Episodes
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1984's Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eight Dimension was a fun, pulpy mess of a sci-fi adventure, which promised us a sequel... which we never got. Nearly 40 years later, screenwriter Earl Mac Rauch wrangled the rights to the character away from the studio and gave us a novelization of Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League, the movie he never got to make. And it's not very good.
So to wrap up Season 4, a brief meditation on the pitfalls of reviving a property by creating a watered-down version of the original instead of pushing forward with new ideas. As we coast to the end of the season, my voice is starting to go, so bear with me this week, as I talk about a movie I wanted and never got, the joy of throwing every crazy idea you can into a story, and the importance of keeping things moving forward.
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We take a break from the usual format this week to present the Snubby Awards, given to the best films and performance that were not nominated for an Oscar. Douglas Laman, film critic from The Spool, joins me to present and discuss this year's nominees. Films were nominated and winners were chosen by The Dissolve Facebook group, a community of film-lovers who wanted to keep the spirit of Pitchfork's short-lived, much-loved film web site going. Besides awarding snubbed performances in the major Oscar categories (Actress/Actor/Director/Picture), we also honor three categories the Academy does not see fit to recognize, Stuntwork, Voicework, and Casting. Winners will be given a gold statue of Spike Lee.
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In the 1890s, a British shipping clerk named Edmund Morel noticed the Belgians were shipping vast quantities of rubber from the Congo, then a Belgian colony, but the only thing they were sending in return were guns, explosives, and chains. Morel uncovered a scandal that shook the world, as it turned out Belgian King Leopold II was running Congo as his own private plantation, using horrific violence to keep the population working.
Washington D.C.-area journalist Orrin Konheim joins us to talk about how one of history's greatest atrocities was covered up, and then brought to light.
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Franklin Roosevelt was wildly popular when he was in office, and is universally acknowledged as one of our greatest presidents. But in 1933, not everyone agreed. Shortly after FDR took office, a cabal of wealthy businessmen who were worried the New Deal would undermine profits, recruited General Smedley Butler — a widely respected WWI hero and crusader for veterans' rights — and tried to convince him to rally the servicemen and vets who loved and respected him, and use them to overthrow FDR and bring fascism to America.
Journalist Natalia Megas (The Washington Post, The Guardian, Daily Beast) returns to the show to talk about The Business Plot, and whether it was a genuine threat to democracy, or just a lot of bluster. You can see some of her writing at nataliamegas.com, and find her on Twitter @DameWriter.
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Billy Haines was a silent movie star who made the transition to sound, but when the studio head made the openly gay actor an ultimatum — a sham marriage to a woman, or the end of his movie career. Haines chose love, quitting the movies, holding onto a relationship his friend Joan Crawford called "the happiest marriage in Hollywood," and got the best revenge of all: living well. Haines reinvented himself as the influential designer of the Hollywood Regency style, hobnobbing with movie stars and heads of state.
Shane Harris — Washington Post reporter, author of the books @War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex, The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State, and host of the podcast Chatter, which interviews people at the intersection of storytelling and national security — joins us to talk about the man who invented Old Hollywood glamour, and which director's personal connection to Haines makes him the perfect choice to tell his story.
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Boo Morcom was heavily favored to win the gold in pole vault at the 1948 Olympics. But he was playing hurt, in the rain, and missed his shot at the gold. So he tracked down the competitors who beat him, and challenged them all to rematches, just to prove he was the best. Morcom's grandson, former editor-in-chief of Gameological Society and The A.V. Club, and current host of the delightful podcast Pop Mom, where he and his mom discuss pop culture, joins us to talk about how you can't get back a moment in time, but you can still be stubborn enough to challenge the Olympics to a rematch.
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Mark Olmstead found out he had HIV at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, when the disease was a death sentence. Figuring he had nothing to lose, he pulled off a string of scams including credit card fraud, insurance fraud, dealing crystal meth, and faking his own death, assuming he’d be dead for real before any of the consequences caught up to him. Except he didn’t die.
Kim Daly, whose book The True Crime File hits bookstores May 10 and is available for pre-order now, brings us a movie idea that brings us both the dizzying highs and lows of a charming con man, and an unflinching look at the AIDS crisis of the 80s and 90s.
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For forty years, police in Saskatchewan, Canada were in the habit of arresting Ingdigenous men for minor offenses, or sometimes no reason at all, leaving them to freeze to death. And to this day, the police haven't been held accountable. Comedy writer and performer Tom Murphy joins us with a deadly serious story; the drama behind Canada's deadly "Starlight Tours" and the fight to bring the story to light.
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In 1966, an El Paso theater actor bet his screenwriter friend he could produce a horror movie all on his own. The result was Manos: The Hands of Fate, an incoherent, no-budget movie considered one of the worst films ever made. And yet, it did somehow get made, and 50 years later, people are still watching it. Pop culture writer and bad movie evangelist Nathan Rabin (The A.V. Club, The Dissolve, and several books including My Year of Flops, You Don't Know Me But You Don't Like Me, The Weird Accordion to Al) joins us to talk about why the story of how a terrible movie got made would make for a great movie. Also, look for his new book The Joy of Trash, and read more of his writing at Nathan Rabin's Happy Place (nathanrabin.com).
