Javier Bardem & Chloe Sevigny deserve Emmy’s for their performances in “Monsters: The Menendez Brothers”

What does Emmy possess?

They were both wonderful.

They deserve Emmy's what, OP?

JFC r3 go eat a bag of dicks.

All of the performances are first-rate: the main four but also Ari Graynor as Leslie Abramson, Leslie Grossman as Judalon Smyth, Dallas Roberts as Jerome Oziel, Nathan Lane as Dominick Dunne, etc.

I understand people’s tendency to rate Koch over Chavez because of episode 5, but I think they’re equally strong. Chavez is protean and captures the series’ shifting tones beautifully: he embodies the cocky asshole, hurt little boy, and callous murderer within a single episode.

Who plays Lyle's wig?

Why don't they try to make the actors look like the actual people anymore?

I remember in the '90s there was a two-part TV movie starring Edward James Olmos and Beverly D'Angelo as the parents.

They really went out of their way to make them resemble the real people.

The actor who played Lyle was practically a double.

R7 the actors who played them in the 2017 miniseries that starred Edie Falco as their lawyer cast guys who looked like them too.

I wish Kitty had a little bit more Drew Droege going

The casting for the 2017 miniseries

I would kill to see Drew Droege play either Kitty Menendez or C. Z. Guest.

[quote]Leslie Grossman as Judalon Smyth

I misread that as Naomi Grossman, who played Pepper the pinhead in AHS: Asylum, and thought, "Wow, that's a lot of range."

I fucking hate that Nick Cortez Chavez whatever his name is.

R13 now that you mention it, the Priest role in Murphy’s new show is the exact role he would usually cast Evan Peters in. Chavez is definitely his new pet.

Poor Evan aged out.

I actually have two indirect ties to the Menendez brothers.

- a friend of mine went to Princeton with Lyle and Menendez was the recipient of his secret Santa that December (they did secret Santa in one of the classes they shared). One day he went to give Lyle his gift in December but he had suddenly and mysteriously “withdrawn from the college”. Out of nowhere he was withdrawn, phone line disconnected and all. He tried reaching him to give him the gift but never heard from him again. Around March of 1990 (I believe) they all found out what happened with Lyle.

- a different friend has a brother who is a prison guard and the brothers are both on his block now.

Emmy’s what?

Javier Bardem is such a good actor, he's been awesome in everything I've seen him in. He comes from a family of well-known actors in Spain.

R18 agreed. He’s a phenomenal actor. He always turns in top tier work. He was amazing in No Country For Old Men! I loved him in Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Dune II also.

They do not. They're both fine in this but they're not even in the show a lot. The whole thing is pulpy like all of Murphy's productions.

How dare you OP for not including Vicki Lawrence! She deserves an Emmy as well!

R7 here.

I meant the actor who played Erik was uncanny.

R20 it’s called a supporting performance. There is an episode that is 100% about them too. They were seen. And they did a phenomenal job.

This story has been retold to death over the years, whether it be a tv movie or a miniseries or a documentary. This is the most popular one though.

I don’t like how many people are defending the brother though. “They should have never been locked up”, yes, they should have. Young people are all over the internet crying and whining about these two guys being locked up, but they were locked up rightfully.

It’s terrible that their father was raping them and their mother allowed it to happen (allegedly) and I do believe them about that. Their father was a disgusting pedo pervert closet case who loved fucking little boys and teenagers, including his own sons. He allegedly raped Menudo members too, which I believe with that said, I don’t believe they killed him because of the rapes and even if they did kill him as payback for raping them, it was done in a premeditated manner. It wasn’t a situation where there was an altercation that led to this randomly occurring within the moment. They literally got together and planned this beforehand then went through with it. Immediately, you’re GUILTY now.

Young people don’t acknowledge how their father decided to cut them off and take them out of the will and let them know he was doing so days prior to him being murdered. What about them burglarizing numerous people, just because? These two were fucked in the head and it stemmed from their parents but that doesn’t change that they planned to murder their parents after they were going to be cut off financially and actually went through with it in a very violent manner.

and isn’t the new story that they were fucking each other like spring rabbits?

