#The actors and co creator of the show said he’s jewish

[doyouknowthisjewishcharacter]

Do you know this Jewish character?

[d-criss-news]

Three months after launch, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman’s short-form service Quibi is entering its first awards season.

As the nascent platform, which is still finding its feet with subscribers, kicks off its debut FYC campaign, Deadline has assembled a virtual roundtable of creators and stars to explore how it lured Hollywood A-listers to the second screen, what they really thought of it when they first heard about it, the creative process, the importance of owning their own rights and how they see things going forward.

Joining us were Darren Criss, co-creator, songwriter and star of musical comedy Royalties, Nicole Richie, creator and star of irreverent comedy Nikki Fre$h, Cody Heller, creator of Anna Kendrick sex doll comedy Dummy, Veena Sud, creator of dark thriller The Stranger and Nick Santora, creator of Liam Hemsworth action drama Most Dangerous Game.

DEADLINE: What did you think of Quibi when you first heard about it?

Nicole Richie: I went in there and I had a general with them, not really knowing what I was going to make. Separately, I was kind of preparing to do this comedy album without the show around it and I sat with [Jeffrey Katzenberg] and talked to him about the platform and the idea that it was for these in between moments, and that it’s quick bites, it’s ten minutes or less, and it was something that, I found it very smart and pretty exciting. I’ve done short-form before so I definitely felt like I could do it. There’s a lot of young creative people there and I was very excited to work with them.

Darren Criss: Just like everybody else in the industry I’d heard about Quibi. Obviously, anything that you know, Jeffrey Katzenberg attaches himself, my ears kind of perk up. So, I’d been aware of the concept. I think the specific idea of short form was never something that I thought ‘I have to make short form, nor was it, oh my God, that’s the worst thing ever’. For me, what excited me about Quibi, much like Nicole said, was the fact that it was this new thing. I always gravitate towards the renegade kind of out-of-box thinkers and I always think it’s an exciting opportunity to try something.

In many respects, it is the Wild West. So, when you’re shooting stuff you go, man is this going to fly, do we do it in this aspect ratio, how do we edit this, what is the precedent here, and in the lack of precedent I think for a lot of people that is actually kind of a scary thing where you say ‘We don’t know what works and what doesn’t work’, but for me I actually look at it as a really cool thing because you’re like, ‘Wow, fuck it, shoot it, ask questions later’. We get to decide what the thing is or not. I really was excited by that, it’s a really kind of fresh kind of community of people that are with the company that just got me excited about doing something in a new way.

Cody Heller: I had a weird evolution of Dummy (left) becoming a real thing, it was kind of a twisty journey. I had just written it as a script to get me staffed on other shows years ago and then I had a general meeting with Colin Davis who used to work at TBS and I actually had it set up to be a short form show at TBS, when they were attempting something like 15-minute late night programming thing with edgy stuff. So, I had written seven 15 minute episodes and then the whole block at TBS died. I was devastated but I was already working on this other show on Showtime, so that’s the way it is and I moved on.

Then like a year later you know, I kept in touch with Colin because he’s just a cool dude, and he gave me a call and he said ‘I left TBS, I’m at this new place, you never heard of it before because it doesn’t exist yet. It’s called Quibi. I hope you don’t mind, I gave all your scripts to Jeffrey Katzenberg and he loves them and he wants to meet with you next week’. It was just like the most surreal experience, like I went in and met with Jeffrey and he was quoting lines from these insane, very raunchy scripts, and he just got the show. It was so exciting and cool to have this older Jewish gentleman totally grasp and get what I was going for. That was just so exciting.

Veena Sud: I felt when I met with Jeffrey that what he was talking about was nothing short of potentially revolutionary in how we look at content, from the vertical screen obviously, but also how people would look at our storytelling, and what device they would watch it on. I thought about how radically different our relationship is with these things we walk around with in our hands than it is with the screens that we watched you know, in our homes or in the theaters. The device itself allowed for potentially a very different experience in content, which was really, really interesting to me.

Nick Santora: Well, my initial reaction was ’What the hell is this?’ I went to meet with Jeffrey, like it seems everyone else on the call did and he’s a very impressive guy, and he’s full of energy, and full of enthusiasm. It was coming off this Most Dangerous Game being a pilot for NBC that didn’t go, and he said, ‘Listen, can you basically add a hundred pages to this and blow it up?’ When he was talking about the ten minute segments I just had a feeling what I wanted to write would work really well for that because you just needed a cliffhanger or a twist or a turn about every nine or ten minutes. I worked on Prison Break and that show was bananas, and every commercial break was a massive cliffhanger and every episode out was an even bigger cliffhanger so I said, ‘I’m going to have to do this 15 times and I thought I could I don’t know if it would have worked better anywhere else. I think it really worked well in the Quibi format because, I call it Pringles entertainment, you just pop one in your mouth every nine minutes.

DEADLINE: How was the actual process of writing, producing and editing in this way?

Nick Santora: The writing for me was the same, I just needed to make sure that organically that every nine to ten pages there was an oh shit moment that would make people want to watch the next episode. The prep was very different because I had to work very closely with my director to make sure that in addition to filming it the way we would normally film something for network television or any television that didn’t have a turnstyle device, we had to have three cameras rolling at all time and we had to make sure and prep for the shot based on the location, based on the actors, based on what was going on in the scene, that the vertical and the horizontal would both have something very interesting to fill the frame. We always had a third camera running to catch the vertical, especially when you’re doing action and we have guys you know, jumping off of boats onto bridges and stupid shit or crazy shit like that, you want to make sure you’re getting it in the frame if people are turning their phones in either direction.

That was challenging and really fun though, and then editing was effectively the same if I’m being honest, it’s just that you had to do a vertical pass and edit the entire thing for you know, for a vertical turnstyle watch. But that wasn’t that big of a deal because it all comes down to making sure you’re editing it in a way that’s visually interesting and tells a good story. The prep was where it was most different for me, where we had to basically say, this is going to basically be two different movies, one vertical and one horizontal.

Veena Sud: What was so fascinating for me with The Stranger, directing it as well, was having to think really radically in terms of not thinking about vertical and horizontal as separate entities. I really wanted to have one monitor. Looking at two monitors or three monitors is really just kind of out of my wheelhouse. I like to look at one thing when I’m directing and focus on performance mostly. So, I had to have something baked in that would allow me to have that freedom to be looking at the actors versus, ‘Are we getting the shot?’. One thing we talked about extensively in prep, which was radically different because of this is, how do you service this story and allow the audience to feel what they would feel on a bigger screen and not feel less? What I mean by this is, if you hold a phone vertically you’re automatically losing east and west, right?

We looked at other shows that had tried to do vertical framing and very quickly started to think this is going to be a disaster unless we come up with a whole other aesthetic approach to this. So, really quickly, instead of thinking east and west in terms of the screen, think of north and south, and think of A to Z. Think of infinities, think of the depth of what you’re looking at. Think of going as deep into the screen as you possibly can in a way that maybe traditionally you wouldn’t think of when you have a landscape you know, when you have that aspect ratio. So, that’s why we had people moving, that’s why we’re always leading and following for the most part, that’s why all the environments were constantly changing, and we were looking for infinity lines constantly when we’re shooting and prepping. So, pushing the aisles of a grocery store closer together so that as the actor moves through them you would see left and right in a way that you know, traditionally you would not see if you were shooting that type of aspect ratio.

Darren Criss: Obviously for the three comedy weirdos here, the medium services our genres in very, very different ways than to Nick and Veena. I was really impressed with the way that they utilized what might seem a limitation in storytelling. I noticed it consciously. I wondered how they were going to fill all of the big action stuff in here. Yes, there is this aspect ratio thing, there’s the short form, you’re still applying the same rules that you would apply to if Katzenberg told all of us ‘I want a three-hour movie’ but if it was just that, if your idea is good enough, if you’re dexterous enough as a storyteller, you can kind of kneed the dough to fill in the space that you’re given. People have thought of really cool ways to maximize their narrative within this very specific box and that variety of nuance is such an exciting thing and the fact that that’s possible in such a fresh way is like something not to be ignored.

Cody Heller: We’re all just so fucking talented [laughs]. With [The Stranger and Most Dangerous Game], I did find myself wanting to experience both versions, so I want to rewatch in the vertical just to see the difference and experience it both ways. That is different than my experience because for me I really did just kind of center frame everything, like I shot everything in one big square and then just had demarcations on the video village screen. Because I had this show where literally it’s mostly one character and then a sex doll, most of the time they’re close enough together that it’s not really an issue, but the only times I would really notice it would be establishing shots. It was such a fun challenge to rise to and I loved the experience.

DEADLINE: Do you think these shows could be made anywhere else and if not, were you aware of that while you were making them?

Cody Heller: I don’t think I could have made this show anywhere else. I think my show, in particular, blends itself so well to ten minutes because I think if you made it a half hour you’d have to really go into [B] stories, which I think for my show it just works better as a smaller piece about Cody and Barbara. Quibi was so supportive and gave me so much artistic freedom that I just cannot speak highly enough of their whole team. They give really good notes that makes it so much better.

I really loved the challenge of taking on something new and the turnstyle thing was exciting. One thing that was super cool that I didn’t think of while I was shooting but noticed during the editing process, was because Quibi has to be ten minutes, it can’t be more than ten minutes but it can be less than ten minutes, and the episodes don’t have to be uniform in length, that was very liberating in the edit stage because then I was able to say this scene that I thought was so funny on the page, it didn’t really play as I thought and it’s not necessary to the story, let’s just cut the whole scene.

Nicole Richie: Cody mentioned having the A story and the B story on a television show and just having it be the A story, it does feel very intimate. I do feel like a B story on your phone doesn’t really work because when you are watching on a phone, you really do want to be locked in to that story, and from a comedy perspective, I love the jokes, but I’m very conscious of the breath after the joke, letting people digest that. With a show like Nikki Fre$h you know, only focusing on two people and then the music video, I was able to shoot that and give the jokes a moment. I can’t see this show living anywhere else.

Darren Criss: I think ideally anything that you make is so good in that particular mode of communication that you simply cannot imagine it anywhere else because the meal has been cooked so well. But I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot if somebody would like to make a five-movie franchise deal with Royalties [laughs].

I don’t think this could have existed anywhere else in any other format simply because I don’t think anybody else would have taken a chance on what we were doing. That is one of the valuable parts that I kind of glazed over about Quibi is that they’re really creator forward and really empowering a lot of the creators. It sounds like we all had a date with the Great Oz [Jeffrey Katzenberg]. I’d like to think it could exist in other places because I’d like to think our idea is malleable enough to fit in other places, but it comes down to the belief system and the support from someone in Jeffrey Katzenberg’s shoes.

DEADLINE: Have you had any feedback in terms of whether people watched in one go or in short bursts?

Veena Sud: It’s been anecdotal and it’s been both. Some waited for the whole thing to drop so they could watch it all in one go, because that’s the muscle that we’re used to as Americans now, with all the streaming devices. The most fascinating feedback were people who watched it day by day and feeling their growing anxiety and their growing desperation for the next hit. That was fascinating because while I was cutting and shooting simultaneously, you could feel that growing kind of addictive nature of something that’s less than ten minutes long and that does have cliffhangers built into it. It’s pretty fascinating to see how the need for the next, and the next, and then next grows over time.

Cody Heller: I binged The Stranger and I think if I had to wait each day I’d probably would have had many panic attacks every day. It would have been such a different experience, and now I am curious and kind of wish that I had experienced it that way because that’s so fascinating.

Can I just circle back to one thing that we were talking about before… Nicole, you made a really smart interesting point about the phone and it being this personal thing. For me I was one of the early ones to shoot and I didn’t know at the time that it was only for your phone. I thought that you were going to be able to also watch it on your TV, so I wasn’t really aware of that and then when I found out later during post-production I was kind of bummed since I thought that especially for comedy and especially during corona, like people love to laugh together. I was happy when they decided to add the possibility to your TV feature because I love nothing more than going to the theater and laughing with people. You can’t do that during Corona but at least you can be with family members or whoever we’re quarantined with and watch something together.

Also, I just want to say one other thing, Nicole Richie, you seriously, like could be in a Christopher Guest movie.

DEADLINE: Quibi’s rights position is that you can retain the IP and after two years repackage these shows into long form versions if you want to. How important was that for you and have you thought about that since you made these shows?

Nick Santora: I’m in the process of dealing with that right now. We have a potential buyer very interested in doing Most Dangerous Game as a feature film, and it was a big selling point to me because I just intuitively thought I could take those ten-minute segments and work with the composer to smooth out some of the musical cues, get the establishing shots that we would need to act as bridges and in just a matter of weeks with some minimal effort, turn it into a nice hour and fifty-minute movie that would play really well. There’s a fair amount of interest and I think we’re going to be successful in selling it. It was a selling point to me because you know, you want as many people to see your work as possible, and I think it’s great that Quibi gives you the opportunity to just turn it into another platform and see if it can be successful there. I’m interested to see how it plays out.

Darren Criss: I think for everybody it’s sort of a no-brainer deal. If anything, it’s sort of a brilliant way to incentivize the creator to deliver the best shit humanly possible because it’s a money back guarantee. Having this deal, I kept asking what’s the catch here, like this simply cannot be the case. I was so grateful frankly for the set up that was given behind our deal that, aside from just personally wanting to make something great, I was incentivized to make this really as kickass as humanly possible for the hand the fed me.

Veena Sud: What I found so fascinating about the idea of retaining the rights to what I create, even in its modified form, is this discussion has not been around since the 70s and United Artists. It’s the radical idea that we, as creators, get to own the thing that we create, which is revolutionary and beautiful. Katzenberg introducing it into the ecosystem of our industry is something that needs to be talked about and will be resisted being talked about certainly, but let’s talk about it. Let’s use this wonderful incentive that he provided us as artists to come and play in a sandbox that hasn’t been tested as a way for we, as artists, to start talking about that we should own the rights to what we create.

