Words and Movies

Show Me a Hero is a 2015 miniseries that was produced for HBO and helmed by David Simon, the mind behind The Wire, Treme, The Deuce and Homicide: Life On The Street. So most of his projects are fictional with a dash of real-life in them, but this one is based entirely on a true story and relies only on a few typical embellishments (e.g. combining characters or rearranging events to fit the broader narrative). The title comes from an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote: "Show me a hero and I'll show you a tragedy." It's the story of Nick Wascisko, the former cop and (as the show starts) city council member in the city of Yonkers, New York, which is just north of New York City. In 1987 Yonkers was embroiled in a segregation issue involving public housing, which was clustered in a specific part of town. A lawsuit led to forced desegregation of the public housing, and Wascisko's efforts to make it happen, but it's important to note that he initially opposed the order. As the city resisted, the courts punished them with increasing fines, to the point that ordinary city services began to suffer because the workers couldn't be paid. Ultimately the city did comply with the order, and the entire lawsuit was settled in full in 2007, but unfortunately Wascisko wasn't there to see that part of it happen. COMING ATTRACTIONS: Many Podcasts like to mark their 100th episode with some kind of spectacular retrospective or something; we're going to do it with...chess! Next time around we're going to spend time with six hours and change of chess with the Netflix series The Queen's Gambit. Yes, it's about chess but it's about a lot more and you don't have to understand the game to enjoy this one. Join us, won't you?

So to answer your first question: no, we didn't miscount. We're having a technical issue with Episode 98. If we can fix it, great and we'll release it when it's ready. If we can't, we'll have to re-record it. It's actually happened before, for a different reason, and while it's an interesting experiment to re-hash the discussion we already had, we realized that we don't really like doing it. Show Me a Hero is a 2015 miniseries that was produced for HBO and helmed by David Simon, the mind behind The Wire, Treme, The Deuce and Homicide: Life On The Street. So most of his projects are fictional with a dash of real-life in them, but this one is based entirely on a true story and relies only on a few typical embellishments (e.g. combining characters or rearranging events to fit the broader narrative). The title comes from an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote: "Show me a hero and I'll show you a tragedy." It's the story of Nick Wascisko, the former cop and (as the show starts) city council member in the city of Yonkers, New York, which is just north of New York City. In 1987 Yonkers was embroiled in a segregation issue involving public housing, which was clustered in a specific part of town. A lawsuit led to forced desegregation of the public housing, and Wascisko's efforts to make it happen, but it's important to note that he initially opposed the order. As the city resisted, the courts punished them with increasing fines, to the point that ordinary city services began to suffer because the workers couldn't be paid. Ultimately the city did comply with the order, and the entire lawsuit was settled in full in 2007, but unfortunately Wascisko wasn't there to see that part of it happen. Because Part 2 is also about Show Me a Hero, the show notes will again be more or less identical to these, Feel free to skip them.

In which we continue and conclude our discussion of Lonesome Dove. The mini-series is clearly not a strictly American phenomenon (as evidenced by our last episode), but there was a while when that could easily be the argument. It seemed as though mini-series were ubiquitous during the 1970s and 80s. The first by-definition mini-series in the US was probably The Blue Knight, which aired on NBC in 1973 and later became a regular series starring George Kennedy in the role originally played by William Holden. But the one that broke it all open for television was 1976's Rich Man, Poor Man, based on the Irwin Shaw novel. The blockbuster version of the mini-series came the following year, when Roots aired on ABC and became a cultural phenomenon literally overnight. Mini-series carried on into the early 1990s but were largely done in by budget considerations, especially since people were beginning to turn to cable and video as options for their viewing. And in my (Claude) opinion, part of the problem with many of these series is that their scope was quite narrow, or they were TOO broad. Roots' viewership, while still strong, dropped off over time because we were no longer following Kunta Kinte, but other characters a few generations removed. In the case of Rich Man, Poor Man, if you weren't interested in the basic story, you tuned out quickly. However: in 1989 a mini-series came out that was cinematic in scope, that followed the exploits of the same group of people over about two years' time, and had practically everything in it: love, hate, friendship, battles, heroes and villains, deaths (both expected and not), sacrifices and vengeance...it's like the Princess Bride of its time (Sean's probably gonna beat me for that one). That series was Lonesome Dove, based on the 1985 novel by Larry McMurtry. Lonesome Dove stars Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall as Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae, retired Texas Rangers who embark on one last cattle drive from the Rio Grande to the un-settled wilderness lands in Montana. The series also stars Diane Lane, Robert Urich, Chris Cooper and Anjelica Huston in strong supporting roles. If you haven't seen Lonesome Dove, do yourself a huge favor and check this version out. There are also sequels, prequels, a relatively short-lived (21 episodes) TV series, and I recently learned that it's coming back to Netflix as a drama series. What's not clear from the materials I've seen is whether they're sticking to the novel and being done with it, or if it's going to be another continuing series in that universe. But start with the 1989 original and thank me later.

