TV Thread - beware, [expletive] can get spoilery

[BottenFieldofDreams]

I'm really interested in Jerry West vs Adam McKay. Curious what comes of it. I'm not watching Winning Time, because [expletive] the Lakers. But I would have been surprised to see Jerry West played as a raving a-hole, and apparently many Lakers insiders from that era were as well. The letter from West says the book paints a far more subdued and accurate picture.

The show runs with a disclaimer. But I think West is entirely correct that this will damage his reputation anyhow.

McKay's Big Short totally changed characters too. The Steve Carrell in real life removed his name from the project. Probably based on that ham-fisted 'they're going to hurt poor people' monologue. I'm a big Michael Lewis fan, and I believe he probably aligns more or less with that thinking (I do as well), but that is not the character from the book. Whatever is trying to be done here to serve the story or the moral or whatever is very unfair to Jerry West, pending voices supporting the way he is portrayed.

I will probably look up some clips of Bo Burnham playing Larry Bird.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/337 ... es-winning

[Jocephus]

mckay unfortunately seems to love the smell of his own farts now. or at least, its become more obvious.

[Jocephus]

of possible interest to those that like bob

[BottenFieldofDreams]

The Social Network was a bit of a fantasy. The Andrew Garfield hero character in real life was pretty bad to others at early Facebook. Then the year after the movie came out, renounced US Citizenship rather than pay taxes on his Facebook fortune. He must love that movie. Zuckerberg has become the villain of that movie and far more. but I don't think Sorkin/Fincher's 'lonely nerd wants girls' is accurate.

I won't pretend to know where the line ought to be. But I think the Jerry West portrayal may very well be past it. I certainly don't think he's being a snowflake or whatever.

I'm hoping for a graceful response from McKay. But I'm fully expecting some sort of slippery slope argument. "If we can't make a nice guy look like an a-hole, what's next, shutting down NPR?" something along those lines.

[go birds]

the Invisible Pilot on HBO(MAX) is an insane watch

[BottenFieldofDreams]

mckay unfortunately seems to love the smell of his own farts now. or at least, its become more obvious.

I didn't realize he'd fallen out with Will Farrell. Sounds like he dicked him over on the Jerry Buss role.

[ghostrunner]

I get why people that know him might be mad, but from what I can see it's tonally not a straight up biography/recreation. Seems pretty heavily stylized. In my opinion that's fine. Sucks for him personally but that's the difference between real life and fiction.

Ford vs Ferrari has a character like this. They turned a real guy into a villain because they felt it worked better for the movie.

The Late Shift movie comes to mind too. Leno and Letterman both hated it, and you can see why. I've never seen thew whole thing, but what I have seen looks awful. Doesn't mean it couldn't work though.

[BottenFieldofDreams]

I get why people that know him might be mad, but from what I can see it's tonally not a straight up biography/recreation. Seems pretty heavily stylized. In my opinion that's fine. Sucks for him personally but that's the difference between real life and fiction.

Ford vs Ferrari has a character like this. They turned a real guy into a villain because they felt it worked better for the movie.

The Late Shift movie comes to mind too. Leno and Letterman both hated it, and you can see why. I've never seen thew whole thing, but what I have seen looks awful. Doesn't mean it couldn't work though.

In the last several years my estimation of general American intelligence has really been beat to hell. I don't trust the ability to see "Jerry West" and consider the quotation marks at all. For example, I made a couple posts on social media begging for someone to free me from ANTIFA here in Portland, and they couldn't have been more clearly joking (in a gulag, not seen my family for weeks among other things), so I thought, and people reached out to me with genuine concern.

OTOH, maybe it is best that our storytellers don't consider the idiots too much. It does suck for Jerry West though. I wouldn't want to be storytelling collateral damage.

I'm not upset about this at all. I just think it's a really interesting situation.

[Jocephus]

The Late Shift movie comes to mind too. Leno and Letterman both hated it, and you can see why. I've never seen thew whole thing, but what I have seen looks awful. Doesn't mean it couldn't work though.

i actually really like the late shift as a fun quick little dramatization of the events even if not 100%. i know leno/letterman didn't care for their portrayals but i really don't see much wrong with it, in the grand scheme of things. the worst is kathy bates character who is the most evil in the portrayal but i think she was also pretty vicious in her professional life so eh. it's funny to watch now as there are many hack tv execs portrayed who continue to be hacks. plus, the entertainment world of tv in this era is so vastly different to what it has become. it's on youtube in a mostly good condition

[ghostrunner]

It's just seems a little broad for my taste. Letterman and Leno both seem like caricatures and for whatever reason I wasn't that interested in the behind the scenes drama. What I have seen didn't hook me.

For whatever reason, tv shows based on real life are a hard sell for me anyway. I'm not interested in The Dropout, or We Crashed or anything like that. I'm vaguely interested in the Lakers thing only because I was a huge Magic fan growing up. Something about devoting multiple hours to an event I'm already familiar with, I guess. Not sure I can really justify it, though I do usually hate straight up biopics too.

Chernobyl is an exception, I think because it's about an event more than a specific person. I haven't seen it yet, but I want to.