Darren Criss: One of the things that Jeffrey said on the first rollout of introducing Quibi, like maybe two years ago, was saying up top that this is the single handedly most disruptive time in the entertainment industry’s history, and so structures like Veena’s talking about are being kind of thrown out the window and everyone’s kind going, wait a second, things don’t need to be like this.

I mean, right now people are considering this with the very nature of how Coronavirus is making cooperate structures reconsider their rent on buildings. We are reconsidering a lot of old things that we say, ‘Wait a second, this was maybe not the best thing’. I think we all know what I’m talking about on a much more social scale. There are a lot of things that are happening where, I think the renegades again are stepping forward and saying ‘This is fucked, why don’t we think of a different way that can empower us in a way that can really service the things we’re making in a more fruitful way.

The very question of you asking ‘Was it a good thing that you get your thing back in two years?’, that’s crazy that that gets to be a causal question. It’s an amazing thing and of all the things I think are really great about Quibi I would hope that it starts this conversation and this precedent for fueling creative in this way, and not just for the selfish sort of economic notions that I get out of it, but empowering creators can only be a good thing. I’m very careful with that because I don’t want to sound like a maniacal egotist, but there’s so many things that really incentivize positive things about content when it’s done in this structure.

Cody Heller: I mean I just can’t wait to own it again so that I can sell it to Disney+ [laughs].

—

DEADLINE: Darren, you were making Royalties at the same time as Hollywood. Would you want to do more Royalties?

Darren Criss: Yeah [but] hopefully I don’t have to do them all at the same time. I certainly echo what Cody was saying and I feel like anybody in a creative position is definitely hypercognitive of following those same principals. Having an opportunity to look at systems in different ways, in a way that can benefit so many people, is an exciting thing. It’s not, ‘Oh crap, how am I going to pull this off?. It’s like, okay, cool, let’s get all the people involved that we can to make this something really special and more beneficial for everybody involved. I mean look, we’re a whacky, zany comedy about writers that write goofy songs. That is sort of an ever-green game. There is a big pile of funny little puppies in the pen that I really want to give a home. That if there is a second season it’s giving them a place to go because we had to earn those ideas.

The hardest thing about a first season is establishing an audience’s trust, knowing your way around your actors and how the things going to look. It’s not until the second go that you kind of get to roll up your sleeves and go, alright, so here’s what we can really do, now I know what I’m working with. I really look forward in getting to do anything in a second season simply because now I’ve watched other people’s shows, I’ve seen how my show functions on this thing, I’ve seen how people react to my character’s and my jokes, and the songs, I now want to see if I can make those things that I threw out the first go, but hey, that is not up to me, that’s up to Katzenberg.

[justforbooks]

Terry Jones obituary

One morning Brian Cohen, completely naked, flung open the shutters at his bedroom window to find a mob below hailing him as the Messiah. Mrs Cohen, played by Terry Jones, who has died aged 77, had something to say about that. “He’s not the Messiah. He’s a very naughty boy,” she told the disappointed crowd. It became a classic cinema moment.

The 1979 film Monty Python’s Life of Brian, a satire about an ordinary Jewish boy mistaken for the Messiah, which Jones directed and co-wrote with his fellow Pythons Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle and Michael Palin, was banned by 39 British local authorities, and by Ireland and Norway. Jones and his chums were unrepentant: they even launched a Swedish poster campaign with the slogan: “So funny it was banned in Norway.”

As for Jones’s performance as Mandy Cohen, it united two leading facets of the funnyman’s repertoire: his fondness for female impersonation, and his passion for historical revisionism. The latter was evident not just in his work for Monty Python – in which his historian’s sensibility proved essential to the satire of Arthurian England in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), which he co-directed and co-wrote – but also in several documentaries and books in which he stood up for what he took to be the misrepresented Middle Ages.

“We think of medieval England as being a place of unbelievable cruelty and darkness and superstition,” he said. “We think of it as all being about fair maidens in castles, and witch-burning, and a belief that the world was flat. Yet all these things are wrong.”

Arguably, without Jones, Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969-74) would not have revolutionised British TV comedy. He was key in developing the show’s distinctively trippy, stream-of-consciousness format, where each surreal set-up (the Lumberjack Song, the upper-class twit of the year show, the dead parrot, or the fish-slapping dance) flowed into the next, unpunctuated by punchlines.

For all his directorial flair, though, Jones may well be best remembered for creating such characters as Arthur “Two Sheds” Jackson, Cardinal Biggles of the Spanish Inquisition, the Scottish poet Ewan McTeagle and the monstrous musician rodent beater in the mouse organ sketch who hits specially tuned mice with mallets.

Thanks to the show’s success, Jones was able to diversify into working as a writer, poet, librettist, film director, comedian, actor and historian. “I’ve been very lucky to have been able to act, write and direct and not have to choose just the one thing,” he said.

Jones was a second world war baby, born in Colwyn Bay, north Wales, and brought up by his mother, Dilys (nee Newnes), and grandmother, while his father, Alick Jones, was stationed with the RAF in India. He recalled meeting his father for the first time when he returned from war service: “Through plumes of steam at the end of the platform, he appeared – this lone figure in a forage cap and holding a kit bag. He ran over and kissed my mum, then my brother, then bent down and picked me up and planted one right on me. I’d only ever been kissed by the smooth lips of a lady up until that point, so his bristly moustache was quite disturbing.”

When he was four, the family moved to Surrey so his father could take up an appointment as a bank clerk. Terry attended primary school in Esher and the Royal Grammar school in Guildford. He studied English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and developed a lifelong interest in medieval history as a result of reading Chaucer.

At Oxford, he started the Experimental Theatre Company with his friend and contemporary Michael Rudman, performing everything from Brecht to cabaret. He also met Palin and the historian Robert Hewson, and collaborated with them on a satire on the death penalty called Hang Down Your Head and Die. It was set in a circus ring, with Jones playing the condemned man. He and Palin then worked together on the Oxford Revue, a satirical sketch show they performed at the 1964 Edinburgh festival, where he met David Frost as well as Chapman, Idle and Cleese.

After graduation, he was hired as a copywriter for Anglia Television and then taken on as a script editor at the BBC, where he worked as joke writer for BBC2’s Late Night Line-Up (1964-72). Jones and Palin became fixtures on the booming TV satire scene, writing for, among other BBC shows, The Frost Report (1966-67) and The Kathy Kirby Show (1964), as well as the ITV comedy sketch series Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967-69).

In 1967, he and Palin were invited to write and perform for Twice a Fortnight, a BBC sketch show that provided a training ground not only for a third of the Pythons (Jones and Palin), but two-thirds of the Goodies (Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie) and the co-creator of the 1980s political sitcom Yes Minister, Jonathan Lynn.

Jones and Palin wrote and starred in The Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969) for LWT. Its conceit was to relate historical incidents as if TV had existed at the time. In one sketch, Samuel Pepys was a chat show host; in another, a young couple of ancient Britons looking for their first home were shown around the brand-new Stonehenge. “It’s got character, charm – and a slab in the middle,” said the estate agent.

In the same year, he became one of the six founders of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. They expected the show to be quickly decommissioned by BBC bosses. “Every episode we’d be there biting our nails hoping someone might find it funny. Right up until the middle of the second series John Cleese’s mum was still sending him job adverts for supermarket managers cut out from her local newspaper,” Jones recalled. “It was only when they started receiving sackfuls of correspondence from school kids saying they loved it that we knew we were saved.”

After Python finished its run on TV, Jones went on to direct several films with the troupe. The first, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, was, he recalled, “a disaster when we first showed it. The audiences would laugh for the first five minutes and then silence, nothing. So we re-cut it. Then we’d show it in different cities, saying, ‘We’re worried about our film, would you come and look at it?’ And as a result people would come and they’d all be terribly worried about it too, so it was a nightmare.”

He had more fun co-writing and directing two series for the BBC called Ripping Yarns (1976-79) in which Palin starred as a series of heroic characters in mock-adventure stories, among them Across the Andes by Frog, and Roger of the Raj, sending up interwar literature aimed at schoolboys.

Jones directed and starred in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which some religious groups denounced for supposedly mocking Christianity. Jones defended the film: “It wasn’t about what Christ was saying, but about the people who followed him – the ones who for the next 2,000 years would torture and kill each other because they couldn’t agree on what he was saying about peace and love.”

In 1983 he directed Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, in which he made, perhaps, his most disgusting appearance, as Mr Creosote, a ludicrously obese diner, who is served dishes while vomiting repeatedly.

During this decade Jones diversified, proving there was life after Python. In 1980, he published Chaucer’s Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary, arguing that the supposed paragon of Christian virtue could be demonstrated to be, if one studied the battles Chaucer claimed he was involved in, a typical, perhaps even vicious, mercenary. He also set out to overturn the idea of Richard II presented in the work of Shakespeare “who paints him more like sort of a weak … unmanly character”. Jones portrayed the king as a victim of spin: “There’s a possibility that Richard was actually a popular king,” he said.

He wrote children’s books, starting with The Saga of Erik the Viking (1983), which he composed originally for his son, Bill. A book of rhymes, The Curse of the Vampire’s Socks (1989), featured such characters as the Sewer Kangaroo and Moby Duck.

In 1987, he directed Personal Services, a film about the madam of a suburban brothel catering for older men, starring Julie Walters. The story was inspired by the experiences of the Streatham brothel-keeper Cynthia Payne. Jones proudly related that three of four films banned in Ireland were directed by him – The Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life and Personal Services.

Two years later, he directed Erik the Viking, a film adaptation of his book, with Tim Robbins in the title role of a young Norseman who declines to go into the family line of raping and pillaging. In 1996, he adapted Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows for the big screen, giving himself the role of Mr Toad, with Ratty and Mole played by Idle and Steve Coogan. But it was rarely screened in cinemas. “It was ruined by studio politicking between Disney and Columbia Tristar,” he said. “We made a really nice film but no one saw it. It didn’t make any money, even though it was well reviewed.”

Jones was also unfortunate with his next film project. Absolutely Anything, based on a script he wrote with the screenwriter Gavin Scott, concerned aliens coming to Earth and giving one person absolute power. Plans were scuppered when a movie with a similar premise, Bruce Almighty, starring Jim Carrey, was released in 2003. Only in 2015 did Jones manage to film Absolutely Anything, in which Simon Pegg, playing a mild-mannered schoolteacher, is given miraculous powers by a council of CGI aliens voiced by Jones and his former Monty Python colleagues. Robin Williams, in one of his last roles, voiced Pegg’s dog.

Jones made well-received history documentaries, including in 2002 The Hidden History of Egypt, The Hidden History of Rome and The Hidden History of Sex & Love, in which he examined the diets, hygiene, careers, sex lives and domestic arrangements of the ancient world, often appearing in the films as an ancient character, sometimes dressed as a woman.

In his book Who Murdered Chaucer? (2003), he wondered if the poet had been killed on behalf of King Henry IV for being politically troublesome.

He wrote for the Guardian, about the poll tax, nuclear power and the ozone layer. He became a vocal opponent of the Iraq war, and his articles on the subject were collected under the title Terry Jones’s War on the War on Terror (2004).

In his 2006 BBC series Barbarians, Jones sought to show that supposedly primitive Celts and savage Goths were nothing of the kind and that the ancient Greeks and Persians were neither as ineffectual nor as effete as the ancient Romans supposed. Best of all, he sought to demonstrate that it was not the Vandals and other north European tribes who destroyed Rome but Rome itself, thanks to the loss of its African tax base.

When Jones was asked what he would like on his tombstone, he did not want to be remembered as a Python, perhaps surprisingly, but for his writing and historical work. “Maybe a description of me as a writer of children’s books or maybe as the man who restored Richard II’s reputation. I think those are my best bits.”

In 2016, it was announced that Jones had been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia, a form of dementia that impairs the ability to communicate. He and his family and friends spoke about his experiences to help others living with the condition.

Jones is survived by his second wife, Anna (nee Söderström), whom he married in 2012, and their daughter, Siri; and by Bill and Sally, the children of his first marriage, to Alison Telfer, which ended in divorce.

• Terence Graham Parry Jones, writer, actor and director, born 1 February 1942; died 21 January 2020

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Fran Drescher, Millennial Whisperer – The New York Times

Fran Drescher’s voice, if you ever have the chance to hear it deployed in very close vicinity over shrimp tempura and spicy tuna sushi, is actually quite soothing.

When Drescher played Fran Fine on “The Nanny,” the 1990s sitcom she created with her then-husband Peter Marc Jacobson, she was pitching her voice higher, squeezing it up her nose, acting. Back then, The New York Times compared Drescher to “the sound of a Buick with an empty gas tank cold-cranking on a winter morning.” But here in her living room above Central Park, sitting among crystals, fresh lemons, fine sculpture and photographs of herself meeting establishment Democrats, she sounds more like a Mercedes purring out of the Long Island Expressway. For those who grew up with “The Nanny” as our nanny, her voice is so embedded in the subconscious that hearing the softened version is almost therapeutic. Imagine if Nanny Fine had an ASMR setting.

“I’ve heard it’s like a foghorn, a cackle,” Drescher said carefully, balancing her plate in the lap of her little black dress. “I always just describe myself as having a unique voice.” When she left Queens for Hollywood in the late 1970s, her manager told her, “If you want to play other parts, besides hookers, you’re going to have to learn to speak differently,” she recalled. Instead Drescher leaned into her natural gifts. In 1992, she pitched herself as a sitcom star to the president of CBS: “Because of the voice, they think I’m the seasoning in the show,” she told him. “That’s wrong. I’m a main course.”