R24 yes, Jose did tell them he was taking them out of the will and they were getting cut off but before doing that he bought Lyle a condo to have. Jose and Kitty were planning on going to the condo (in another city) to decorate and furnish it for him too. So even while on the verge of being “cut off” they still made sure he was ok first.

Truth is they were rich spoiled boys who wanted to take over their fathers estate. The murder had nothing to do with the abuse they endured, and their actions after murdering their parents confirms that.

Gen Z are the most gullible, stupid generation despite them having more resources than any previous generation to be the smartest. I’m not at all shocked they believe every word those MURDERERS say like gospel. We are speaking about a generation of people who can’t even keep a job.

R25 there were rumors the brothers were incestuous back when the case was happening. Ryan Murphy had a couple of moments in the show that implied this but it was never blatantly shown nor was it something heavily included in the show. I saw the scene where Lyle gives Erik a kiss on the lips going viral on tiktok and people were bitching about it being incestuous but when I watched the show and that scene came about the kiss didn’t feel sexual at all. It was a peck on the lips in a moment of excitement for Lyle. It wasn’t deep the way Gen Z (the usual suspects) made it seem. The only scene that implied sexual attraction is the scene where the brothers are at that party and start dancing with each other.

Bardem is incannily cast, but Sevigny is too narrow-faced and Anglo to be Kitty. Kitty was a very broad-faced, portly Latina that even the cheap blonde dyed hair couldn't disguise. The entire family looks Cuban except for her in the cast photo. Sevigny may have done a wonderful job acting, but she was no Cubana, even from Spanish heritage. That was a stumbling block, as much as the fake floating wig

I think the sum total of lifelong abuse from the parents created two sons who were nuts. What was their burglary thing about? They were abused in many ways by their parents perhaps the sexual abuse the most damning.

But the father is the original monster. He created two sociopaths consumed with hate. That does not at all get the sons off- toxic abuse is is not self defense- close but not quite.

I still teeter back and forth over why I think the brothers killed their parents. The one main thing I came away from the series that I am sure of is that I would very much like to shower with José, Lyle and Erik.

I think 🤔 you’d, sadly, be outgunned

Chloe was also excellent in that Capote miniseries.

[quote] He allegedly raped Menudo members too

Did he eat menudo too?

The INcanny valley

Is the troll who keeps insisting across multiple threads that the entire cast deserves "Emmy's" [sic] the hyperappreciative Lynn Stairmaster?

I love the idea that Leslie Grossman would get an Emmy.

I’m Chloe Sevigny.

[quote]Bardem is incannily cast, but Sevigny is too narrow-faced and Anglo to be Kitty. Kitty was a very broad-faced, portly Latina that even the cheap blonde dyed hair couldn't disguise.

Chloe Sevigny is of French Canadian and Polish ancestry. Kitty Menendez (maiden name: Mary Louise Anderson) was actually of Anglo ancestry. She was not Latina at all.

I love Chloe Sevigny as an actor — she should have won the Oscar the year she was nominated for Boys Don’t Cry — and it’s ridiculous that she doesn’t have a single Emmy nomination after excellent performances in Big Love, The Act, Russian Doll, The Girl from Plainville, and Capote.

It was good, it's entertaining. It's well done but this shit was kinda schlocky guys. I was partly disappointed we got no flashbacks to their childhoods before Beverly Hills. Ari Graynor was good. She captured something of Leslie Abramson but I wanted her to have more bite and chew the scenery more.

Chloe should have served up Kitty on Towoast

R14 Of course he is. Murphy loves his straight boys. He will never take an actual gay man as his muse.

Have we compared her to the real Kitty? She gets to do an angry mom scolding her kids a couple of times. There's a nice shot of her shock at her fingers being blown off. She manages a little playfulness in the final boat scene.

R36 I haven't fully researched the story nor its people, but "Andersen" is a common surname in Denmark/Norway and a ton of Scandinavians settled in the Midwest, where Kitty was born/raised (i.e. Illinois).

Ok so she may have been Nordic and Not Anglo. The point is she wasn't Latina.

R24 Nailed it. I believe they were sexually abused by their father, but I don't think that was the main reason for killing their parents. I think money was the main reason.

I feel gay baited on the Erik story line.

R45 The real Erik is even more confusing. He pings like crazy yet is apparently straight.