The mini-series is clearly not a strictly American phenomenon (as evidenced by our last episode), but there was a while when that could easily be the argument. It seemed as though mini-series were ubiquitous during the 1970s and 80s. The first by-definition mini-series in the US was probably The Blue Knight, which aired on NBC in 1973 and later became a regular series starring George Kennedy in the role originally played by William Holden. But the one that broke it all open for television was 1976's Rich Man, Poor Man, based on the Irwin Shaw novel. The blockbuster version of the mini-series came the following year, when Roots aired on ABC and became a cultural phenomenon literally overnight. Mini-series carried on into the early 1990s but were largely done in by budget considerations, especially since people were beginning to turn to cable and video as options for their viewing. And in my (Claude) opinion, part of the problem with many of these series is that their scope was quite narrow, or they were TOO broad. Roots' viewership, while still strong, dropped off over time because we were no longer following Kunta Kinte, but other characters a few generations removed. In the case of Rich Man, Poor Man, if you weren't interested in the basic story, you tuned out quickly. However: in 1989 a mini-series came out that was cinematic in scope, that followed the exploits of the same group of people over about two years' time, and had practically everything in it: love, hate, friendship, battles, heroes and villains, deaths (both expected and not), sacrifices and vengeance...it's like the Princess Bride of its time (Sean's probably gonna beat me for that one). That series was Lonesome Dove, based on the 1985 novel by Larry McMurtry. Lonesome Dove stars Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall as Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae, retired Texas Rangers who embark on one last cattle drive from the Rio Grande to the un-settled wilderness lands in Montana. The series also stars Diane Lane, Robert Urich, Chris Cooper and Anjelica Huston in strong supporting roles. If you haven't seen Lonesome Dove, do yourself a huge favor and check this version out. There are also sequels, prequels, a relatively short-lived (21 episodes) TV series, and I recently learned that it's coming back to Netflix as a drama series. What's not clear from the materials I've seen is whether they're sticking to the novel and being done with it, or if it's going to be another continuing series in that universe. But start with the 1989 original and thank me later. Because Part 2 is also about Lonesome Dove, the show notes there will be nearly identical to the ones you see here, so you needn't bother reading them. I won't take it personally.

This is the first of five episodes we'll be covering which deal with miniseries, rather than theatrical films. The idea here is that when television decides they're going to do "events" and create these limited series ("limited" in the sense that there's a fixed number of episodes and no more are on the table), budgets tend to go up and the caliber of actor you get improves as well. But for all that, we're going to start with a miniseries that was also a theatrical film. Fanny and Alexander (1982) was written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, and was conceived and created as a miniseries, and edited that way with a run time of 312 minutes total. Afterward, this was cut down to 188 minutes for theatrical release. This version--which does, in fact, suffer from the cuts--actually managed to get released first. From time to time, theaters will show the 312-minute version, and that's the version we're discussing in our episode. In Sweden, it got positive reviews and did well at the box office; while it also got good reviews in the United States, it was overshadowed by films such as Return of the Jedi, Trading Places and Terms of Endearment, among others. Because we're spending both halves of the episode on Fanny and Alexander, don't look for anything new in the show notes for the second half. COMING ATTRACTIONS: In our next episode, we'll be looking at a miniseries that was certainly considered a major television event when it first came out. You'll laugh, you'll cry and you won't want to leave the world of Lonesome Dove. Join us, won't you?

This is the first of five episodes we'll be covering which deal with miniseries, rather than theatrical films. The idea here is that when television decides they're going to do "events" and create these limited series ("limited" in the sense that there's a fixed number of episodes and no more are on the table), budgets tend to go up and the caliber of actor you get improves as well. But for all that, we're going to start with a miniseries that was also a theatrical film. Fanny and Alexander (1982) was written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, and was conceived and created as a miniseries, and edited that way with a run time of 312 minutes total. Afterward, this was cut down to 188 minutes for theatrical release. This version--which does, in fact, suffer from the cuts--actually managed to get released first. From time to time, theaters will show the 312-minute version, and that's the version we're discussing in our episode. In Sweden, it got positive reviews and did well at the box office; while it also got good reviews in the United States, it was overshadowed by films such as Return of the Jedi, Trading Places and Terms of Endearment, among others. Because we're spending both halves of the episode on Fanny and Alexander, don't look for anything new in the show notes for the second half.

