it

huh good you got it take for instance Mrs. Moody and a pie shop business never better

using oven pussy cats and toast and a pussy's good for maybe six or seven of them and I'm sure they can't compare us far as types Mrs. Love it what a charming notion I need five to full now proof is ours Mrs. Love it how I live without you all these years I never know I thought about it like I'm a gentleman no thing because it's for a shandiff one tonight I'm sure it's for the house the sound of the world out there what is to tell what Mr. Tom

“what is that sound those crunching noises per fate in the house Mr. Todd yes Mr. Todd yes”

this man the following man idea oh these are desperate at times Mrs. Love it and desperate measures must be taken if y'all know what's out of the oven what is that it's crisp have a little crisp isn't really good sir it's too good at least then I can they don't come it's sins out of the flush so it's pretty fresh awful lot of fat only when it's sat haven't you got to pull it or something like that no you see the problem with how it is how do you know it's deceased

right the priest heavenly not as hot he is bishop perhaps but that was Angela landsbury in Len Cario singing a little priest from Sweeney Todd in 2022 landsbury won her sixth Tony for lifetime achievement she died that same year at the age of 96 the Tony's are scheduled to be televised Sunday night on CBS coming up film critic Justin Chang reviews the horror films backrooms and obsession this is fresh air the horror films back rooms and obsession defied expectations

by claiming the top two spots of the box office last weekend in what many are calling a game changing moment for the movie industry both are relatively low budget first features from 20 something directors who got their start making short films for their YouTube channels our film critic Justin Chang saw them both in 2019 a photo posted on the message board forechan gave rise to the creepy concept of the back rooms an endless maze of what appeared to be abandoned corporate

offices with beige carpets yellow walls and fluorescent lights the idea of being doomed to wander this mundane liminal space proved popular enough to inspire a horror meme and a web series directed by a teenager named Kane Parsons now Parsons is 20 and his new back rooms feature

is the number one movie at the box office with more than $80 million so far it's already made

back its budget and then some it's an elegantly disorienting movie with a number of riddles that at least initially it wisely avoids answering it's set in 1990 in the suburbs of Santa Clara Valley, California she would tell edgy a four plays Clark a middle-aged alcoholic with a failing

and finds himself in the back rooms he wanders the space for hours and his mad curiosity

“stokes hours too who built this ugly labyrinth and why and what is the strange”

hooking creature he hears and sometimes sees Clark returns to the back rooms day after day obsessively mapping out the different levels and marveling at the sometimes eccentric design choices and furnishings some of the chairs and shelves might have come from his store and one point he convinces his work assistant and her boyfriend to join him and film the place with a camcorder and which point the movie briefly becomes a spooky found footage thriller in the style of that

innovative 90s horror classic the Blair Witch Project so um it's like well again empty office building

in here sure but it's like it was made by a bunch of construction workers on acid and there's even a poll there's a pool yeah kind of keep up Clark also talks about the back rooms to his therapist

“Mary a wonderful Renata Ritesfay who becomes an important secondary character and one point”

we hear Mary articulate some of the movie's themes a little too bluntly we all have our loops our habits she says behaviors that keep us walking in circles Clark's new playground in other words is a kind of prison a metaphor for how we get stuck in traps of our own making but that's just one of many psychological readings that can be projected onto the back rooms for some viewers they will evoke the thrill and the terror of extreme isolation for others they'll remind them of the

pandemic when office buildings everywhere stood empty these are fascinating ideas but it's when persons begins trying to nail them down that his movie becomes a smaller more conventional thing than it was at the start back rooms is full of mysteries within mysteries it would have been better to leave more of them unsolved even so at its best back rooms can be unnervingly effective it also isn't the only horror movie that has defied expectations this summer since it's

May 15th release the ultra low budget supernatural thriller obsession has grossed more than $100

million making it one of the years most profitable films on the surface it's a less conceptually

“ambitious piece of work than back rooms but it's also I think the better and more genuinely”

subversive movie Michael Johnston plays bear a reserved young music store employee who's smitten with his friend and co-worker Nicky played by Indy Navarretti when he buys a novelty item at a crystal shop that claims to grant its owner a single wish bear half-heartedly wishes that Nicky would love him more than anyone in the world from there the 26 year old writer-director Kary Barker spends a story that's basically the monkeys paw meets fatal attraction Nicky and Bear become a couple

to the bewilderment of their friends and co-workers before long Nicky's magically induced feelings for Bear begin to manifest and increasingly disturbing shocking ways from extreme cleanness to jealous even homicidal fury obsession is thus the latest riff on the old adage to be careful what you wish for but what gives it its peculiar power is that it presents Nicky not Bear as the story's true victim bears wish is a supreme violation of her emotional,

spiritual, and physical autonomy and Navarretti's astonishing performance drama ties as an internal clash between two Nicky's she doesn't just go off the rails we see her at every step struggling to stay on the rails by the time Barker drops a direct reference to the exorcist it's already clear that obsession is a demonic possession movie it uses the prism of genre to speak to issues of consent, male loneliness, and how even a guy as seemingly kind and sensitive

as Bear can become a woman's worst nightmare Justin Chang is a film critic at the New Yorker he reviewed back rooms and obsession now in theaters on Monday show in celebration of the 15th anniversary of the Tony Award-winning musical The Book of Mormon the two original stars Andrew Randall's and Josh Gad will make guest appearances in a Broadway revival we'll talk to them both about the show and how it changed their lives they're both really funny on and off stage I hope you can join us

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