[quote]I love Chloe Sevigny as an actor — she should have won the Oscar the year she was nominated for Boys Don’t Cry — and it’s ridiculous that she doesn’t have a single Emmy nomination after excellent performances in Big Love, The Act, Russian Doll, The Girl from Plainville, and Capote.

Angelina Jolie won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar that year for "Girl, Interrupted."

Incidentally, Travis Fine, who played Erik in "Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills" at R22 played the orderly in "Girl, Interrupted" who gets seduced by Winona and Angelina in this scene:

R36 - Seriously! I'm kind of shocked. Kitty always looked Latina with a ridiculous blonde wig atop her head.

R26 Someone on another Menendez thread posted this 1994 article about the TV movie at R22 where the actor Travis Fine discusses playing Erik and what Erik's friends had to say about him.

[quote]Travis Fine portrays Erik Menendez in second made-for-TV movie about the infamous murders.

[quote]When the producers of the new CBS mini-series, ``Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills' hired Travis Fine to portray Erik, little did they know what a perfect choice they'd made.Sure, the 25-year-old actor who stars opposite Edward James Olmos, Beverly D'Angelo and Damian Chapa in this re-creation of the infamous Menendez murders and subsequent trials is a dead ringer for the real-life Erik. But Fine also brings some unique edges to his portrayal: The young actor lived a mere four blocks from the Menendez home while growing up in Beverly Hills, and he and his wife of one year, Jessica, both attended Beverly Hills High School, Erik Menendez' alma mater. (Fine graduated before Erik, Jessica at the same time.)

[quote]Following the double murder, when initially the assumption was that it had been a Mafia hit, Jessica even dated Erik Menendez for a while. And after graduating from high school, Jessica told Fine that if a film was ever made about the case, he would be ideal to play Erik.

[quote]However, even with this inside take on Erik's character and the case, Fine, who starred for three seasons on the Emmy Award-winning series ``The Young Riders,' and whose feature credits include ``Child's Play 3,' reports that ``getting a handle on Erik was the most difficult thing I've done so far.

[quote]``I'm playing Erik from the age of 16 to 22, present day,' he says, ``and I tried to piece together as accurate a portrait as I could by talking to everyone who knew him. Of course I talked to my wife, and I talked to friends he'd hang out with, and to people who saw how he reacted around his parents, because, like all of us, there are different sides to a person.'

[quote]Fine says he came away feeling that Erik ``was highly unusual in the way he showed his different sides. It was almost as if he had multiple personalities, because the descriptions I got from his friends were so far removed from the descriptions I got from his parents' friends. His friends told me he was wild and crazy and fun, while according to his parents' friends, he was very quiet and subdued and respectful of his father. So there was this huge discrepancy, which I found very interesting.' Like the rest of the country, Fine was riveted by the brothers' trial.

[quote]``It was a strange feeling to be playing a character and to also watch the real-life drama unfold at the same time,' he explains.

[quote]But according to Fine, art and real life collided noisily when defense lawyer Leslie Abramson ``went out of her way to attack our show as insensitive and inaccurate, which is ridiculous,' he notes.

R49 That's actually very interesting, especially this part:

[Quote]His friends told me he was wild and crazy and fun, while according to his parents' friends, he was very quiet and subdued and respectful of his father. So there was this huge discrepancy, which I found very interesting.' Like the rest of the country, Fine was riveted by the brothers' trial.

Erik said the portrayal of Lyle was very wrong on Monsters. Their family have said that they were both kinda quiet and shy. But maybe the family didn't know everything? Maybe they really were the party type after all?

There’s nothing like when Chloe dances and loses herself in the hypnotic club scene. I wish they would have shown Kitty letting loose like that!

R27 Mary-Louise Andersen aka Kitty Menendez was not Cuban. She was WASPy American from Oak Lawn, Illinois.

Maybe do some research

Read the thread.

R45 you shouldn’t. His sexuality was always in question by his parents and throughout this case. No one believed he was straight but he was adamant he is a heterosexual man.

The truth is he wasn’t straight, but like most young people of that time, they would never admit to that. They would be labeled immoral and sick and he definitely would have been thrown into jail if he admitted he was gay. He has stuck with that story but the truth is he had a friend as a teen he was fucking. A male friend.