America has not heard from Drescher much lately — she has not appeared regularly on television since her TV Land sitcom “Happily Divorced” ended in 2013, and “The Nanny” is sadly hard to stream — but this week, at 62, she returns to TV with NBC’s “Indebted.” As in the pilot of “The Nanny,” Drescher appears unexpectedly on a doorstep, except this time, it belongs to her adult son (Adam Pally). She and Steven Weber play Debbie and Stew Klein, a couple of boomer dilettantes who crash their kid’s married life with the news that they’re in debt. The role of Debbie, a boundaryless hugger who swans around her son’s suburban home as if it’s her own personal retirement community, inverts the “Nanny” dynamic: Now the kids have to take care of her.

When Drescher weighed whether to take on the show, a family sitcom that draws on generational conflict, she thought of her own family. “My parents, who are still alive, thank God, were so excited about me being on network television again,” she said. “You know, not everybody could find TV Land,” she added, “but everybody could find NBC.”

The role was not written for Drescher, exactly. The pilot script had called for a “Fran Drescher type,” and when the real Fran Drescher signed on, she required a few adjustments. “People are used to seeing an annoying mother-in-law in a sitcom, but that’s not what I signed up for,” Drescher said. “When you have somebody whose persona is bigger than the part, you got to make it right for me. Or why have me?”

That meant giving Debbie Klein some passions of her own. “I had to bring myself into it,” she said. “I really infused the sex appeal, the sensuality, the vivaciousness of the character.”

“Indebted” creator Dan Levy, a comedian and producer for “The Goldbergs,” said that he originally modeled Debbie and Stew after his own parents, but that the steaminess was all Drescher. “My mom was like, ‘That’s not based on us,’” Levy said. “She elevated that to a whole level that I was not expecting.”

In the decades since Drescher first opened her mouth onscreen, the Fran Drescher type has achieved a quiet dominance over popular culture. “The Nanny” has been syndicated around the world and remade in a dozen countries, including Turkey (where it was called “Dadi”), Poland (“Niania”) and Argentina (“La Niñera”). In “The Nanny,” for anyone who doesn’t have the chatty theme song implanted in her brain, Drescher plays a Jewish woman from Queens hired to tend to the three precocious children of a wealthy English widower, Maxwell Sheffield, who is also Broadway’s second-most-successful producer (after his nemesis, Andrew Lloyd Webber). In foreign versions, the ethnicities are recalibrated — in the Russian one, the nanny is Ukrainian — but the Fran Drescher type is otherwise preserved. Wherever she goes, the ethnic striver is transplanted into a posh setting as the help, and her appealing culture and individual charm pull off the ultimate makeover — reinventing the strait-laced insiders in her own brash image.

Across the internet, Fran Fine is helping to perform similar tricks. With her pile of hair, power-clashing wardrobe and cartoon proportions, she has been fashioned into an avatar of stylish self-respect. In GIFs spirited around social media, she can be seen in a cheetah-print skirt suit, sipping from a cheetah-print teacup; inhaling a plate of spaghetti with no hands; and descending the Sheffields’ ivory staircase as if entering New York’s hottest club.

“I send this when I’m excited,” Drescher said, summoning her phone from her assistant Jordan and thumbing to a GIF of Fine twirling across the mansion in a fuchsia dress and a self-satisfied look. “How many people can send their own GIF?”

The Fran Drescher type is a kind of advisory role. First she was the world’s nanny, showing kids how to mix prints and be themselves, and now she has matured into a cool-aunt persona, modeling a fabulous adulthood. (“Broad City” made this transformation literal, squeezing Drescher into a low cut rainbow and cheetah-print dress and casting her as Ilana’s Aunt Bev, and by extension the spirit guide for a new generation of Jewish comediennes.) “I’ve never had kids, so I’m not really parental,” Drescher said. “I’m a mom to my dogs.”

“I’m kind of an influencer,” she added. Drescher has led an unconventional life, and “I share it,” she said. “It gives my life purpose.” In two memoirs, she has discussed being raped at gunpoint in her 20s, surviving uterine cancer in her 40s, and divorcing Jacobson only to acquire a new gay best friend when he subsequently came out. Recently she thrilled the internet when she revealed that she has secured a “friend with benefits” whom she meets twice a month for television viewing and sex. “I don’t think it’s that shocking a thing,” Drescher said. “I’m not in love with him.”

The kids who grew up watching “The Nanny” are now Nanny Fine’s age, old enough to properly covet her closet and cultivate a newfound respect for her persona. On Instagram, the @whatfranwore account catalogs classic “Nanny” outfits, and @thenannyart pairs them with contemporary art pieces. Cardi B once captioned a photo of herself in head-to-toe cat prints: “Fran Drescher in @dolceandgabbana.” The actor Isabelle Owens will mount a one-woman song-and-dance show dedicated to Drescher in New York this month, called “Fran Drescher, Please Adopt Me!” “As everything from the ’90s comes back, people are rediscovering her,” Owens said, noting Drescher’s fashion, her confidence, and her voice; Owens is still working to perfect her impersonation. “There are so many layers to it,” she said. “It’s so delicate and lyrical.”

The Fran Drescher type, no matter how big it gets, still risks reducing the woman behind it. “All of her is in me, but not all of me is in her,” Drescher said. “I don’t think any of my characters could have ever created and executive-produced ‘The Nanny.’” Fran Fine might have been able to wrap the boss around her red-lacquered little finger, but Drescher is the boss. When she secured her own New York apartment, in 2004, it was here, just across the park from the house that stood in for the Sheffield mansion on “The Nanny.” Soon her transformation into Mr. Sheffield will be complete: She is developing a Broadway show of her own, a musical adaptation of “The Nanny” that she will co-write with Jacobson.

“The Nanny” is a timely bid for Broadway. Drescher takes the stage’s most classic feminine archetype and gives her a modern upgrade: She is Eliza Doolittle if she refused to take her voice lessons.

That’s perhaps the biggest misconception about the Fran Drescher type — that the voice is an unfortunate obstacle, rather than a cultivated asset. Once, a fan asked Drescher about the classic “Nanny” scene where Fran Fine goes for sushi, naïvely swallows a wad of wasabi, and says, in an eerily neutral broadcaster’s voice, “Gee, you know, that mustard really clears out the nasal passages.” The fan wanted to know how Drescher had managed to pull that voice off. Sitting in her parkside apartment, perched in her producer’s chair, confidently apportioning her wasabi, Drescher revealed her secret: “I’m very talented.”

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/fran-drescher-millennial-whisperer-the-new-york-times-2/

[castyourpodtothewind]

CYPTTW Review #8 - Welcome to Night Vale

Who the hell are you?! Hi! I’m Taylor and I recently dived headfirst into podcasts! I have since binged on several of them and decided to make reviews of the ones that really stood out. These are not going to be big, professional reviews (I’m lazy) but they should hopefully contain information to help you get into some great new listens!

Where do you listen to your podcasts? My personal recommendation for listening to podcasts is the Pocket Casts app, available for Android or iPhone. It costs $3.99 to buy, but I think it's super worth it, since it has a lot of great features and zero in-app ads, which to me is worth every penny. But if you like free apps or just don't have the scratch right now, my runner up is Podcast Addict. It's free and has some (but not all) of the features Pocket Casts has, plus you have to deal with the ads. But if you don't like either of those, do some searching! There's lots of options out there.

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Name of Podcast: Welcome to Night Vale

Creators of Podcast: Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor, Night Vale Presents

Genre(s): Horror, Humor, NPR-style

Start and End Date of Podcast: June 15th, 2012 - Present

Number of Episodes: 134 (as of 9/15/2018)

Release Schedule: New episodes every 1st and 15th of the month!

Where Can I Find It: http://www.welcometonightvale.com/

Donation/Patreon?: Can be found on their official site!

Age Rating: This show is notorious for getting pretty violent and creepy at times. PG-13.

Where I Am Now: Caught Up

Official Summary: Welcome to Night Vale is a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff's Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events.

Representation?: AND HOW! This podcast has one of the best reputations for representation, and it’s well deserved. Whether it’s LGBT, Jewish, Muslim, POC, Non-Binary, People With Disabilities, any combination of those things and more, this show is extremely refreshing for those who love a diverse cast that is treated as the most normal thing in a strange town.

Transcripts?: There are two illustrated transcript books available for sale so far, but a diligent fan has been making up-to-date transcripts and they’re awesome, so go check them out! @cecilspeaks

Trigger Warnings?: Death, Body Horror, Gore, Unpleasant Sound Effects, Disturbing Content

How Long To Listen Before Giving Up?: I fell in love with this show instantly, but if you’re new, I would listen until at least episode 13-20.

Anything Else I Should Know?: They do tons of live shows and sell recordings on their Bandcamp page! They also have released two novels and the aforementioned transcript books. They have also confirmed that FX has picked them up for a TV series!

If You Like This, You Might Also Like: King Falls AM, Limetown, Alice Isn’t Dead

Pros

This show is known as “The Gateway Podcast”, and I feel that’s a very deserving title. This show was, like to many others, my first podcast, and it definitely deserves a lot of credit for opening our minds to what this medium could be. The show told a new story in a very creative way and I love how many people it’s inspired to make their own podcasts. While it eventually led us to find other series to sink our teeth into, I think we still definitely owe it praise for how much work got put into making this a very special series. It is still a wonderful podcast and if you’re new to the medium, this show is an excellent place to start and will probably be the first on people’s list of recommendations.

Changing Carlos’ voice actor was a great choice. For those who don’t know, Jeffrey Cranor, co-creator of the show, originally did Carlos’ voice, but stepped down from the role when he realized it wasn’t a good thing to have a straight white guy play a gay Latino character. Dylan Marron was brought in (and his voice is ADORABLE) and they even gave a believable canon reason for why the voice was different. It warms my heart to see people actually do the right thing as far as diverse casting is concerned.

Cecil and Carlos are CANON. It’s easy to take for granted, but still, it’s amazing. It’s a slow burn until their relationship really starts to take off, but I felt that was a very realistic view of them finding each other. The show is great at dropping little hints every now and then that they’re getting closer, then finally bringing it to the forefront when they become official. And you get to see their happy moments of domesticity, their adorable conversations over text and on the phone, hear why the two love each other more than anything, and even get to see realistic arguments and realizations of your partner’s flaws. I feel like their relationship is written very believably and Cecil Baldwin and Dylan Marron have excellent chemistry with each other. A lot of fans are divided about the Desert Otherworld arc, and while that arc did drag on for quite a while, I think it was a good way of showing conflict between the two of them without having them outright fight or go for cheap drama. Like Joseph Fink said on Twitter, (paraphrasing here as I can’t find the exact Tweet), “If you think being long-distance is the worst thing that could happen to a couple, you have a very dim view of relationships.” And as someone who was personally in an extended long-distance relationship until a few years ago (Hi Eileen~), that really hit home for me. It was nice to have that represented on the show.

If you’re one of those fans (like me) who missed the original piano riff that opened the show, it officially comes back in Episode 114. That was nice to hear again.

THE CONCEPT EPISODES, ESPECIALLY EPISODE 133. HOW DO THEY KEEP DOING THIS. THEY’RE SO GOOD.

Cons

The biggest complaints I can really think of with this show are arc fatigue and plot lull. While this show does have numerous plot threads (and the plot threads actually go somewhere, even if it takes a while) it can be a long time after you first hear about a plot before they ever mention it again, or, like with the Desert Otherworld arc, can take over a giant chunk of episodes where it seems like nothing is moving. This can also make things confusing, like in many cases where you can’t remember this person or thing the show is suddenly referencing if you haven’t listened to the show a second or more times.

Not really a complaint the show can do anything about, as I know he’s got his own projects going on and is technically a guest star….but I really wish Dylan Marron could do more episodes. As of Episode 133, there was a 33-episode gap between appearances.

MY RATING: 7/10 GLOW CLOUDS - This podcast will always have a special place in my heart. After a long break away, somehow I always keep getting drawn back to Night Vale. It’s a podcast that excels at taking you on a journey to a strange and mysterious place that seems frightening, but also comforting, where being who you are without questions or apologies seems like a fair trade for danger. I always recommend this show to people who are still confused about what a podcast is, and while many other shows have taken up my attention since, this will always hold the mantle of the first one to make me dive into the medium. So turn off the lights, turn on your radio, hide under the covers, pretend to sleep, and fall in love instantly.

[ladystylestores]

Jerry Stiller, US comedian and Seinfeld actor, dies at 92 | USA News

Jerry Stiller, who for decades teamed with wife Anne Meara in a beloved American comedy duo and then reached new heights in his senior years as the high-strung Frank Costanza on the classic sitcom Seinfeld and the basement-dwelling father-in-law on The King of Queens, died at 92, his son Ben Stiller announced on Monday.

More: 

“I’m sad to say that my father, Jerry Stiller, passed away from natural causes,” Ben tweeted.

“He was a great dad and grandfather and the most dedicated husband to Anne for about 62 years. He will be greatly missed. Love you Dad,” wrote Ben, who followed in his father’s comedic footsteps and became an A-list box office star with movies like Tropic Thunder, Dodgeball and Something About Mary. 

I’m sad to say that my father, Jerry Stiller, passed away from natural causes. He was a great dad and grandfather, and the most dedicated husband to Anne for about 62 years. He will be greatly missed. Love you Dad. pic.twitter.com/KyoNsJIBz5

— Ben Stiller (@RedHourBen) May 11, 2020

Jerry Stiller was a multitalented performer who appeared in an assortment of movies, playing Walter Matthau’s police sidekick in the thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and Divine’s husband Wilbur Turnblad in John Waters’ twisted comedy Hairspray.

