Faces to Watch in ’92 : These are the people Calendar’s critics and writers think you’ll be hearing about in 1992. In some cases, they’re familiar people who will experience a transitional year. Some are newcomers who could have a breakthrough year. : MICHAEL TOLKIN

Michael Tolkin has a deadpan irony that can get you in trouble, especially if you make movies. In 1991’s “The Rapture,” Tolkin’s debut as writer-director, he dealt with subjects usually anathema in current American films--life and death, man and God, faith and unbelief--and did it with such surprising force and tragic inevitability that “The Rapture” was one of a handful of new American movies at the 1991 New York Film Festival. He has several films forthcoming, including one he’ll direct, and he’s just finished a novel. Tolkin’s next movie--as writer-producer--will probably divide and provoke audiences even more than “The Rapture.” It’s a backstage Hollywood drama based on his novel “The Player,” and, with it, the great maverick director Robert Altman delightfully excoriates the dubious practices and amoral procedures of the modern-day studio system. Tolkin is second-generation show business--his father was head writer on the classic Sid Caesar show--and his insider/outsider savvy should keep him going through “The Player” and beyond.