...how would you want the Two Friends to handle Angels in America?
Hard to imagine doing a Nichols miniseries without covering it, but it's got a 352-minute runtime. That's too much to cram into one BC episode, but giving each of the six Angels "chapters" its own episode also seems impractical.
Would you want it split it in two (as it's done on stage, and as it was originally broadcast on HBO) and cover Millennium Approaches and Perestroika as two BC episodes, or try and run through the whole experience at once? And should it be a main feed episode or patreon bonus episode (since it's technically TV)? What guest(s) would you want to be part of it, if any?
Signed, a blankie who is planning on embarking on watching Angels in America for the first time and already thinking too much about this.
I just finished Mark Harris’ extraordinary biography, and Mike Nichols has now skyrocketed to the top of the list of dream BC directors. And the book is a must-read for anyone interested in film, theatre, or sketch comedy.
It is such a fascinating career arc with 3 separate sections: early success (Virginia Woolf to Fortune)...then an 8-year break before his mid career (Silkwood to What Planet Are You From)...then he recalibrated with the help of HBO for the end of his career (Wit to Charlie Wilson’s War). It’s 20 films — yes, they would have to cover the 2 HBO projects but not Gilda — but there’s so much variety: BIG stars! A focus on female screenwriters and protagonists! Problematic faves (The Graduate)! And sometimes he even threw his own money around (he bought Primary Colors himself and won the rights over every major studio).
Those bounces are big and will be fun to dissect (Catch-22, Day of the Dolphin, Wolf, What Planet Are You From) but there are also so many modern classics (VWoolf, Graduate, Silkwood, Birdcage, his magnum opus Angels in America) and movies that quietly fuck (Carnal Knowledge, Postcards from the Edge, Heartburn, Wit).
His love of actors is really what struck me while reading the book. He met people like Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Emma Thompson, and Jack Nicholson and just wanted to keep working with them. AND we’d get 2 scripts each by Elaine May and Nora Ephron! Along with a cavalcade of other great writers like Carrie Fisher, Aaron Sorkin, Buck Henry, Jules Feiffer, Neil Simon, and more of dat dank Kush.
He’s a fascinating, complicated man who struggled with depression (which sometimes led to him accepting an easy project like Biloxi Blues), and I think he would be a perfect Blank Check subject. And the next year or two would be perfect timing after May and the biography!
So consider this my pitch for Who’s Afraid of Podginia Cast, Podcasts from the Edge, or The Podcaduate.
Hi all - I just want to praise something that doesn't need my praise, because it's being universally well-reviewed: the Mark Harris Mike Nichols biography.
I'm 100 pages in and it's wonderful (I loved both his other books). So far I've learned a LOT about Elaine May and their relationship, and there's a part of me that wishes this were three volumes so there could JUST be a biography of the two of them.
Also, I've gone on a youtube deepdive and have more or less exhausted the Nichols/May footage there.
I'll share here the first encounter between May and Nichols, which sounds apocryphal, but which I'd like to believe is true.
https://preview.redd.it/8867qa9hv1i61.png?width=2160&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8864a21c33910d43b649790ee1daebecb189068
I've always been idly curious about where the 2015 "undisclosed location" tribute to the late Mike Nichols, where so many of Hollywoods mega stars turned out .. Anyone have any insider info on where it took place ? or is it breaking some confidentiality agreement 5 years after the fact ?
Your choices:
- Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
- The Graduate (1967)
- Catch-22 (1970)
- Carnal Knowledge (1971)
- The Day of the Dolphin (1973)
- The Fortune (1975)
- Gilda Live (1980)
- Silkwood (1983)
- Heartburn (1986)
- Working Girl (1986)
- Postcards from the Edge (1990)
- Regarding Henry (1991)
- Wolf (1994)
- The Birdcage (1996)
- Primary Colors (1998)
- What Planet Are You From? (2000)
- Closer (2004)
- Charlie Wilson's War (2007)
I'm from Australia and our opinions of journalists/commentators from popular sports like AFL are fairly common across the board but I am curious who is liked and who isn't in NBA.
I really want to watch it again, but it was great. All the performances were fantastic with Portman probably giving my favorite performance of the film. The characters were very complex and distinct. I’m not sure if I can really call one person a villain and the other a victim because in a way, they all suffer from what they put on themselves. It’s a disturbing portrait of relationships and trust, but I think that’s exactly what the film intended to be. The characters who were being unfaithful are assholes but the people they’re doing it to don’t seem to mind because they love them, or they think they do. Definitely gonna need to clear my thoughts when I rewatch it but it was great movie, would recommend! (Side note: this movies underrated as fuck)
I'm watching a JoBlo Horror Video about the movie Cursed and at one point they convey through a Rotten Tomato review that the worst wolf movie ever made was Jack Nicholson's Wolf.
Why the hate?
I saw this movie in the theater with my Dad and I was mesmerized from the beginning. Something about that score. Something about the snow. It from then on I was hooked. Great cast. Snappy script. Eloquently shot. Clever evolution/discovery of powers. Effective scares. Tight plot. Michelle Pfeifer plays unlikeable and has never looked better. Christopher Plummer going around "Christopher Plummering". Ennio Morricone's music is truly a highlight of his oeuvre. Nicholson keeps his "Nicholsons" to himself. James Spader is James Spader and there's never anything wrong with that. And on top of that, the film was actually damn romantic. I thought this movie always deserved better.