R38 I like that she didn’t chew the scenery and overact. She played it very real and I liked it. She was great throughout but watch episode 8. She’s phenomenal

Emmy = singular

Emmy's = plural

R1 and others, the argument could be made that Emmy possesses Awards… much the way that McDonald’s possesses Restaurant.

The brothers were liars. Huge liars. They sunk their own ship more than once. I remember when the trial was happening and their stories had tons of holes in them and they were inconsistent. It was a mess.

And they weren’t the good samaritans and kind quiet souls some have tried painting them as. We are speaking about two guys who went around burglarizing other rich people nearby until they got caught and their father paid off the victims to not press charges to sweep it under the rug. Lyle got into big trouble in Princeton for destroying school property. They weren’t what some claim, or had multiple personalities.

Listen to some of Dominic Dunne’s (Nathan Lane) dialogue while discussing the guys. His character is there to tell the viewer what was happening in swift scoops. The brothers were in prison having meltdowns (especially Erik), getting into trouble, fights, tried creating a second escape plan after getting in trouble for the first, etc. This is all shit people ignore.

Don’t you mean, “...a bag of Dick’s...” R4?

Javier Bardem actually scares Me. Im on eposode 8 next..but ive said numerous times that id have killed Josè myself. He was a monster and both parents were possibly better off dead. The cast has done a brilliantly entertaining job. The burglaries are the one thing that stops me feeling too sorry for them. When Im on their side, then think of the robberies I doubt their stories and lose some sympathy for them. I think this is a phenomenally important part of their story and if I was a juror it might have made me skeptical that they were taking us for mugs, and it might just have swung my vote to guilty.

Jose was physically abusive in public, that was corroborated by witnesses. The face slapping at the tennis match really happened.

Don’t forget the people who came forward on the second trial and spoke against the brothers and said they never saw Jose do a bad thing to those boys and if anything the parents were scared of the boys. No one knows what really happened in that family. The truth is that their lawyer used sexual abuse and rape with numerous other trials prior to theirs to help get her clients off. This was used against them in the end. It almost worked during that first trial but because it ended up in a stalemate because the men didn’t buy it and hated the female lawyer, they had to go to a second trial.

In real life The first trial had two two different juries sitting in the room, one for Lyle and one for Erik. They each had their own lawyers too. The second trial, which was long after, was one single jury and by then the media and public turned on them because of so much new info that came out about that situation, including leaked tapes of Lyle that showed he wasn’t remorseful, and spilled the beans that most of what he was saying was a lie and his tears were an act. There was no coming back from it after all that. The public turned on the lawyer too because they found out she used the same tactics (abuse and sexual assault and rape) to help get others off so now it made their case look like a lie.

R61 I’ve never seen anyone testify that was true.

[quote][R1] and others, the argument could be made that Emmy possesses Awards… much the way that McDonald’s possesses Restaurant.

That argument would be completely unconvincing.

There is no such person or organization known as "Emmy" singular affiliated with the awards, so that argument makes no sense.

Here is how the awards got their name:

[quote] The term "Emmy" derives from "Immy", the television industry slang for a TV camera image orthicon tube.

r66 it's in some of the books.

OMFG I wish Jose Menendez could come back to life just so he could rape and strangle the grammar and punctuation trolls, and then Erik and Lyle Menendez could be let out of prison to blow their fucking heads off.

GET A FUCKING LIFE

Interesting that the men on the first jury voted guilty and the women voted not guilty. The men all hated Leslie Abramson. I wonder if instead of Leslie, if it had been a male attorney how the men on the jury would've voted.

R70 but that would also leave the question of how the women would vote with a male attorney.

She was why those women believed the guys so much. Would they feel as warm and like those boys were their own sons without her?

Currently watching the movie Lifetime made about them in 2017 starring Courtney Love as Kitty and Nico Tortorella as Lyle

Who knows r71. If a male lawyer presented the exact same case would the women on the jury have been as sympathetic? Would the men on the jury been sympathetic at all? It's an interesting question.

[quote]Jose was physically abusive in public, that was corroborated by witnesses. The face slapping at the tennis match really happened.

Did he do it VICIOUSLY?

Was he a secret Datalounger?

José would definitely have been a Datalounger. A Tasteful Friend, and a Total Top.