He also wrote an autobiography, Married to Laughter, about his 50-plus years marriage to soul mate and comedic cohort Meara, who died in 2015. And his myriad television spots included everything from Murder She Wrote to Law & Order – along with 36 appearances alongside Meara on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Stiller, although a supporting player on Seinfeld, created some of the Emmy-winning show’s most enduring moments: co-creator and model for the “bro”, a brassiere for men; a Korean War cook who inflicted food poisoning on his entire unit; an ever-simmering salesman controlling his explosive temper with the shouted mantra, “Serenity now!”

Stiller earned a 1997 Emmy nomination for his indelible Seinfeld performance. In a 2005 Esquire interview, Stiller recalled that he was out of work and not the first choice for the role of Frank Costanza, father to Jason Alexander’s neurotic George.

“My manager had retired,” he said. “I was close to 70 years old, and had nowhere to go.”

He was initially told to play the role as a milquetoast husband with an overbearing wife, Estelle, played by Estelle Harris. But the character was not working – until Stiller suggested his reincarnation as an over-the-top crank who matched his wife scream for scream.

It jump-started the septuagenarian’s career, landing him a spot playing Vince Lombardi in a Nike commercial and the role of another over-the-top dad on the long-running sitcom King of Queens.

Loving marriage, comedy duo

While he was known as a nutjob father on the small screen, Stiller and wife Meara raised two children in their longtime home on New York City’s Manhattan’s Upper West Side: daughter Amy, who became an actress, and son Ben, who would become perhaps the most famous Stiller as a writer, director and actor.

He and Ben performed together in Shoeshine, which was nominated for a 1988 Academy Award in the short subject category.

Stiller was considerably quieter and reflective in person than in character – although just as funny. The son of a bus driver and a housewife, Stiller grew up in Depression-era Brooklyn. His inspiration to enter show business came at age eight, when his father took him to see the Marx Brothers in the comedy classic A Night at the Opera.

Years later, Stiller met Groucho Marx and thanked him.

Jerry Stiller, left, and his wife Anne Meara pose on the set of The King of Queens, at Sony Studio in Culver City, California [File: Stefano Paltera/AP Photo] 

Stiller earned a drama degree at Syracuse University after serving in World War II, and then headed to New York City to launch his career. There was a brief involvement in Shakespearean theatre, including a $55-a-week job with Jack Klugman in Coriolanus.

But his life and career took off after he met Meara in 1953. They were married the next year.

The seemingly mismatched pair – he a short, stocky Jewish guy from Brooklyn, she a tall, Irish Catholic from the Long Island suburbs – shared immediate onstage chemistry, too. They were soon appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show and working nightclubs nationwide.

The pair also wrote and performed radio commercials, most memorably a series of bits for a little-known wine called Blue Nun. The duo’s ads boosted sales by 500 percent. Ben Stiller recalled trips with his sister to California when his parents would head west to do television appearances.

The couple went on to appear as a team in dozens of films, stage and television productions. One of them was After-Play, a 1995 off-Broadway show written by Meara.

Stiller joined Seinfeld in 1993, and moved on to King of Queens when the other Jerry & company went off the air in 1998. He also appeared in Ben Stiller’s spoof on modelling, Zoolander, released in 2001.

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from World Wide News https://ift.tt/2YQFism

[hammondcast]

Harry Shearer Interview With Jon Hammond

#WATCHMOVIE HERE: Harry Shearer Interview With Jon Hammond Jon's archive https://archive.org/details/HarryShearerInterviewWithJonHammond Youtube https://youtu.be/MByRDtzWZB4 Vimeo https://vimeo.com/231223997 Nashville Tennessee -- Harry Shearer Interview with Jon Hammond just before Harry accepted the American Eagle Award along with Crystal Gayle and Patti Smith from the US National Music Council during Summer NAMM Show - for broadcast on Jon Hammond Show on MNN TV Channel 1 in Manhattan - Harry's Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Shearer "Harry Julius Shearer (born December 23, 1943) is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, writer, musician, author, radio host, director and producer. He is known for his long-running roles on The Simpsons, his work on Saturday Night Live, the comedy band Spinal Tap and his radio program Le Show. Born in Los Angeles, California, Shearer began his career as a child actor. From 1969 to 1976, Shearer was a member of The Credibility Gap, a radio comedy group. Following the breakup of the group, Shearer co-wrote the film Real Life with Albert Brooks and started writing for Martin Mull's television series Fernwood 2 Night. He was a cast member on Saturday Night Live on two occasions, between 1979–80, and 1984–85. Shearer co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in the 1984 film This Is Spinal Tap, a satirical rockumentary, which became a cult hit. In 1989, Shearer joined the cast of The Simpsons; he provides voices for numerous characters, including Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers, Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Kent Brockman, Dr. Hibbert and more. Shearer has appeared in several films, including A Mighty Wind and The Truman Show, has directed two, Teddy Bears' Picnic and The Big Uneasy, and has written three books. Since 1983, Shearer has been the host of the public radio comedy/music program Le Show, a hodgepodge of satirical news commentary, music, and sketch comedy. Shearer has won a Primetime Emmy Award, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the radio category, and has received several other Emmy and Grammy Award nominations. He has been married to singer-songwriter Judith Owen since 1993. He is currently "artist in residence" at Loyola University, New Orleans. Shearer was born December 23, 1943 in Los Angeles, the son of Dora Warren (née Kohn) (d. 2008), a bookkeeper, and Mack Shearer.[2] His parents were Jewish immigrants from Austria and Poland.[3][4] Starting when Shearer was four years old, he had a piano teacher whose daughter worked as a child actress. The piano teacher later decided to make a career change and become a children's agent, as she knew people in the business through her daughter's work. The teacher asked Shearer's parents for permission to take him to an audition. Several months later, she called Shearer's parents and told them that she had gotten Shearer an audition for the radio show The Jack Benny Program. Shearer received the role when he was seven years old.[5] He described Jack Benny as "very warm and approachable [...] He was a guy who dug the idea of other people on the show getting laughs, which sort of spoiled me for other people in comedy."[6] Shearer said in an interview that one person who "took him under his wing" and was one of his best friends during his early days in show business was voice actor Mel Blanc, who voiced many animated characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Barney Rubble.[7] Shearer made his film debut in the 1953 film Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, in which he only had a small part. Later that year, he made his first big film performance in The Robe.[6] Throughout his childhood and teenage years he worked in television, film, and radio.[6] In 1957, Shearer played the precursor to the Eddie Haskell character in the pilot episode of the television series Leave It to Beaver. After the filming, Shearer's parents said they did not want him to be a regular in a series. Instead they wanted him to just do occasional work so that he could have a normal childhood. Shearer and his parents made the decision not to accept the role in the series if it was picked up by a television network.[6] Shearer attended UCLA as a political science major in the early 1960s and decided to quit show business to become a "serious person".[5] However, he says this lasted approximately a month, and he joined the staff of the Daily Bruin, UCLA's school newspaper, during his first year.[5] and as editor of the college humor magazine (Satyr) including the June 1964 parody, Preyboy [8] He also worked as a newscaster at KRLA, a top 40 radio station in Pasadena, during this period. According to Shearer, after graduating, he had "a very serious agenda going on, and it was 'Stay Out of the Draft'."[5] He attended graduate school at Harvard University for one year and worked at the state legislature in Sacramento. In 1967 and 1968, he was a high school teacher, teaching English and social studies. He left teaching following "disagreements with the administration."[5] From 1969 to 1976, Shearer was a member of The Credibility Gap, a radio comedy group that included David Lander, Richard Beebe and Michael McKean.[9] The group consisted of "a bunch of newsmen" at KRLA 1110, "the number two station" in Los Angeles.[6] They wanted to do more than just straight news, so they hired comedians who were talented vocalists. Shearer heard about it from a friend so he brought over a tape to the station and nervously gave it to the receptionist. By the time he got home, there was a message on his answering machine asking, "Can you come to work tomorrow?"[6] The group's radio show was canceled in 1970 by KRLA and in 1971 by KPPC-FM, so they started performing in various clubs and concert venues.[5] While at KRLA, Shearer also interviewed Creedence Clearwater Revival for the Pop Chronicles music documentary.[10] In 1973, Shearer appeared as Jim Houseafire on How Time Flys, an album by The Firesign Theatre's David Ossman. The Credibility Gap broke up 1976 when Lander and McKean left to perform in the sitcom Laverne & Shirley.[5] Shearer started working with Albert Brooks, producing one of Brooks' albums and co-writing the film Real Life. Shearer also started writing for Martin Mull's television series Fernwood 2 Night.[5] In the mid-1970s, he started working with Rob Reiner on a pilot for ABC. The show, which starred Christopher Guest, Tom Leopold and McKean, was not picked up.[5] Career[edit] Saturday Night Live[edit] In August 1979, Shearer was hired as a writer and cast member on Saturday Night Live, one of the first additions to the cast,[6] and an unofficial replacement for John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, who were both leaving the show.[11] Al Franken recommended Shearer to Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels.[12] Shearer describes his experience on the show as a "living hell" and "not a real pleasant place to work."[11] He did not get along well with the other writers and cast members and states that he was not included with the cast in the opening montage (although he was added to the montage for latter episodes of the 1979-80 season) and that Lorne Michaels had told the rest of the cast that he was just a writer.[13] Michaels left Saturday Night Live at the end of the fifth season, taking the entire cast with him.[14] Shearer told new executive producer Jean Doumanian that he was "not a fan of Lorne's" and offered to stay with the show if he was given the chance to overhaul the program and bring in experienced comedians, like Christopher Guest. However, Doumanian turned him down, so he decided to leave with the rest of the cast.[15] When I left, Dick [Ebersol] issued a press release, saying "creative differences." And the first person who called me for a comment on it read me that and I blurted out, "Yeah, I was creative and they were different." —Harry Shearer[16] In 1984, while promoting the film This Is Spinal Tap, Shearer, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean had a performance on Saturday Night Live. All three members were offered the chance to join to the show in the 1984–1985 season. Shearer accepted because he was treated well by the producers and he thought the backstage environment had improved[11] but later stated that he "didn't realize that guests are treated better than the regulars."[17] Guest also accepted the offer while McKean rejected it, although he would join the cast in 1994. Dick Ebersol, who replaced Lorne Michaels as the show's producer, said that Shearer was "a gifted performer but a pain in the butt. He's just so demanding on the preciseness of things and he's very, very hard on the working people. He's just a nightmare-to-deal-with person."[18] In January 1985, Shearer left the show for good,[11] partially because he felt he was not being used enough.[16] Martin Short said Shearer "wanted to be creative and Dick [Ebersol] wanted something else. [...] I think he felt his voice wasn't getting represented on the show. When he wouldn't get that chance, it made him very upset."[19] Spinal Tap[edit] Shearer co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in Rob Reiner's 1984 film This Is Spinal Tap.[6] Shearer, Reiner, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest received a deal to write a first draft of a screenplay for a company called Marble Arch. They decided that the film could not be written and instead filmed a 20-minute demo of what they wanted to do.[11] It was eventually greenlighted by Norman Lear and Jerry Perenchio at Embassy Pictures.[11] The film satirizes the wild personal behavior and musical pretensions of hard rock and heavy metal bands, as well as the hagiographic tendencies of rockumentaries of the time. The three core members of the band Spinal Tap—David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls and Nigel Tufnel—were portrayed by McKean, Shearer and Guest respectively. The three actors play their musical instruments and speak with mock English accents throughout the film. There was no script, although there was a written breakdown of most of the scenes, and many of the lines were ad-libbed.[11] It was filmed in 25 days.[11] Shearer said in an interview that "The animating impulse was to do rock 'n' roll right. The four of us had been around rock 'n' roll and we were just amazed by how relentlessly the movies got it wrong. Because we were funny people it was going to be a funny film, but we wanted to get it right."[2] When they tried to sell it to various Hollywood studios, they were told that the film would not work. The group kept saying, "No, this is a story that's pretty familiar to people. We're not introducing them to anything they don't really know," so Shearer thought it would at least have some resonance with the public.[6] The film was only a modest success upon its initial release but found greater success, and a cult following, after its video release. In 2000, the film was ranked 29th on the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 comedy movies in American cinema[20] and it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[21] Shearer, Guest and McKean have since worked on several projects as their Spinal Tap characters. They released three albums: This Is Spinal Tap (1984), Break Like the Wind (1992) and Back From The Dead (2009).[22] In 1992, Spinal Tap appeared in an episode of The Simpsons called "The Otto Show".[23] The band has played several concerts, including at Live Earth in London on July 7, 2007. In anticipation of the show, Rob Reiner directed a short film entitled Spinal Tap.[24] In 2009, the band released Back from the Dead to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the release of the film.[25] The album features re-recorded versions of songs featured in This Is Spinal Tap and its soundtrack, and five new songs.[26][27] The band performed a one date "world tour" at London's Wembley Arena on June 30, 2009. The Folksmen, a mock band featured in the film A Mighty Wind that is also made up of characters played by Shearer, McKean and Guest – was the opening act for the show.[28] The Simpsons[edit] Shearer is also known for his prolific work as a voice actor on The Simpsons. Matt Groening, the creator of the show, was a fan of Shearer's work, while Shearer was a fan of a column Groening used to write.[29] Shearer was asked if he wanted to be in the series, but he was initially reluctant because he thought the recording sessions would be too much trouble.[29] He felt voice acting was "not a lot of fun" because traditionally, voice actors record their parts separately.[7] He was told that the actors would record their lines together[7] and after three calls, executive producer James L. Brooks managed to convince Shearer to join the cast.[2] Shearer's first impression of The Simpsons was that it was funny. Shearer, who thought it was a "pretty cool" way to work, found it peculiar that the members of the cast were adamant about not being known to the public as the people behind the voices.[6] Shearer provides voices for Principal Skinner, Kent Brockman, Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Dr. Hibbert, Lenny Leonard, Otto Mann, Rainier Wolfcastle, Scratchy, Kang, Dr. Marvin Monroe, Judge Snyder and many others.[30] He has described all of his regular characters' voices as "easy to slip into. [...] I wouldn't do them if they weren't easy."[29] Shearer modeled Mr. Burns's voice on the two actors Lionel Barrymore and Ronald Reagan.[31] Shearer says that Burns is the most difficult character for him to voice because it is rough on his vocal cords and he often needs to drink tea and honey to soothe his voice.[32] He describes Burns as his favorite character, saying he "like[s] Mr. Burns because he is pure evil. A lot of evil people make the mistake of diluting it. Never adulterate your evil."[33] Shearer is also the voice of Burns' assistant Smithers, and is able to perform dialogue between the two characters in one take. In the episode "Bart's Inner Child", Harry Shearer said "wow" in the voice of Otto, which was then used when Otto was seen jumping on a trampoline.[34] Ned Flanders had been meant to be just a neighbor that Homer was jealous of, but because Shearer used "such a sweet voice" for him, Flanders was broadened to become a Christian and a sweet guy that someone would prefer to live next to over Homer.[35] Dr. Marvin Monroe's voice was based on psychiatrist David Viscott.[36] Monroe has been retired since the seventh season because voicing the character strained Shearer's throat.[37] In 2004, Shearer criticized what he perceived as the show's declining quality: "I rate the last three seasons as among the worst, so season four looks very good to me now."[38] Shearer has also been vocal about "The Principal and the Pauper" (season nine, 1997) one of the most controversial episodes of The Simpsons. Many fans and critics reacted negatively to the revelation that Principal Seymour Skinner, a recurring character since the first season, was an impostor. The episode has been criticized by both Shearer and Groening. In a 2001 interview, Shearer recalled that after reading the script, he told the writers, "That's so wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience."[39] Due to scheduling and availability conflicts, Shearer decided not to participate in The Simpsons Ride, which opened in 2008, so none of his characters have vocal parts and many do not appear in the ride at all.[40] In a 2010 interview on The Howard Stern Show, Shearer alluded that the reason he was not part of the ride was because he would not be getting paid for it.[41] Until 1998, Shearer was paid $30,000 per episode. During a pay dispute in 1998, Fox threatened to replace the six main voice actors with new actors, going as far as preparing for casting of new voices.[42] The dispute, however, was resolved and Shearer received $125,000 per episode until 2004, when the voice actors demanded that they be paid $360,000 an episode.[42] The dispute was resolved a month later,[43] and Shearer's pay rose to $250,000 per episode.[44] After salary re-negotiations in 2008, the voice actors received $400,000 per episode.[45] Three years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production costs were cut, Shearer and the other cast members accepted a 30 percent pay cut, down to just over $300,000 per episode.[46] On May 13, 2015, Shearer announced he was leaving the show. After the other voice actors signed a contract for the same pay, Shearer refused, stating it was not enough. Al Jean made a statement from the producers saying "the show must go on," but did not elaborate on what might happen to the characters Shearer voiced.[47] On July 7, 2015, Shearer agreed to continue with the show, on the same terms as the other voice actors.[48] Le Show and radio work[edit] "Because I don't do stand-up, radio has always been my equivalent, a place to stay in connection with the public and force myself to write every week and come up with new characters. Plus it's a medium that – having grown up with it and putting myself to sleep with a radio under my pillow [as a kid] – I love. No matter what picture you want to create in the listener's mind, a few minutes of work gets it done." —Harry Shearer[49] Since 1983, Shearer has been the host of the public radio comedy/music program Le Show. The program is a hodgepodge of satirical news commentary, music, and sketch comedy that takes aim at the "mega morons of the mighty media".[50] It is carried on many National Public Radio and other public radio stations throughout the United States.[51] Since the merger of SIRIUS and XM satellite radio services the program is no longer available on either.[52] The show has also been made available as a podcast on iTunes[53] and by WWNO. On the weekly program Shearer alternates between DJing, reading and commenting on the news of the day after the manner of Mort Sahl, and performing original (mostly political) comedy sketches and songs. In 2008, Shearer released a music CD called Songs of the Bushmen, consisting of his satirical numbers about former President George W. Bush on Le Show.[2] Shearer says he criticizes both Republicans and Democrats equally, and also says that "the iron law of doing comedy about politics is you make fun of whoever is running the place"[54] and that "everyone else is just running around talking. They are the ones who are actually doing something, changing people's lives for better or for worse. Other people the media calls 'satirists' don't work that way."[55] Since encountering satellite news feeds when he worked on Saturday Night Live, Shearer has been fascinated with the contents of the video that does not air. Shearer refers to these clips as found objects. "I thought, wow, there is just an unending supply of this material, and it's wonderful and fascinating and funny and sometimes haunting – but it's always good," said Shearer.[56] He collects this material and uses it on Le Show[57][58] and on his website.[59] In 2008, he assembled video clips of newsmakers from this collection into an art installation titled "The Silent Echo Chamber" which was exhibited at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut.[56] The exhibit was also displayed in 2009 at Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM) in Valencia, Spain[60][61] and in 2010 at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center.[62] In 2006 Shearer appeared with Brian Hayes in four episodes of the BBC Radio 4 sitcom Not Today, Thank You, playing Nostrils, a man so ugly he cannot stand to be in his own presence.[63] He was originally scheduled to appear in all six episodes but had to withdraw from recording two due to a problem with his work permit.[64] On June 19, 2008, it was announced that Shearer would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the radio category.[65] The date of the ceremony where his star will be put in place has yet to be announced.[66] Further career[edit] Shearer performing in April 2009 In 2002, Shearer directed his first feature film Teddy Bears' Picnic, which he also wrote. The plot is based on Bohemian Grove, which hosts a three-week encampment of some of the most powerful men in the world. The film was not well received by critics. It garnered a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with all 19 reviews being determined as negative[67] and received a rating of 32 out of 100 (signifying "generally negative reviews") on Metacritic from 10 reviews.[68] In 2003, he co-wrote J. Edgar! The Musical with Tom Leopold, which spoofed J. Edgar Hoover's relationship with Clyde Tolson.[69] It premiered at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado and starred Kelsey Grammer and John Goodman.[70] In 2003, Shearer, Guest and McKean starred in the folk music mockumentary A Mighty Wind, portraying a band called The Folksmen. The film was written by Guest and Eugene Levy, and directed by Guest.[6] Shearer had a major role in the Guest-directed parody of Oscar politicking For Your Consideration in 2006. He played Victor Allan Miller, a veteran actor who is convinced that he is going to be nominated for an Academy Award.[71] He also appeared as a news anchor in Godzilla with fellow The Simpsons cast members Hank Azaria and Nancy Cartwright.[72] His other film appearances include The Right Stuff, Portrait of a White Marriage, The Fisher King, The Truman Show, EdTV and Small Soldiers.[73] Shearer has also worked as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times Magazine, but decided that it "became such a waste of time to bother with it."[55] His columns have also been published in Slate and Newsweek.[74] Since May 2005 he has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post.[73] Shearer has written three books. Man Bites Town, published in 1993, is a collection of columns that he wrote for The Los Angeles Times between 1989 and 1992.[39] Published in 1999, It's the Stupidity, Stupid analyzed the hatred some people had for then-President Bill Clinton.[75] Shearer believes that Clinton became disliked because he had an affair with "the least powerful, least credentialed women cleared into his official compound."[39] His most recent book is Not Enough Indians, his first novel. Published in 2006, it is a comic novel about Native Americans and gambling.[73] Without the "pleasures of collaboration" and "spontaneity and improvisation which characterize his other projects", Not Enough Indians was a "struggle" for Shearer to write. He said that "the only fun thing about it was having written it. It was lonely, I had no deal for it and it took six years to do. It was a profoundly disturbing act of self-discipline."[2] Shearer has released five solo comedy albums: It Must Have Been Something I Said (1994), Dropping Anchors (2006), Songs Pointed and Pointless (2007), Songs of the Bushmen (2008) and Greed and Fear (2010).[76] His most recent CD, Greed and Fear is mainly about Wall Street economic issues, rather than politics like his previous albums. Shearer decided to make the album when he"started getting amused by the language of the economic meltdown – when 'toxic assets' suddenly became 'troubled assets,' going from something poisoning the system to just a bunch of delinquent youth with dirty faces that needed not removal from the system but just...understanding."[77] In May 2006, Shearer received an honorary doctorate from Goucher College.[78] #HarryShearer #ThisIsSpinalTap #JonHammond #Nashville #TVShow The Big Uneasy[edit] Shearer is the director of The Big Uneasy (2010), a documentary film about the impacts of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. Narrated by actor John Goodman, the film describes levee failures and catastrophic flooding in the New Orleans metropolitan area, and includes extended interviews with former LSU professor Ivor Van Heerden, Robert Bea, an engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and Maria Garzino, an engineer and contract specialist for the Los Angeles district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The film is critical of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its management of flood protection projects in Southern Louisiana.[79][80][81][82][83] Shearer draws on numerous technical experts to maintain that Hurricane Katrina's "...tragic floods creating widespread damage were caused by manmade errors in engineering and judgment."[84] Shearer's film currently has a 74% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on twenty-three reviews by approved critics.[83] Personal life[edit] Shearer married Penelope Nichols in 1974. They divorced in 1977. He has been married to singer-songwriter Judith Owen since 1993.[2] In 2005, the couple launched their own record label called Courgette Records.[85] Shearer has homes in Santa Monica, California, the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana, and London. He first went to New Orleans in 1988 and has attended every edition of New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival since.[86] Shearer often speaks and writes about the failure of the Federal levee system which flooded New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, belittling the coverage of it in the mainstream media[87] and criticizing the role of the United States Army Corps of Engineers.[88][89] Prior to the DVD release of his film, The Big Uneasy, Shearer would hold screenings of the film at different venues and take questions from audience members " Identifier HarryShearerInterviewWithJonHammond Scanner Internet Archive HTML5 Uploader 1.6.3 Language English Publication date 2017-08-26 Usage Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Topics Harry Shearer, Nashville, New Orleans, NAMM Show, This is Spinal Tap, Podcast, Jack Benny, The Simpsons, Rock Band, Jon Hammond, Cable Access TV, MNN TV, Channel 1, #HarryShearer #HammondOrgan #Rocker

