Ever since Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith was released in 2005, one scene has stuck out from all the rest. Palpatine telling an old Sith legend, a legend that motivated Anakin to move to the Dark side: “The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise”. The Story of a Sith Lord who achieved immortality with the power to create and preserve life only to be killed in his sleep by his apprentice. What Palpatine never told Anakin was that he was that very apprentice. In 2012 Lucasbooks released what many fans believed to be one of the greatest of
Spoilers. (Duh) In November 2019, Martin Scorsese returned to the gangster flick with The Irishman. Based on the book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt, this Netflix original chronicles the nearly 50 year timespan of Frank Sheeran’s time in the Bufalino crime family and his alleged role in Jimmy Hoffa’s Disappearance. The film reunites Scorsese with Robert De Niro as hitman Frank Sheeran. This was also a first time collaboration with Al Pacino as famed union president turned racketeer, Jimmy Hoffa. The biggest standout was Joe Pesci who came out of a 20-year retirement to play the reclusive
I don’t know about you, but I think I smell Oscar Gold. – Someone, probably. On May 9, 2017 FBI director James Comey was fired by then-President Trump, citing the bureau’s ongoing investigations into alleged ties between the presidential candidate’s campaign and Russian agents. A few weeks later, Comey went to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee to testify on the matter of how much Comey’s investigation was tied to the Trump administration. It was a s*** show. I remember back when Comey was testifying before the senate committee with regards to his firing (before those hearings became just another sideshow
The Cold War between the U.S.S.R. and the western powers shaped the entire back-half of the 20th century. While the Soviet Union would eventually die a slow and anticlimactic economic/political death in 1991, the echoes of this ideological conflict can still be heard well into the 21st century, as the western powers and the various flavors of communism alike would see dozens of governments deposed and dictators (quite often called “presidents”) installed across the globe. This may seem like your standard listicle of “top” bad people, but our purpose here is not to off-handedly rank whose regime was the cruelest
You’re reading part 4 of our 4-part series on adapting Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton” for television. Read part 1 here! Finally, with format (part 1), cast (part 2), and production (part 3) figured out, it’s time to figure out how our own Hamilton: the Musical Miniseries will be structured. To sufficiently cover the characters over both the revolutionary and congressional eras of the play, we feel the appropriate duration to aim for will be roughly 7 episodes, varying from 45min-70min in length. The big goal to aim for is that each episode begins and ends with one of the bigger musical
You’re reading part 3 of our 4-part series on adapting Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton” for television. Read part 1 here! Continuing our adaptation of Hamilton as a miniseries, we can finally turn our attention to production – How do we want our show to look and feel? The inspiration for our wacky vision draws heavily from both HBO’s John Adams with the stylized spectacle of CGI-filed scenery of The Greatest Showman. In the pro-shot performance of the Hamilton stage production, the set design makes brilliant use of a rotating “Lazy Susan” floor to depict characters on the move, transitions to locations,
You’re reading part 2 of our 4-part series on adapting Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton” for television. Read part 1 here! Continuing our discussion on how to film our version of Hamilton, this article will focus on our approach to casting. As a history buff, I would normally want a film adaptation to visually represent a time period and setting as much as possible. This no doubt leads to a big question that concerns me, do I want our characters to actually look like their historical counterparts or should they reflect the theme of the play? Part of Hamilton‘s genius on stage
A limited-run miniseries seems the only way to address all the sub-plots and character arcs of Hamilton faithfully without rushing or dragging the pacing. Another added bonus from this platform is there is more time to fully explore our characters as historical figures.