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Legendary Old West lawman Wyatt Earp fought at the O.K. Corrall, and then rode off into the sunset... but the story doesn't end there. Scott Bunn, who co-hosts the sports podcast Run That Back and authors the Bob Dylan blog ReclinerNotes.com, joins us to talk about Wyatt Earp resurfacing in 1910's Hollywood, where he worked as a bounty hunter and mingled with stars of the silent film era.
Also, one show note: we lamented that we hadn't heard much from director Curtis Hanson after his masterful one-two punch of L.A. Confidential and Wonder Boys 20 years ago. I forgot that Hanson passed away in 2016; his last film was 2012's surfing biopic Chasing Mavericks.
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Robert Smalls was an enslaved sailor on a Confederate ship, until late one night, he hijacked the ship, picked up his family and his crew's, and sailed into enemy lines. He went on to be a naval captain, a war hero, and a Congressman, but most importantly, a free man.
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In the 1870s, traveling by train through Palisade, Nevada was a heart-stopping experience. It was a Wild West hive of scum and villainy, with a constant tumult of fistfights, gunfights, and robberies in broad daylight. Except it was all fake — a show put on by the townspeople because they were bored and thought it would be funny.
No guest this week, as we're adjusting the format — we'll continue to do longer episodes with a guest every other week, but we'll alternate with shorter, just-me episodes, as now that people are gradually re-entering society, I have less time to edit the longer episodes, and I have fewer guests who are stuck at home dying to talk about movies.
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DC Comics has had a mixed record at the movies, but Boston Globe writer Nick Zaino, host of the podcast Department of Tangents, and first-ever WITNAM guest, returns to tell us why long-running, lesser-known DC title The Spectre is a better bet for the big screen than yet another take on the Joker.
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In 2020, a local TV host from Nebraska gained internet fame for a montage of her hilariously blunt interviews with A-list actors from the '70s and '80s. But her story goes far beyond one viral clip, as Drake burst into a male-dominated field and succeeded on her own terms, hosting and producing two TV shows that ran for decades, and interviewing everyone from local children and retirees to Hollywood stars. Artist and photographer Tony Cava joins us to about Drake's quintessentially Midwestern no-nonsense interviews, and why the juxtaposition of a small-city interviewer and Hollywood big shots needs to be a movie.
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October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so this week we have a true-life story from Kate Ranta, author of Killing Kate: A Story of Turning Abuse and Tragedy into Transformation and Triumph. Her seemingly happy marriage turned into a nightmare of abuse and attempted murder, but she survived and became and activist who's devoted her life to speaking out about how abuse victims are failed by the systems designed to help them.
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Something different this week, as we're talking about something that already is a movie: The Moment, a film that's edited in real time by an audience member's brainwaves. Director Richard Ramchurn talks to us about the technology behind his remarkable film, and the hithero-impossible storytelling possibilities it opens up. You can learn more about the film at braincontrolledmovie.co.uk, and see a live screening online on September 25 at 8pm Greenwich / 4pm Eastern / 1pm Pacific. (More info on the web site)
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Welcome back to Season 3 of Why Is This Not a Movie?! Every schoolchild knows the story of the Wright Brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk. But less well known is what came next — a tense couple of years in which the Wrights perfected their design for an airplane in secret, worried that someone might steal credit for their world-changing idea. Matt Voigts, an anthropology researcher who has a side gig in film production joins us to talk about the two eccentric tinkerers who built one of history's greatest inventions... and then wouldn't let anyone see it.
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We wrap up Season 2 with a remarkable story, as journalist and author Suki Kim tells us about the six months she spent undercover in Kim Jong Il's North Korea, teaching the children of the country's elite while in constant danger of being discovered. She recounted her experiences in a book, Without You, There Is No Us, now hear how she survived under an astonishingly oppressive regime, why a film adaptation needs to put the characters first and politics second, and why Ang Lee is the ideal director to bring this story of young people in a repressive environment to the big screen.
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In 1856, a 23-year-old woman named Kate Warne walked into the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency and demanded a job. They had never hired a woman to be anything other than a secretary, but she impressed them so much they made her America's first female detective. She caught bank robbers, embezzlers, murderers... and prevented the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
A quick episode this week, before we go out on a high note next week to wrap up Season 2 of Why Is This Not a Movie? and then take a break until September.
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Dorothy Kilgallen was a beloved entertainment reporter, a regular on What's My Line, when she took a hard left turn into crime reporting. She covered murders and organized crime. She was the only person to interview Jack Ruby after he killed Oswald, and got to see the Warren Commission report even before LBJ. But when she started to challenge the official story on JFK's assassination, she soon died under mysterious circumstances. Was she murdered? Print journalist Orrin Konheim joins us to talk about Kilgallen succeeding in a male-domainted field, getting close to the Kennedys, and then dying in a manner suspiciously similar to Marilyn Monroe.
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