“Erin Brockovich”, 2000, “Dark Waters”, 2019 and eventually a new movie will be released about the poisoning of water in Flynt Michigan in 2014 – all have one thing in common. The greed of some very wealthy companies and individuals who could have ever cared less about the “common people”, “the poor”, he “unfortunatet masses” who they share this world with. These are corporations and individuals (Pacific Gas and Electric and Dupont) who did not care if the common people died, as long as the profits continued to role in unabated. How do people like this exist? Where do they come from? How can they sleep at night? These are questions I asked myself while watching these two great movies.
The new Hulu 8 part series “Dopesick” is about Purdue Pharmaceutical and the Billionaire Sackler family who created a drug called OxyContin. Purdue executives said OxyContin was the greatest pain killing drug ever created. They also said that the odds of ever becoming addicted to this drug were less than 1% – a lie they even put on every bottle. Over time, as the drug grew in popularity, only because of the massive marketing and mass lying campaign, the company continuously changed the lies into a moving target of deception that over time caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. In fact, Purdue Pharmaceuticals has been the main cause of the Opioid crisis in this country.
The cast for Dopesick is outstanding, starting with Michael Keaton, who plays a small town doctor who becomes addicted to OxyContin after prescribing it to several of his own patients. Rosario Dawson and Peter Sarsgaard are great in their roles as Government agents who spend years trying to stop and then prosecute the executives of Perdue Pharma. The standout in this series is actor Michael Stulbarg who plays Richard Sackler who was the architect of the marketing deceptions that went on for years and ultimately killed thousands of Americans. Richard Sackler is the embodiment of pure evil throughout this entire well told story. Kaitlyn Dever is another standout in this series in her role as a young coal miner who becomes addicted to OxyContin and later Heroin after a back injury after an explosion in a coal mine.
The Greed displayed by the many sales people who traveled this country and lied to so many doctors and Hospitals was a times very hard to watch, because they all knew that this drug was killing people for years.
The IMDB rating for this series is a very high 88% and I agree with this high number and highly recommend this series, which is every bit as good as Erin Brockovich and Dark Waters in showing the worst parts of humanity.
Author Archives: jjcwn
Movie Review: West Side Story
“West Side Story” is a Broadway musical intended to be an adaptation of “Romeo And Juliet”. It debuted in 1957, was conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. Fundamentally this is a story about love at first sight, and a powerful once in “West Side Story” is a Broadway musical intended to be an adaptation of Shakespear’s “Romeo And Juliet”. It debuted in 1957, was conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. Fundamentally this is a story about love at first sight, and a powerful once in a lifetime attraction and ultimately love that happens to a few of us and for many more of us, never happens in our lifetimes. We all know going in that this will be a sad story, just like Romeo and Juliet. Despite realizing the tragic ending ahead, at times the music makes what happens hard to sit through.
The new version of West Side Story is directed by Steven Spielberg, and I for one, never thought I would see Spielberg direct a musical in his career. Whether or not anyone is a fan of musicals, you have to admire the huge amount of preparation, period costumes, cars from the 1950’s, set design, choreography, musical direction and acting in this very well done production.
The standouts in this film are Ansel Elgort as Tony, who had his breakout role in the very good “Baby Driver”, released in 2017. Maria is played by newcomer Rachel Zegler, who is not only a great actress, but also a great singer, including several scenes where she sings opera.
Just about all Spielberg productions have been outstanding in the last almost 50 years, with the exception of “1941”, released in 1979. Regardless of anyone’s dislike of musicals, this movie is still a must see, especially for those who have never seen West Side Story. I was amazed at the high percentage of songs in this musical that I have heard many times before, proving that this is one of most significant musicals of all time. I highly recommend West Side Story.
Movie Review: Being the Ricardo’s
Every time we see a new movie written by Aaron Sorkin we all know we will be hearing a great deal of rapid dialogue. Dialogue that is for the most part, unlike how most people talk. The good part of this rapid dialogue is that it will keep most people riveted to the movie, because it is so easy to miss something important that was said.
For a movie about the hugely popular 1950’s TV series “I Love Lucy” casting is everything. Ironically the title role of Lucy played by Nicole Kidman is the one area where the casting was somewhat off, because she did not look enough like Lucille Ball, where the other characters, especially J.K. Simmons as William Frawley are perfectly cast.
This story, typical of Sorkin, who also directed this movie, is told in an unusual way – starting with interviews with the late writers and producers of I Love Lucy, who narrated some of the stories and facts about what is arguably the most popular TV situation comedy of all time – with at its peak had 60 million viewers every Monday night. Sorkin concentrates on 3 main themes throughout this film. How the cast and crew created one episode of the I Love Series TV series, the fact that Desi Arnaz cheated many times on Lucille Ball, and the time when Lucy was accused of being a Communist. These 3 stories create an interesting and engaging two hours that in my opinion is worthy of higher numbers than the 71% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
I thought the acting was very good throughout this story and anyone has to admire any actor who can master the rapid-fire dialogue that Sorkin always writes. Overall I thought this story was well told and I do recommend “Being The Ricardo’s”.
A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies. 