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Seinfeld Star Jerry Stiller Dies Aged 92, Son Ben Pays Tribute

Jerry Stiller, who played two of American television’s most cantankerous fathers on the sitcoms “Seinfeld” and “The King of Queens,” has died aged 92, his son Ben Stiller said on Twitter on Monday.

“I’m sad to say that my father, Jerry Stiller, passed away from natural causes,” wrote Ben, a Hollywood comedian who appeared with his father in “Zoolander” and other movies.

“He was a great dad and grandfather, and the most dedicated husband to Anne for about 62 years. He will be greatly missed. Love you Dad,” he added.

Jerry Stiller was part of a 1960s comedy team with wife Anne Meara. But he was in his mid-60s when he got what would become his signature acting role – Frank Costanza, father of ne’er-do-well George Costanza (played by Jason Alexander) on “Seinfeld,” a tense, bombastic man always on the verge of apoplexy.

In 1993, Stiller had thought his entertainment career was nearing an end when he got a phone call from Larry David, co-creator of “Seinfeld,” about joining the cast led by comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

The show, one of the most highly regarded in U.S. TV history, was in its fourth season at the time but Stiller said he had never watched a minute of it and had to ask, “Who’s Seinfeld?”

He was performing in a play at the time and had to turn down the TV job. Stiller got another chance at the role a few months later and took it.

Stiller was in only 26 of the 172 “Seinfeld” episodes but each appearance was memorable, whether he was screaming “serenity now!” in a tense situation, trying on a bra for men or explaining the odd rituals of Festivus, the Dec. 23 holiday he established as an alternative to Christmas.

Stiller said he was originally told to play Frank in a meek, understated manner in contrast to the character’s loud, shrill wife. A few days in, however, Stiller responded to one of the wife’s rants with an improvised tirade of his own and the show’s producers and cast liked it.

“And from that day on, it was the best years of my life as an actor because I worked with people who were the most generous actors in the world,” Stiller said in an interview with the Archive of American Television.

“Seinfeld” ended its nine-year run in 1998 and that same year Stiller moved into another sitcom dad role on “The King of Queens.” As Arthur Spooner, he played another blowhard oddball – although not quite as eruptive as Frank Costanza – living in the basement of the home of his daughter (played by Leah Remini) and her husband (Kevin James) through the show’s nine seasons.

HUSBAND-WIFE COMEDY TEAM

Stiller was born and grew up in New York, inspired by comedian Eddie Cantor and the vaudeville shows he saw with his father, a bus driver.

After serving in the U.S. Army, Stiller studied drama at Syracuse University and then sought acting jobs. He was working with a woman comedy partner when he met Meara in 1953 at an agent’s office. They married a few months later.

Stiller and Meara worked together in the Compass Players comedy troupe before forming their own team. By the 1960s, they had become a popular comedy duo on U.S. television and appeared 36 times on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Their act included skits such as an interview with the biblical Jonah after his encounter with the whale and parodies of TV commercials.

Much of their humor was marriage-based and focused on height (Stiller was 5-foot-4, Meara was considerably taller) and ethnicity (he was Jewish, she was of Irish heritage).

“Our marriage has lasted because we have the same feelings of insecurity about being an actor. We needed stability,” Stiller told the New York Daily News in 2012.