Running on Empty is an interesting film by Sidney Lumet that, in our opinion, doesn't get enough love. Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti play a married couple forced to go underground when their activist ways take an unfortunate turn and someone is accidentally killed. Now, that event took place nearly twenty years earlier, so it's mostly relevant as the setup to the film. In the present day, they have two boys: one is a tween and the other (Phoenix) is nearing the end of his high school career. Because of the parents' situation, they're forced to move frequently, take odd jobs and depend on old friends to cover for them. It's a cool take on the "sins of the fathers" argument, as their lives are having an effect on their oldest son, who is a talented musician and could conceivably miss out on getting a Juilliard education. Further complicating matters is his rapidly developing relationship with a girl at his school, played by Martha Plimpton. How does the entire family navigate these complications? COMING ATTRACTIONS: We're going to spend the next five episodes dealing with limited series, what the kids used to call miniseries. Our next episode will be the series version of Fanny and Alexander by Ingmar Bergman, which was eventually cut down into a feature-length film. We're going though all 312 minutes, though! Join us, won't you?:

In our last episode we looked at Grace Kelly, whose career was cut short by her own choice. She was given the option to be treated like a princess, or to go out and actually be an honest-to-god Princess. She chose both love and duty, since you can't really Princess and be a movie star at the same time. Fair. In today's episode, we look at a career that was cut short because the actor, who was otherwise very bright and talented, couldn't reel in his demons. River Phoenix died at the age of 23, of an overdose on Halloween night in 1993, collapsing outside a club he'd just left. The first film we'll be reviewing is the second film in his filmography, Stand By Me, directed by Rob Reiner. (Please note that Sean and I recorded this episode before Reiner's untimely death, which is why it's not addressed here.) Stand By Me is an adaptation of a Stephen King novella called The Body, and manages to improve on the original, possibly because King wasn't obviously writing for an eventual movie audience (a reason I mostly quit reading his stuff). The story follows four boys over a couple of days during the summer before they got to high school, on a journey to recover the body of someone who'd gone missing. They find the body, but they also find a lot of insights in each other. In Part 4 we'll look at Running on Empty, a film Phoenix made two years later.

In 1955, Kelly paired up with Alfred Hitchcock again, to make To Catch a Thief, co-starring Cary Grant. Grant plays a retired cat burglar who is suspected of committing a new series of robberies, so he sets up a big job as a kind of sting operation to nab the person who's making him look like he's returned to a life of crime. Grace Kelly plays one of his potential victims in this scheme, and there are all kinds of interesting twists that, when viewed through a modern lens, you may see coming, but then again you may not. COMING ATTRACTIONS: In our next episode we continue the series with a career cut short by tragedy. River Phoenix was an actor with a great deal of promise who unfortunately couldn't control his demons. We begin with Stand By Me from 1986 (which has a second tragedy attached to it by now, but we recorded this long before Rob Reiner's death), and then peek at one of his lesser-known—but of similar quality—films, Running On Empty, from 1988. Join us, won't you?

Sean and I originally came up with something like a half-dozen subjects for this miniseries, including a few actors from Saturday Night Live who made the jump into films. But ultimately it became kind of unwieldy, so we limited ourselves to two full episodes. Hollywood and show business fame in general can be a brutal place, and careers can end for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes actors just fall out of favor (Uma Thurman or Orlando Bloom, perhaps). Sometimes they say/do something controversial (Will Smith, Wesley Snipes). Sometimes—often the case with child actors—they decide they just want to do something else and leave the industry (Peter Ostrum, Mara Wilson). And some actors leave for more noble reasons. Rick Moranis retired for several years to raise his children after his wife died. Phoebe Cates married Kevin Kline and chose not to return to acting even though the opportunities were still coming. Then there was Grace Kelly. Grace Kelly got involved with an honest-to-god prince, Rainier of Monaco, and simply walked away from the industry. She made eleven films (not counting documentaries), and about a month after finishing her last film, High Society, she married Rainier and that was pretty much that. So in today's episode we'll be looking at two of Kelly's films. We begin with 1954's Rear Window, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and co-starring James Stewart. It's a taut thriller that maybe had the unfortunate side effect of making voyeurism look attractive. In Part 2 of today's episode we'll be talking about To Catch a Thief from 1955.