But the real question: is Cooper Koch a Datlounger? I feel like he'd lurk in the Shawna Mendes threads.

No. Because they’re busy working. R76. He’s a young gay in a smash hit series traveling around the world right now doing press for it.

Dick’s process a lot of cum

Dick’s posses a lot of cum

R54 But he is married to a woman today and has never even has a prison lover (Lyle did). Maybe he's bi though, who knows. Word on the street is that Lyle is openly bisexual but Erik is straight. I find this odd, because like you said he was fooling around with a male friend as a teen. Maybe he was just experimenting though idk.

What makes me question the brothers is the fact that Lyle didn't even testify during the second trial, which I find odd. There's also the screenplay that Erik wrote about rich white kids killing their parents to get the inheritance. Then of course you have Norma's book about all of Lyle's lies. It does make me question them, whether they were lying or not. There's also the fact that Abramson had used the abuse angle in previous cases before.

On the other hand you have the letter Erik sent his cousin before the murders, confirming the abuse. There's also the fact that Jose allegedly abused a Menudo member.

It's hard to make up an opinion, but I tend to lean towards them actually being abused. But I still don't believe they have been telling the whole story. I believe they told some lies. I also think they mainly killed their parents for the money, even if they were abused. Both can be true.

Everyone in this abortion overacts. I blame the director not the actors.

R81 two things can be true.

Their father probably was molesting them. I believe them. But their motive in killing their parents wasn’t that. It was money. Their father took them out of the will and left it all to Kitty. That’s why they had to kill them both.

Facts that people ignore, the brothers went on a shopping spree right after their parents were killed. After they dealt with police, they went on a spending spree, buying a new car, jewelry, clothing, living in the Beverly Hills Hotel and throwing massive parties filled with drugs. The very first thing Lyle bought himself was a Rolex watch, which ironically was what he was asking his father to buy him and his father said no because all the brothers did was be stupid and get into trouble. They didn’t wanna work, didn’t take school seriously, were spoiled brats who threw tantrums etc. Isn’t it strange that the first thing Lyle rushed to buy was the item his father said no to despite Lyle wanting it so bad? They spent over $700k in a very short period of time. Lyle also took numerous vacations all over the world and Erik hired a new tennis instructor and entered himself into a tournament overseas.

These weren’t the actions of two young guys mourning the loss of their parents, they were celebrating the loss of their parents. They now could spend their father’s $90 million dollar fortune, and with how they were spending, it wouldn’t have lasted long.

Another thing they did was make sure to find the safe their father most likely had the new will in, the new will that removed them from inheriting money. They kept it with them at all times, even sleeping with it. Lyle finally was able to get into it and made sure to destroy the will that omitted them from the money.

Again, not the actions of guys who killed their parents in “self defense”. It was about money. Little did they know, the police were watching them this whole time and their spending sprees, expensive vacations and cocaine parties right after the deaths of their parents is what made them the #1 suspects.

[Quote]Their father probably was molesting them. I believe them. But their motive in killing their parents wasn’t that. It was money. Their father took them out of the will and left it all to Kitty. That’s why they had to kill them both.

This. The main motive for killing them was obviously the inheritance, not the abuse, though I do believe they were abused.

I actually love watching clips of them watching the show together. I didn’t know the dinner scene was the first scene they shot.

Ugh, Cooper is annoying. Nice to look at, but shut the fuck up. He just gushes the whole time.

Vicky Lawrence will be the sole Emmy winner from the show.

Kitty was not a Latina.

Read the thread.

Javier Bardem could fuck me with an emmy.. He is fire.

R52 Lyle said they were half Cuban and half Scandinavian. I assume Kitty was the Scandinavian side of the family.

R91 clearly it was her, as we know Jose was Cuban.

How many hours is the show?

R93 idk exact hours but most episodes are between 30-40 minutes and there are 9 of them.

R15 No, he didn't.

[Quote]Evan Peters will star in and executive produce Ryan Murphy’s “The Beauty” for FX! The 11-episode first season begins filming in November. Adapting the comics of the same name, the show follow detectives investigating an STD that turns its victims beautiful and kills them.

R16, could you get both of those friends in touch with each other, so the prison guard can finally give Lyle his secret Santa present?

R36 and R42, R43 Erik said he was Scandinavian on his mom's side.