In the early 1970s, Stiller and Meara began working separately. She made the movies “The Out-of-Towners” and “Lovers and Other Strangers” and had a one-year run starring on the television show “Kate McShane.” He did some Broadway work and appeared in films including “Airport 1975” and “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.”

Meara died in 2015 at age 85.

Stiller also had roles in both the 1998 and 2007 versions of the movie “Hairspray” and appeared in films starring son Ben such as “Zoolander” and “The Heartbreak Kid.”

Stiller and Meara’s daughter, Amy, also is an actress.

(Writing and reporting by Bill Trott; Additional reporting by xxx xxxx; Editing by Will Dunham and Andrew Heavens)

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[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/ghost-stories-review-martin-freemans-ghost-stories-is-funny-frightening-and-insightful/

Ghost Stories review: Martin Freeman's Ghost Stories is funny, frightening and insightful

Martin Freeman is one of those actors whose haphazard charm makes him that much more loveable.

But in Ghost Stories the charm turns to arrogance, then to prescience, as he confronts the main protagonist Phillip Goodman.

Goodman, played by co-director Andy Nyman, is a debunker of mystics and explainer of supernatural, whose raison d’etre for exposing these frauds stems from the strictly observant rules of his Jewish household.

The Jewish experience in Britain is a unique one and colours the rest of the movie in different shades – from subtle to bull in a china shop.

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But Ghost Stories is more a classic, 70s horror movie than it is a hot take on religion in the modern world.

Helmed by Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson, two friends who met at Jewish summer camp, Ghost Stories starts off as your typical horror movie.

Goodman is contacted by his idol who, on his deathbed, asks him to solve three unsolvable cases.

Ghost Stories follows Goodman as he investigates each – from the night watchman (Paul Whitehouse) at an abandoned mental hospital to the young boy (Alex Lawther) whose car breaks down on a dark road at night.

Finally, Goodman, thoroughly spooked but refusing to admit defeat to the supernatural, turns to Mike (Martin Freeman).

Ghost Stories: Andy Nyman’s horror extravaganza is headed to DVD and Blu-ray August 27 (Image: OE)

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Freeman’s snide comment to Goodman about ‘your lot’ and his constant interruptions as he checks his phone are in infuriating anyway but in Ghost Stories, it adds to the feeling of off-balance, of uncertainty.

What starts out ticking all the boxes of the horror genre soon evolves into a deeply troubling psychological thriller, melding the two genres effortlessly.

At the integral points in the story where you expect it to turn left, Ghost Stories turns right – where you expect a ghost, you instead get something corporeal.

As each tale unwinds, you begin to think there’s more connecting them than their inexplicable nature – and as an audience, you can see Goodman struggle with accepting this as reality.

Two-thirds of the way through, Martin Freeman becomes the narrator of Ghost Stories, but not only is he successfully explaining the unexplainable, he drags Phillip into the world which he has spent so long avoiding.

Ghost Stories: Starring Martin Freeman and Andy Nyman, the movie is out on DVD August 27 (Image: OE)

Ghost Stories is a tale of grief and guilt wrapped up in the package of a perfectly executed classic horror movie, whose slight and persistent off-kilter-ness makes for an uneasy watch.

Watching Ghost Stories is certainly scary, but it is also deeply unsettling and those who do not delight in being frightened out of their wits may want to watch it with the lights on – or the sound on low.

The well-manicured soundtrack is a barely there, almost subconscious manipulation of the audience.

For using well-worn horror genre devices, Nyman (whose expertise at misdirection comes from years of co-creating Derren Brown shows) and Dyson (whose knack for timing comes from co-creating The League of Gentlemen) use these devices with aplomb.

The Blu-ray edition comes packed with extras, including commentary from the creators themselves, well worth watching for anyone who is interested in how two men came up with this jigsaw puzzle of a movie.

Ghost Stories: Martin Freeman takes over as narrator of this chilling horror movie (Image: OE)

After the screening, Andy Nyman remarked it was incredible to see how reviewers picked up on the Jewish theme.

“The Jewish experience in Britain is a unique one,” Nyman said, and it coloured not only the movie but the lives of Nyman and scores of other British-Jews.

Goodman’s Jewish-guilt finds him at the centre of Ghost Stories but also marks him as an outsider.

Ghost Stories isn’t necessarily a movie about Jewishness or being an outsider, it is a master of classic horror which touches on these themes and once the fear has subsided and the credits roll, they begin to percolate in the mind.

But while you’re watching, Ghost Stories is simply, and perfectly, terrifying.

Ghost Stories is currently available on Digital Download and is available on Blu-ray and DVD Monday, August 27, 2018.

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/films/1007411/Ghost-Stories-review-DVD-blu-ray-release-Maritn-Freeman-review

[siphen0]

Baltimore Comic-Con returns to the Inner Harbor on September 28-30, 2018, bringing comics and pop culture fun to the Baltimore Convention Center all weekend. Buy your tickets now online to avoid additional lines! The Baltimore Comic-Con is pleased to guests new and old, including Jeffrey Burandt, Christa Cassano, Dean Haspiel, Clinton Hobart, Dave Proch, Frank Reynoso, David Trustman, and Sarah Trustman to the show in 2018. Sick Monster by Jeffrey Burandt

Jeffrey Burandt is a writer and performer living in Brooklyn, NY. His work has been published by DC Entertainment, Details Magazine, IDW Publishing, Image Comics, Oni Press, Overflow Magazine, several blogs and indie publishers, and he is a founding editor of the digital salon, TripCity. His first graphic novel, Odd Schnozz and the Odd Squad from Oni Press, illustrated by Dennis Culver and with color art by Ramon Villalobos, has won the 2017-2018 Texas Maverick Graphic Novel Reading List Award, and is listed by Den of Geek as one of the best graphic novels of 2015. His most recent work has appeared in the New York Times Best-Selling Love Is Love anthology, featuring art by Sean Von Gorman and colorist Paul Mounts. Jeffrey is currently working on a 6-issue series, Blood + Brains, with artist Jason Goungor; a webcomic titled Gonad the Ballbarian, with artist Blake Sims; Rainbow Boy short stories with artist Sean Von Gorman; and has recently completed an original graphic novel titled Sick Monster, with artist Donal DeLay.

Christa Cassano is a classically trained artist and illustrator, currently branching out into areas of design for film and web. Her work has been exhibited internationally, and she has been an Artist-in-Residence at IAIA, Yaddo, and The Atlantic Center for the Arts, a regular contributor to comix anthologies including RESIST!, Mereological Nihilism, and A.P.B. – Artists Against Police Brutality, and self-publisher of The Giant Effect, and experimental comics collected in Le Cadavre Exquis. In 2016, she was an Eisner Award nominee for co-adapting John Leguizamo’s Ghetto Klown into a graphic novel. She lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. The Red Hook by Dean Haspiel

Emmy and Ringo award winner Dean Haspiel created Billy Dogma, The Red Hook, and War Cry. He illustrated for HBO’s Bored To Death, is a Yaddo fellow, a playwright, and helped pioneer personal webcomics. Dino has written, drawn, and collaborated on many superheroes and literary graphic novels, including Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor, The Fox, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, Deadpool, X-Men, Batman, The Fantastic Four, Godzilla, and Mars Attacks for Marvel, DC/Vertigo, Archie, Image, IDW, Dark Horse, Heavy Metal, LINE Webtoons, etc. Check out Dino’s The Red Hook graphic novel from Image Comics, and the 10th Anniversary edition of The Alcoholic, written by Jonathan Ames, from Berger Books.

Clinton T. Hobart is a fine artist and Licensed Disney fine artist. He creates original oil paintings of a wide variety of subjects ranging from classical subject matter such as fruit and eggshells to more modern subjects such as Mickey Mouse and Doritos. Even his Disney paintings are technically still-lifes, because he works from real objects in front of him. If he cannot find the objects he desires to paint, he frequently will build elaborate “sets” from which to work. In addition to painting for Disney, Hobart also paints still-lifes, portraits, cosplay paintings, and ocean waves. He has been featured on NBC News, FOX News, The CW, ABC News, and American Artist magazine. He appeared on the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelle after a Chinese company sold forged copies of his paintings online. Afterward, the Huffington Post mentioned the story in an article stating that Clinton was part of a “sting operation.” Hobart’s painting “A Portrait of Doritos” is in the private collection of actor Michael Rooker from Guardians Of The Galaxy and The Walking Dead. The Homecoming King Treasury Edition by Dave Proch.

Dave Proch is an independent comic artist based in west Philadelphia. He has previously been published in the Locust Moon Press anthology books, Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream, Once Upon a Time Machine, and various issues of their Quarter Moon anthology series. He has self-published his own series called Mango Lizard for the last five years as well as self-publishing the first treasury edition of his new book, The Homecoming King. He can be found online at daveproch.com, @dave_proch on Instagram, and patreon.com/daveproch.

Frank Reynoso is a comics creator, author, and illustrator. He contributed to the forthcoming SCI: The Jewish Comics Anthology Volume 2 (AH Comics). His work has appeared in The Sweetness (Z2 Comics), Kings and Canvas (Comixology), The Brooklynite (LINE Webtoon), Garbage Pail Kids (IDW), Occupy Comics (Black Mask Studios), World War 3 Illustrated, House of 12’s Touching Children’s Stories, and The Beautiful Book of Exquisite Corpses (Penguin Books). Frank illustrated the books Literary Theory for Beginners and Civil Rights for Beginners. His comic book adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado will debut at Baltimore Comic-Con. The Memory Arts by Sarah and David Trustman

David Trustman is an Indy comix writer/artist, mnemonist, and speaker. He is the co-creator and artist of the groundbreaking graphic series The Memory Arts. Teaching ancient mnemonic (memory) techniques through vibrant watercolor comic imagery, the latest book has been called “…one of the most important books in magic…ever!” (Vanish Magazine, May 2018). David got his start in the indy comix arena as writer/artist of The Rise, Welcome to Karma Springs, and the socio-political satire GOD Slap. When not making comix, David and his wife/Memory Arts partner, Sarah, are speaking about memory (TedxMidAtlantic, Magi-Fest).

Writer Sarah Trustman broke into the publishing scene with her co-creation, The Memory Arts. The renowned series teaches mnemonics (the ancient art of memory) through fun, modern, graphic storytelling. A TEDx speaker, Sarah regularly talks and teaches about memory to audiences both large and small.

“It’s always great to have guests representing the alternative comics scene” said Marc Nathan, show promoter for the Baltimore Comic-Con. “Some of them work on huge mainstream properties, but they all dabble in the outlying territories, if not focus there. They’re great folks and great creators, and are definitely a stop on every attendee’s tour of the show floor for the weekend!”

Baltimore Comic-Con 2018 Welcomes Independent Creators and Outlier Voices Baltimore Comic-Con returns to the Inner Harbor on September 28-30, 2018, bringing comics and pop culture fun to the Baltimore Convention Center all weekend.

[mastcomm]

No Room Service, but History’s on the Menu

MIAMI — With its boarded-up facade eerily lit by a round Miami Beach moon, the Ocean Terrace Hotel looks abandoned. But when the blank metal doors swung open on a recent February evening, history suddenly came to life.

In one room, a relentless Christian temperance crusader described how she brought down a Prohibition-era den of iniquity on the corner. In another, an exuberant Jewish couple on their 1956 honeymoon decided to abandon Brooklyn for the glamorous beachside neighborhood outside their window. “It feels wonderful,” said the honeymooning husband. “Like paradise.”

Elsewhere in the hotel, a black shoemaker shared admiring tales of Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge, while Andrew Cunanan, who murdered Gianni Versace in front of his South Beach mansion, raved in an imaginary disco and a young Hasidic man negotiated his reluctant attraction to a flamboyant gay bartender.

They were all actors in “Miami Motel Stories — North Beach,” the fourth edition of an immersive theater project that uses forgotten history to bring this city’s diverse, eclectic — and often gentrifying — neighborhoods to life.

The Ocean Terrace is a derelict structure named for this picturesque but rundown beachfront street in North Beach, a quiet area 50-some blocks north of tourist-packed South Beach.

Audiences chose one of four themed tracks (including “Glamour” and “Crime”) and were guided in small groups, to tiny, elaborately designed rooms in which the interactive scenes played out. Tickets for the show, running until the end of March and co-directed by Ana Margineanu and Tai Thompson, are $70.

Even as “Motel Stories” reveals North Beach’s multifaceted past, the area is headed for more change. The development company Ocean Terrace Holdings, which owns the former hotel, will soon turn the street — much like Ocean Drive in pre-boom South Beach — into an upscale complex of condos, stores, and a public park, restoring two historic hotels but leaving just the facades of the rest.

The project is part of a wave of development flooding Miami’s culturally distinctive neighborhoods, including those where other “Miami Motel Stories” have taken place.

Tanya Bravo, the producing artistic director of Juggerknot Theater Company, which produces “Motel Stories,” said the series honors a community’s history during an inevitable transformation.

“We know there’s gentrification,” said Bravo, a Miami native. “What we can do as artists is tell the story before the change comes. A heightened reality happens in this building. We’re peeling off the wallpaper, archiving history.”

Bravo and Juan C. Sanchez, the project’s playwright and co-creator, aim not only to entertain, but to foster connection in a city where decades of arrivals often split into ethnic enclaves. One result is Miamians tend to know little about the city’s history or groups besides their own.

“Once we know we’ve all had a place here, we begin to see ourselves in each other more,” said Sanchez, who spends months researching each show.

The pair, longtime friends, came up with the concept in 2016. Sanchez, whose parents emigrated from Cuba, had just finished “Paradise Motel,” a traditional play that told the story of Little Havana through decades at a fictional motel.

Bravo, returning to the arts after years in corporate marketing, had discovered immersive theater by acting in the New York City show “Broken City,” set on the Lower East Side. She suggested staging a version of Sanchez’s play in a real Little Havana hotel.

