PODCAST: DR. DEATH

PODCAST: DR. DEATH

We’re at our most vulnerable when we go to our doctors. We trust the person at the other end of that scalpel. We trust the hospital. We trust the system. Dr. Christopher Duntsch was a neurosurgeon who radiated confidence. He claimed he was the best in Dallas. If you had back pain, and had tried everything else, Dr. Duntsch could give you the spine surgery that would take your pain away. But soon his patients started to experience complications. And all they had to protect them was a system ill equipped to stop the madness. From Wondery, the network behind the hit podcast Dirty John, DR. DEATH is about a medical system that failed to protect these patients at every possible turn. Reported and hosted by Laura Beil.

MY VERDICT: This podcast is equal parts gripping and shocking, I don’t want to give too much away as I listened to this without knowing anything about it, which I think is the best way to listen to anything. What I will say is, don’t listen to this if you’re about to have surgery or know someone who is. And never let someone operate on you if they are the kind of person who loses their keys daily.

The podcast is short, concise, and the story is well told. I binged it in a few days, in part, because I couldn’t quite believe what I was listening to. This is a definite recommend.

FILM 1918: PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE

FILM 1918: PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE

TRIVIA: Tim Burton and Paul Reubens brought on Danny Elfman as composer after Burton had attended concerts by Oingo Boingo, of which Elfman was lead singer and songwriter. Elfman was originally apprehensive, having no formal music training, but he was assisted by Boingo guitarist Steve Bartek as orchestrator. Elfman later said that hearing his music performed by an orchestra for the first time was one of the most thrilling experiences of his life.

Jan Hooks improvised the dialogue for her scenes as the Alamo tour guide.

This was Tim Burton's directorial feature debut. He had previously directed some short films.

The Drive-in sequence was filmed at the Studio Drive In, formerly located in Culver City CA. The Studio was built in the 1930s, and was the first Drive-in Theatre constructed in California. It served as a set for several films, including Grease (1978). It was closed in 1993 and demolished in 1998. No trace of this Drive-in remains.

The rock band whose video shoot Pee Wee rides his bike through is Twisted Sister.

During the magic shop scene, Mario shows Pee-wee heads of different sizes. The largest head that he shows Pee-wee last is actually Aleister Crowley.

The Mr. T cereal eaten by Pee-Wee actually existed. It was not something made up for the film.

Elizabeth Daily (Dottie) would later go on to provide famous cartoon voices such as Buttercup in The Powerpuff Girls (1998) and The Powerpuff Girls Movie (2002)

CAMEO: Cassandra Peterson: (a.k.a. Elvira) Biker Mama at the Biker Bar.

CAMEO: Tom Berenger: Patron that turns around in the diner after the Large Marge sequence.

CAMEO: Phil Hartman: reporter interviewing Francis at the drive-in is "Captain Carl" from Pee Wee's TV shows.

DIRECTOR CAMEO : Tim Burton: the thug who accosts Pee-wee just before he enters the fortune teller's studio.

FILM 1878: NEAR DARK

FILM 1878: NEAR DARK

TRIVIA: While shooting in the desert, Lance Henriksen relieved the boredom between takes by hopping in his car and taking short drives through the desert, still in costume and often staying in character. According to Henriksen and Bill Paxton, the two were stopped by a policeman who became so unnerved questioning Jesse about his speeding that the officer became visibly uncomfortable, stepping back and placing his hand on his firearm. The obviously flustered officer decided to send them on their way rather than write them a ticket.

Unusual for a vampire movie, the word "vampire" is never mentioned.

Future husband James Cameron suggested to Bigelow that she use the ready-made ensemble cast from his recent hit Aliens (1986), and thus Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, and Jenette Goldstein all appear in Bigelow's film. Michael Biehn had also appeared in Aliens and was considered, but declined to participate.

This film marked Kathryn Bigelow's first solo directorial effort and the film's producer, Edward S. Feldman told her that if she couldn't handle or didn't know what she was doing while filming after five days, she would be replaced. She kept the job.

At approximately 21:13 of the movie, when Caleb in stumbling through the town in Texas, in the background there is a Warner cinema playing Aliens (1986), a movie also starring several of the main characters from Near Dark - including Lance Henriksen (Jessie), Bill Paxton (Severen), and Jenette Goldstein. (Diamondback).

At the start of the bungalow gunfight scene, a cross can be seen in the handle of Jesse's pistol alluding to the idea that these vampires do not follow the same "rules" of traditional vampire mythology.

When Severen and Jesse torch the motor home, Severen asks Jesse if he had remembered about a "fire that they had started in Chicago". It is assumed that they mean the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 that left more than 100,000 people homeless and destroyed businesses. Though apocryphal legend attributes the fire to a cow who kicked a lantern, the cause still remains a mystery.

FILM 1876: FRAILTY

FILM 1876: FRAILTY

TRIVIA: Directors James Cameron, Sam Raimi and author Stephen King all singled out Frailty(2001) for high praise. King considered it one of the best horror movies of its year.

Bill Paxton used the same beer can the entire filming of the movie because they could only find one Hamm's beer can like that from 1979. The can was "opened" off-camera and a sound effect added for popping its top (director commentary at 52:21).

The film is set in Texas and has three Texas-born actors as top-billed stars: Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughey, and Powers Boothe.

When asked why the axe used by his character has the name "OTIS" carved into the handle, Paxton stated that he wanted the axe to have its own personality and to be unique. He found the name in Pasadena when he was there scouting for locations to film. Paxton met a homeless man and offered to give him some money. The homeless man did not want charity, so Paxton instead offered to buy the use of the man's name for his movie. The homeless man's name was Otis.

BOOK 136: VERNON GOD LITTLE: DBC PIERRE

Vernon God Little (2003) is a novel by DBC Pierre. It was his debut novel and won the Booker Prize in 2003. It has twice been adapted as a stage play.

The life of Vernon Little, a normal teenager who lives in Martirio, Texas, falls apart when his best friend, Jesus Navarro, murders their classmates in the schoolyard before killing himself, and Vernon is taken in for questioning.

The Booker Prize judges described this book as a "coruscating black comedy reflecting our alarm but also our fascination with America"

The character of Vernon as a troubled teenager has drawn comparisons with the character Holden Caulfield in J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye novel. There are also significant similarities with Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The book is written in contemporary vernacular - with the use of foul satirical language and a witty irony. The town in which Vernon lives, Martirio, is ironically given the Spanish word for martyrdom.

Formerly an artist, cartoonist, photographer and filmmaker, and later accused of being a conman and thief following the wild, drug-fuelled international rampage of his twenties, Pierre wrote the novel in London after a period of therapy, personal reconstruction and unemployment. He states the novel was a reaction to the culture around him, which after his own reorientation in life seemed to be full of the same delusional behaviours and self-entitlements which brought his own earlier downfall.

The book was originally drafted as the first part of a trilogy which his UK publisher advised against, but which Pierre has loosely pursued in two subsequent works set 'in the presence of death', and dealing with contemporary, media-infected themes: Ludmila's Broken English (2006), and the final part of the End Times Trilogy, Lights Out In Wonderland (2010). This third book follows to their conclusion many of the questions underlying Vernon God Little, and returns to the first-person narrative of a young man set apart from his culture, this time in Europe.

Film 1028: Hands on a Hard Body: The Documentary

Trivia: Director 'Robert Altman' had planned to make a feature film based on this documentary, but died before the project could be realized.

In 2005, the competition was halted after one of the contestants broke into a nearby Kmart, took a shotgun from the sporting goods section, and committed suicide, which occurred during one of the breaks in the contest.