The 2017 production, the first significant immersive theater produced here, was a hit, drawing a diverse, youthful crowd. That led to “Motel Stories” in the MiMo, or Miami Modern, District; in Wynwood, famous for its street murals; and now in North Beach.

The veteran theater critic Christine Dolen, who has seen all of the iterations, said the latest version had “fewer clear standout” vignettes. “Yet what Juggerknot reliably delivers — a dramatic deep dive into a neighborhood’s changing character throughout time — shines through again,” she wrote in ArtburstMiami.com.

One theme in the North Beach show is the area’s history of discrimination. Until the Civil Rights Act, blacks had to have work permits to be on Miami Beach, and to leave at sundown.

Luckner “Lucky” Bruno, 42, who plays the black shoemaker (based on an elderly man who’s owned a nearby shop since the 1970s), remembers how tense family trips to the beach were for his parents.

“There are so many rights that are threatened now, in Miami and America,” he said. “I feel even more responsibility to remind people we are all part of this patchwork.”

Sanchez also featured the neighborhood’s notoriously colorful past, with a ’60s gangster lamenting the loss of a mobster’s paradise. A quarreling, undocumented Argentine couple represents the many immigrants who led to the area being dubbed “Little Buenos Aires” in the early 2000s.

The historic segments mesh with a parallel plot, a fictional indie film shoot that can seem like ironic commentary on the show’s idealism. “I love history!” proclaims the actor Alex Alvarez, as a bombastic film director. “North Beach is where dreams come to live — they kick ass!”

Yet there’s a tension underlying the project. All the “Motel Stories” have been hosted by hotel owners and developers who are likely to change neighborhoods in ways that push out the culturally distinctive, working and middle-class people portrayed in the shows.

Ocean Terrace Holdings recently emerged from a sometimes contentious five-year process over plans for the neglected North Beach street, where several picturesque hotels have been closed for years. Some neighborhood activists opposed a project they saw as threatening to turn their affordable community into another pricey, tourist-driven South Beach.

“I’m tired of giving in all over Miami Beach to developers’ greed,” said Marsha Gilbert, a lifelong North Beach resident, at the City Council meeting last August where the Ocean Terrace project was approved, according to a story in the Miami New Times.

Sandor Scher, who owns Ocean Terrace Holdings with his partner Alex Blavatnik (a brother of Len Blavatnik, the multibillionaire international entrepreneur), said it’s not surprising that residents would have concerns about a project that he said will be “transformational.”

He predicted that new business and visitors to Ocean Terrace will restore the neighborhood’s dynamism — which is what attracted many of the characters portrayed in “Motel Stories” in the first place. The company did repairs and got permits so the show could use the abandoned hotel, and is hosting the production for free.

“Arts and culture have been a big part of finding a way to activate our buildings, give back to the community, do something that creates interest in North Beach and Ocean Terrace,” Scher said.

That is something the “Motel Stories” artists believe is worth doing.

“I don’t think any city has come up with a solution to gentrification,” said June Raven Romero, who plays the temperance crusader. “Every city is battling this monster. Maybe this is not an answer, but a conversation.”

Not long after the show closes, all but the facade of the Ocean Terrace will be demolished. “All the ghosts we’re evoking now won’t have a realm,” said Bruno. “But we are at least giving it that last energy. Remember me, and I’ll always remember you.”

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How a guy who injected PEDs to see the effects scored an Oscar win and uncovered the biggest doping scandal in Olympics history

"Icarus" won the Oscar for best documentary on Sunday.

It went from a Sundance sensation to a must-see movie on Netflix.

But for director Bryan Fogel, the Oscar win came after a 14-year struggle to find his niche in the business.

Bryan Fogel became one of the biggest success stories at Sundance in 2017, when his doping scandal documentary “Icarus” sold to Netflix for a staggering $5 million (unheard of for a documentary sale). And then on Sunday, it won the best documentary Oscar.

But his journey actually goes back 14 years, when his claim to fame was being the creator of an off-Broadway hit show.

Struggling to get into the business as an actor, writer, or director, Fogel co-wrote the stage play “Jewtopia” with Sam Wolfson in 2003. It's a comedy about two friends navigating the Jewish and Gentile dating scenes. It became a surprise hit, with Fogel and Wolfson starring as the male leads during runs in Los Angeles, and then off-Broadway for three and a half years.

That play then had a touring production, was put into book form, and even spawned a movie version starring Jennifer Love Hewitt in 2012 directed by Fogel.

But that’s when the party stopped. The movie barely got a theatrical run, and was thrust into streaming limbo following its 10% Rotten Tomatoes rating. 

Following that disappointment, and known around town only as “The Jewtopia Guy,” Fogel was stuck in the bubble Hollywood likes to put people in.

“There was nothing coming at me that was exciting,” Fogel told Business Insider. “In a way, I would call it director’s jail.”

But there was one thing that gave him comfort: cycling.

Fogel constantly rode his bike, sometimes even riding and doing competitions alongside pros. Around the time of accusations running wild in 2012 that Lance Armstrong was doping throughout his seven consecutive wins of the Tour de France, Fogel, who idolized Armstrong, began to wonder if the blame should be put on Armstrong or the entire system. Armstrong wasn’t the only one doping, though he finally admitted to doing it in 2013.

That led to Fogel to an idea.

“I like to make films and I like to ride my bike, so I set out on this journey to evade positive detection,” Fogel said. “Show on a bigger level how this anti-doping system essentially doesn’t work and hopefully make a cool movie in the process.”

In 2014, Fogel used $350,000 given to him by a friend and began to make “Icarus.” He hired a team of nutritionists and trainers to chart his progress, and through that he befriended the man who would be in charge of his doping process, a Russian scientist named Grigory Rodchenkov.

It took years to find what the movie was. Fogel admitted that the first two years of material hardly even made it in the finished version of the movie. But his “Super Size Me”-like journey to see how performance enhancing drugs bettered his cycling led to a friendship with Rodchenkov, which inevitably became his movie.

As shown halfway through "Icarus," Fogel begins to realize through his Skype conversations with Rodchenkov that he’s a major player in Russia’s doping of its athletes. In fact, he’s the guy.

It turns out Rodchenkov is the director of the Moscow laboratory, the Anti-Doping Centre, which does the complete opposite on a daily basis of what its name says it does. The lab, as Rodchenkov shows in the movie, doped the athletes and then carried through methods to make sure they got through the Sochi Winter Games in 2014 undetected.

Around the time Fogel got this bombshell from Rodchenkov, producer Dan Cogan and his team at Impact Partners joined the movie, and gave Fogel the financing and support to complete it. This included Fogel’s trip to Moscow to see Rodchenkov at his lab for the final stage of his doping.

But then the movie took a drastic turn.

Doping allegations toward Russian Olympic athletes begin to come out in the news, with involvement tracing all the way up to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Fearful for his life, Rodchenkov devised a plan with Fogel to get him to the US.

“I had so many sleepless nights in that period,” Fogel said. “I had a responsibility. This story had to come out, and Grigory was the only person on planet earth who had this evidence.”

Fogel and Rodchenkov’s faces were suddenly plastered all over Russian television, and Fogel claiming his Facebook and email were constantly trying to be hacked into. This led to the movie's most dramatic moment, Rodchenkov getting in touch with the New York Times in May 2016 to deliver the whistle-blowing story that rocked the sports world. Fogel was there to capture it all on camera. In fact, some of that footage has only recently been included in the movie, as Fogel didn’t have enough time to get it into the Sundance cut.

“The movie has the same running time, but we lost 20 minutes of material that was in the Sundance cut, and replaced that with 20 minutes of material that is bringing this story together emotionally. Showing and not telling,” Fogel said, who adds that the story also now goes quicker into Rodchenkov’s story. “So at Sundance we had a lot of [text] cards because we didn't have the time to put that together.” Also different from the Sundance cut, there’s now animation in the movie.

Many will likely connect the events in "Icarus" to the allegations that Russia interfered in the US 2016 presidential election. And Fogel is 100% on board with that thinking.

“You think to yourself, if they have been doing this to win gold medals and they had this entire laboratory that was basically a front for this spectacular criminal operation, is there any question what else they're capable of?” Fogel said. “Whether they hacked our election or whether there was collusion, I think the writing is right there on the wall. How much more evidence do you need?”

“Icarus” is available on Netflix.

SEE ALSO: Everything you need to know about the Iron Bank of Braavos, which will be important on "Game of Thrones" next Sunday

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No Room Service, but History’s on the Menu

MIAMI — With its boarded-up facade eerily lit by a round Miami Beach moon, the Ocean Terrace Hotel looks abandoned. But when the blank metal doors swung open on a recent February evening, history suddenly came to life.

In one room, a relentless Christian temperance crusader described how she brought down a Prohibition-era den of iniquity on the corner. In another, an exuberant Jewish couple on their 1956 honeymoon decided to abandon Brooklyn for the glamorous beachside neighborhood outside their window. “It feels wonderful,” said the honeymooning husband. “Like paradise.”

Elsewhere in the hotel, a black shoemaker shared admiring tales of Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge, while Andrew Cunanan, who murdered Gianni Versace in front of his South Beach mansion, raved in an imaginary disco and a young Hasidic man negotiated his reluctant attraction to a flamboyant gay bartender.

They were all actors in “Miami Motel Stories — North Beach,” the fourth edition of an immersive theater project that uses forgotten history to bring this city’s diverse, eclectic — and often gentrifying — neighborhoods to life.

The Ocean Terrace is a derelict structure named for this picturesque but rundown beachfront street in North Beach, a quiet area 50-some blocks north of tourist-packed South Beach.

Audiences chose one of four themed tracks (including “Glamour” and “Crime”) and were guided in small groups, to tiny, elaborately designed rooms in which the interactive scenes played out. Tickets for the show, running until the end of March and co-directed by Ana Margineanu and Tai Thompson, are $70.

Even as “Motel Stories” reveals North Beach’s multifaceted past, the area is headed for more change. The development company Ocean Terrace Holdings, which is sponsoring the show, will soon turn the street — much like Ocean Drive in pre-boom South Beach — into an upscale complex of hotels, condos, stores, and a public park, restoring two historic hotels but leaving just the facades of the rest.

The project is part of a wave of development flooding Miami’s culturally distinctive neighborhoods, including those where other “Miami Motel Stories” have taken place.

Tanya Bravo, the producing artistic director of Juggerknot Theater Company, which produces “Motel Stories,” said the series honors a community’s history during an inevitable transformation.

“We know there’s gentrification,” said Bravo, a Miami native. “What we can do as artists is tell the story before the change comes. A heightened reality happens in this building. We’re peeling off the wallpaper, archiving history.”

Bravo and Juan C. Sanchez, the project’s playwright and co-creator, aim not only to entertain, but to foster connection in a city where decades of arrivals often split into ethnic enclaves. One result is Miamians tend to know little about the city’s history or groups besides their own.

“Once we know we’ve all had a place here, we begin to see ourselves in each other more,” said Sanchez, who spends months researching each show.

The pair, longtime friends, came up with the concept in 2016. Sanchez, whose parents emigrated from Cuba, had just finished “Paradise Motel,” a traditional play that told the story of Little Havana through decades at a fictional motel.

Bravo, returning to the arts after years in corporate marketing, had discovered immersive theater by acting in the New York City show “Broken City,” set on the Lower East Side. She suggested staging a version of Sanchez’s play in a real Little Havana hotel.

The 2017 production, the first significant immersive theater produced here, was a hit, drawing a diverse, youthful crowd. That led to “Motel Stories” in the MiMo, or Miami Modern, District; in Wynwood, famous for its street murals; and now in North Beach.

The veteran theater critic Christine Dolen, who has seen all of the iterations, said the latest version had “fewer clear standout” vignettes. “Yet what Juggerknot reliably delivers — a dramatic deep dive into a neighborhood’s changing character throughout time — shines through again,” she wrote in ArtburstMiami.com.

One theme in the North Beach show is the area’s history of discrimination. Until the Civil Rights Act, blacks had to have work permits to be on Miami Beach, and to leave at sundown.

Luckner “Lucky” Bruno, 42, who plays the black shoemaker (based on an elderly man who’s owned a nearby shop since the 1970s), remembers how tense family trips to the beach were for his parents.

“There are so many rights that are threatened now, in Miami and America,” he said. “I feel even more responsibility to remind people we are all part of this patchwork.”

Sanchez also featured the neighborhood’s notoriously colorful past, with a ’60s gangster lamenting the loss of a mobster’s paradise. A quarreling, undocumented Argentine couple represents the many immigrants who led to the area being dubbed “Little Buenos Aires” in the early 2000s.

The historic segments mesh with a parallel plot, a fictional indie film shoot that can seem like ironic commentary on the show’s idealism. “I love history!” proclaims the actor Alex Alvarez, as a bombastic film director. “North Beach is where dreams come to live — they kick ass!”

Yet there’s a tension underlying the project. All the “Motel Stories” have been sponsored by hotel owners and developers who are likely to change neighborhoods in ways that push out the culturally distinctive, working and middle-class people portrayed in the shows.

Ocean Terrace Holdings, the North Beach sponsor, recently emerged from a sometimes contentious five-year process over plans for the neglected beachfront, where several picturesque hotels have been closed for years. Some neighborhood activists opposed a project they saw as threatening to turn their affordable community into another pricey, tourist-driven South Beach.

“I’m tired of giving in all over Miami Beach to developers’ greed,” said Marsha Gilbert, a lifelong North Beach resident, at the City Council meeting last August where the Ocean Terrace project was approved, according to a story in the Miami New Times.

Sandor Scher, who owns Ocean Terrace Holdings with his partner Alex Blavatnik (a brother of Len Blavatnik, the multibillionaire international entrepreneur), said it’s not surprising that residents would have concerns about a project that he said will be “transformational.”

He predicted that new business and visitors to Ocean Terrace will restore the neighborhood’s dynamism — which is what attracted many of the characters portrayed in “Motel Stories” in the first place. The company did repairs and got permits so the show could use the abandoned hotel, and is hosting the production for free.

“Arts and culture have been a big part of finding a way to activate our buildings, give back to the community, do something that creates interest in North Beach and Ocean Terrace,” Scher said.

That is something the “Motel Stories” artists believe is worth doing.

“I don’t think any city has come up with a solution to gentrification,” said June Raven Romero, who plays the temperance crusader. “Every city is battling this monster. Maybe this is not an answer, but a conversation.”

Not long after the show closes, all but the facade of the Ocean Terrace will be demolished. “All the ghosts we’re evoking now won’t have a realm,” said Bruno. “But we are at least giving it that last energy. Remember me, and I’ll always remember you.”

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Fran Drescher, Millennial Whisperer – The New York Times

Fran Drescher’s voice, if you ever have the chance to hear it deployed in very close vicinity over shrimp tempura and spicy tuna sushi, is actually quite soothing.

When Drescher played Fran Fine on “The Nanny,” the 1990s sitcom she created with her then-husband Peter Marc Jacobson, she was pitching her voice higher, squeezing it up her nose, acting. Back then, The New York Times compared Drescher to “the sound of a Buick with an empty gas tank cold-cranking on a winter morning.” But here in her living room above Central Park, sitting among crystals, fresh lemons, fine sculpture and photographs of herself meeting establishment Democrats, she sounds more like a Mercedes purring out of the Long Island Expressway. For those who grew up with “The Nanny” as our nanny, her voice is so embedded in the subconscious that hearing the softened version is almost therapeutic. Imagine if Nanny Fine had an ASMR setting.

“I’ve heard it’s like a foghorn, a cackle,” Drescher said carefully, balancing her plate in the lap of her little black dress. “I always just describe myself as having a unique voice.” When she left Queens for Hollywood in the late 1970s, her manager told her, “If you want to play other parts, besides hookers, you’re going to have to learn to speak differently,” she recalled. Instead Drescher leaned into her natural gifts. In 1992, she pitched herself as a sitcom star to the president of CBS: “Because of the voice, they think I’m the seasoning in the show,” she told him. “That’s wrong. I’m a main course.”

America has not heard from Drescher much lately — she has not appeared regularly on television since her TV Land sitcom “Happily Divorced” ended in 2013, and “The Nanny” is sadly hard to stream — but this week, at 62, she returns to TV with NBC’s “Indebted.” As in the pilot of “The Nanny,” Drescher appears unexpectedly on a doorstep, except this time, it belongs to her adult son (Adam Pally). She and Steven Weber play Debbie and Stew Klein, a couple of boomer dilettantes who crash their kid’s married life with the news that they’re in debt. The role of Debbie, a boundaryless hugger who swans around her son’s suburban home as if it’s her own personal retirement community, inverts the “Nanny” dynamic: Now the kids have to take care of her.

When Drescher weighed whether to take on the show, a family sitcom that draws on generational conflict, she thought of her own family. “My parents, who are still alive, thank God, were so excited about me being on network television again,” she said. “You know, not everybody could find TV Land,” she added, “but everybody could find NBC.”

The role was not written for Drescher, exactly. The pilot script had called for a “Fran Drescher type,” and when the real Fran Drescher signed on, she required a few adjustments. “People are used to seeing an annoying mother-in-law in a sitcom, but that’s not what I signed up for,” Drescher said. “When you have somebody whose persona is bigger than the part, you got to make it right for me. Or why have me?”

That meant giving Debbie Klein some passions of her own. “I had to bring myself into it,” she said. “I really infused the sex appeal, the sensuality, the vivaciousness of the character.”

“Indebted” creator Dan Levy, a comedian and producer for “The Goldbergs,” said that he originally modeled Debbie and Stew after his own parents, but that the steaminess was all Drescher. “My mom was like, ‘That’s not based on us,’” Levy said. “She elevated that to a whole level that I was not expecting.”

In the decades since Drescher first opened her mouth onscreen, the Fran Drescher type has achieved a quiet dominance over popular culture. “The Nanny” has been syndicated around the world and remade in a dozen countries, including Turkey (where it was called “Dadi”), Poland (“Niania”) and Argentina (“La Niñera”). In “The Nanny,” for anyone who doesn’t have the chatty theme song implanted in her brain, Drescher plays a Jewish woman from Queens hired to tend to the three precocious children of a wealthy English widower, Maxwell Sheffield, who is also Broadway’s second-most-successful producer (after his nemesis, Andrew Lloyd Webber). In foreign versions, the ethnicities are recalibrated — in the Russian one, the nanny is Ukrainian — but the Fran Drescher type is otherwise preserved. Wherever she goes, the ethnic striver is transplanted into a posh setting as the help, and her appealing culture and individual charm pull off the ultimate makeover — reinventing the strait-laced insiders in her own brash image.

Across the internet, Fran Fine is helping to perform similar tricks. With her pile of hair, power-clashing wardrobe and cartoon proportions, she has been fashioned into an avatar of stylish self-respect. In GIFs spirited around social media, she can be seen in a cheetah-print skirt suit, sipping from a cheetah-print teacup; inhaling a plate of spaghetti with no hands; and descending the Sheffields’ ivory staircase as if entering New York’s hottest club.

“I send this when I’m excited,” Drescher said, summoning her phone from her assistant Jordan and thumbing to a GIF of Fine twirling across the mansion in a fuchsia dress and a self-satisfied look. “How many people can send their own GIF?”

The Fran Drescher type is a kind of advisory role. First she was the world’s nanny, showing kids how to mix prints and be themselves, and now she has matured into a cool-aunt persona, modeling a fabulous adulthood. (“Broad City” made this transformation literal, squeezing Drescher into a low cut rainbow and cheetah-print dress and casting her as Ilana’s Aunt Bev, and by extension the spirit guide for a new generation of Jewish comediennes.) “I’ve never had kids, so I’m not really parental,” Drescher said. “I’m a mom to my dogs.”

“I’m kind of an influencer,” she added. Drescher has led an unconventional life, and “I share it,” she said. “It gives my life purpose.” In two memoirs, she has discussed being raped at gunpoint in her 20s, surviving uterine cancer in her 40s, and divorcing Jacobson only to acquire a new gay best friend when he subsequently came out. Recently she thrilled the internet when she revealed that she has secured a “friend with benefits” whom she meets twice a month for television viewing and sex. “I don’t think it’s that shocking a thing,” Drescher said. “I’m not in love with him.”

The kids who grew up watching “The Nanny” are now Nanny Fine’s age, old enough to properly covet her closet and cultivate a newfound respect for her persona. On Instagram, the @whatfranwore account catalogs classic “Nanny” outfits, and @thenannyart pairs them with contemporary art pieces. Cardi B once captioned a photo of herself in head-to-toe cat prints: “Fran Drescher in @dolceandgabbana.” The actor Isabelle Owens will mount a one-woman song-and-dance show dedicated to Drescher in New York this month, called “Fran Drescher, Please Adopt Me!” “As everything from the ’90s comes back, people are rediscovering her,” Owens said, noting Drescher’s fashion, her confidence, and her voice; Owens is still working to perfect her impersonation. “There are so many layers to it,” she said. “It’s so delicate and lyrical.”

The Fran Drescher type, no matter how big it gets, still risks reducing the woman behind it. “All of her is in me, but not all of me is in her,” Drescher said. “I don’t think any of my characters could have ever created and executive-produced ‘The Nanny.’” Fran Fine might have been able to wrap the boss around her red-lacquered little finger, but Drescher is the boss. When she secured her own New York apartment, in 2004, it was here, just across the park from the house that stood in for the Sheffield mansion on “The Nanny.” Soon her transformation into Mr. Sheffield will be complete: She is developing a Broadway show of her own, a musical adaptation of “The Nanny” that she will co-write with Jacobson.

“The Nanny” is a timely bid for Broadway. Drescher takes the stage’s most classic feminine archetype and gives her a modern upgrade: She is Eliza Doolittle if she refused to take her voice lessons.

That’s perhaps the biggest misconception about the Fran Drescher type — that the voice is an unfortunate obstacle, rather than a cultivated asset. Once, a fan asked Drescher about the classic “Nanny” scene where Fran Fine goes for sushi, naïvely swallows a wad of wasabi, and says, in an eerily neutral broadcaster’s voice, “Gee, you know, that mustard really clears out the nasal passages.” The fan wanted to know how Drescher had managed to pull that voice off. Sitting in her parkside apartment, perched in her producer’s chair, confidently apportioning her wasabi, Drescher revealed her secret: “I’m very talented.”

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[ramialkarmi]

How a guy who injected PEDs to see the effects scored a Netflix deal and uncovered the biggest doping scandal in Olympics history

Bryan Fogel became one of the biggest success stories at Sundance in 2017, when his doping scandal documentary “Icarus” sold to Netflix for a staggering $5 million (unheard of for a documentary sale). But his journey actually goes back 14 years, when his claim to fame was being the creator of an off-Broadway hit show.

Struggling to get into the business as an actor, writer, or director, Fogel co-wrote the stage play “Jewtopia” with Sam Wolfson in 2003. It's a comedy about two friends navigating the Jewish and Gentile dating scenes. It became a surprise hit, with Fogel and Wolfson starring as the male leads during runs in Los Angeles, and then off-Broadway for three and a half years.

That play then had a touring production, was put into book form, and even spawned a movie version starring Jennifer Love Hewitt in 2012 directed by Fogel.

But that’s when the party stopped. The movie barely got a theatrical run, and was thrust into streaming limbo following its 10% Rotten Tomatoes rating. 

Following that disappointment, and known around town only as “The Jewtopia Guy,” Fogel was stuck in the bubble Hollywood likes to put people in.

“There was nothing coming at me that was exciting,” Fogel told Business Insider. “In a way, I would call it director’s jail.”

But there was one thing that gave him comfort: cycling.

Fogel constantly rode his bike, sometimes even riding and doing competitions alongside pros. Around the time of accusations running wild in 2012 that Lance Armstrong was doping throughout his seven consecutive wins of the Tour de France, Fogel, who idolized Armstrong, began to wonder if the blame should be put on Armstrong or the entire system. Armstrong wasn’t the only one doping, though he finally admitted to doing it in 2013.

That led to Fogel to an idea.

“I like to make films and I like to ride my bike, so I set out on this journey to evade positive detection,” Fogel said. “Show on a bigger level how this anti-doping system essentially doesn’t work and hopefully make a cool movie in the process.”

In 2014, Fogel used $350,000 given to him by a friend and began to make “Icarus” (available on Netflix Friday). He hired a team of nutritionists and trainers to chart his progress, and through that he befriended the man who would be in charge of his doping process, a Russian scientist named Grigory Rodchenkov.

It took years to find what the movie was. Fogel admitted that the first two years of material hardly even made it in the finished version of the movie. But his “Super Size Me”-like journey to see how performance enhancing drugs bettered his cycling led to a friendship with Rodchenkov, which inevitably became his movie.

As shown halfway through "Icarus," Fogel begins to realize through his Skype conversations with Rodchenkov that he’s a major player in Russia’s doping of its athletes. In fact, he’s the guy.

It turns out Rodchenkov is the director of the Moscow laboratory, the Anti-Doping Centre, which does the complete opposite on a daily basis of what its name says it does. The lab, as Rodchenkov shows in the movie, doped the athletes and then carried through methods to make sure they got through the Sochi Winter Games in 2014 undetected.

Around the time Fogel got this bombshell from Rodchenkov, producer Dan Cogan and his team at Impact Partners joined the movie, and gave Fogel the financing and support to complete it. This included Fogel’s trip to Moscow to see Rodchenkov at his lab for the final stage of his doping.

But then the movie took a drastic turn.

Doping allegations toward Russian Olympic athletes begin to come out in the news, with involvement tracing all the way up to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Fearful for his life, Rodchenkov devised a plan with Fogel to get him to the US.

“I had so many sleepless nights in that period,” Fogel said. “I had a responsibility. This story had to come out, and Grigory was the only person on planet earth who had this evidence.”

Fogel and Rodchenkov’s faces were suddenly plastered all over Russian television, and Fogel claiming his Facebook and email were constantly trying to be hacked into. This led to the movie's most dramatic moment, Rodchenkov getting in touch with the New York Times in May 2016 to deliver the whistle-blowing story that rocked the sports world. Fogel was there to capture it all on camera. In fact, some of that footage has only recently been included in the movie, as Fogel didn’t have enough time to get it into the Sundance cut.

“The movie has the same running time, but we lost 20 minutes of material that was in the Sundance cut, and replaced that with 20 minutes of material that is bringing this story together emotionally. Showing and not telling,” Fogel said, who adds that the story also now goes quicker into Rodchenkov’s story. “So at Sundance we had a lot of [text] cards because we didn't have the time to put that together.” Also different from the Sundance cut, there’s now animation in the movie.

Many will likely connect the events in "Icarus" to the allegations that Russia interfered in the US 2016 presidential election. And Fogel is 100% on board with that thinking.

“You think to yourself, if they have been doing this to win gold medals and they had this entire laboratory that was basically a front for this spectacular criminal operation, is there any question what else they're capable of?” Fogel said. “Whether they hacked our election or whether there was collusion, I think the writing is right there on the wall. How much more evidence do you need?”

“Icarus” is available on Netflix beginning August 4.

SEE ALSO: Everything you need to know about the Iron Bank of Braavos, which will be important on "Game of Thrones" next Sunday

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