Breslin And Hamill: Deadline Artists: How Breslin And Hamill Blazed A Trail To Newspaper Glory

Robert Rorke at the New York Post offers a piece on an HBO documentary about New York newspaper columnists Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill.

The boozy, brawling days of New York tabloids are vividly evoked in the documentary “Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists,” a portrait of columnists Jimmy Breslin, who died in 2017 at age 88, and Pete Hamill, 83. They wrote for the New York Daily News and the New York Post. They were both Irish kids, one from Queens (Breslin), the other Brooklyn (Hamill), who transcended their extremely humble beginnings to become masters of their craft and celebrities in their own right. As co-director Jonathan Alter puts it, “They were there for every big story of the second half of the 20th century, between 1950 and 2001.” That included assassinations (the Kennedy brothers, Malcolm X), crime figures (Son of Sam, Bernhard Goetz), urban horrors (AIDS, the Crown Heights riots) and terrorist attacks (9/11).

…  How did Breslin and Hamill change journalism?

They personified an era when print journalists could be swashbuckling figures. It’s unimaginable now. Could you imagine a print journalist (Hamill) dating the most famous woman in the world (Jackie Onassis) and a top Hollywood star (Shirley MacLaine) at the same time? Or hosting “Saturday Night Live” (Breslin)? Before Woodward and Bernstein, Jimmy was the most famous journalist in America. He showed that you could write novelistically in a newspaper using facts. Breslin’s column, “A Death in Emergency Room One,” about the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, blew the doors off journalism.

You can read Robert Rorke’s interview with Jonathan Alter via the below link:

https://nypost.com/2019/01/25/how-breslin-and-hamill-blazed-a-trail-to-newspaper-glory/   

Note: Although I disagreed with Jimmy Breslin’s worldview, I enjoyed his comic gangster novels, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight and I Don’t Want To Go To Jail.  

A Look Back At The Classic TV Crime Series 'The Sopranos'

Although I think The Sopranos perhaps should have ended a season or two earlier, and I disliked the finale, I was a huge fan of the classic crime series. 

Michael Starr at the New York Post offers a piece on The Sopranos.

On Jan. 10, 1999, a little-publicized drama series called “The Sopranos” premiered on HBO, chronicling the domestic and professional life of a ruthless North Jersey mob boss living in suburbia with his wife and two teenage kids — and seeing a shrink for his anxiety.

Its large ensemble cast, including James Gandolfini as titular mob boss Tony Soprano and Edie Falco as his wife, Carmela, was largely unknown — as was series creator David Chase, whose TV résumé included “The Rockford Files,” “I’ll Fly Away” and “Northern Exposure.”

“The Sopranos” changed the landscape of cable television and won a slew of Emmys (including three apiece for Gandolfini and Falco) during its six-season run. It ended with an ambiguous, WTF? cut-to-black series finale in June 2007 — panicking 12 million viewers who thought their cable crapped out and leaving Tony Soprano’s fate forever open to interpretation.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://nypost.com/2019/01/09/why-we-still-cant-fuhgeddabout-the-sopranos-20-years-later/ 

Bill Maher Interviews Former CIA, NSA Director General Michael Hayden

Comedian Bill Maher interviewed former CIA and NSA director, retired Air Force General Michael V. Hayden on HBO.

General Hayden was promoting his new book, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror.

You can watch a video clip of the interview via the below link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d7Mx6X70T8

The Damning Truth About Snowden: Traitor Who Put Western Lives At Risk From Terrorists Reveals He Didn't Even Read All The Top-Secret Files He Leaked

Ian Drury and Daniel Bates at the British newspaper the Daily Mail report on the interview British comedian John Oliver conducted with fugitive, traitor and NSA leaker Edward Snowden in Moscow (ironically, across the street from the old KGB building, which now serves as the headquarters of the FSB security service, as Oliver points out in the program).

Traitor Edward Snowden has revealed he did not read all of the top-secret intelligence documents he leaked - a move which put lives at risk from terrorists.

In a television interview the fugitive squirmed as he admitted only 'evaluating' the files stolen from GCHQ and the US National Security Agency.

The former US spy also acknowledged there had been a 'f***-up' when newspapers that were handed the classified material failed to redact sensitive details exposing operations against Al Qaeda. 

But in an outburst of arrogance, Snowden said such potentially catastrophic blunders were a 'fundamental' price of liberty.

The 31-year-old stunned the world in June 2013 - less than a month after the murder of Lee Rigby by Islamic extremists - when he broke cover as the civilian CIA worker who stole classified documents.

He leaked information about attempts by spying agencies including GCHQ and the NSA to view citizens' privates information, claiming internet history, emails, text messages, calls and passwords were harvested.

But security chiefs have warned that secret techniques, revealed by Snowden's leaks to the Guardian newspaper, have made it easier for terrorists and organized criminals to aviod detection. 

You can read the rest of the piece and watch a clip of the Snowden interview via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3027073/Last-Week-Tonight-host-John-Oliver-grills-Edward-Snowden-leaking-documents-knew-harmful.html

Note: Snowden talks of liberty while hiding in Russia, after giving away American and British national security secrets to the Russians and the Communist Chinese, two of the most repressive governments on earth.

True Detective Delivers in Miniseries Finale

The HBO miniseries True Detective ended last night.

My wife and I enjoyed the clever and compelling miniseries and I thought Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson offered fine performances, as did the supporting cast.

I look forward to seeing what new detectives and plot the producers and writers offer next season.

Sara Stewart at the New Post offers a view of the season finale:

Finally, the truth can be told (many spoilers below!): the real villain of “True Detective” is…  HBOGo.com, which crashed epically as the much anticipated finale of the eight-episode miniseries was set to begin.

Irate web viewers aside, the last installation of the brilliant detective noir did not disappoint, delivering a baddie of mythical proportions and a satisfyingly philosophical coda for former partners Rustin Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson).

It even offered a rather inarguable explanation for its failure to address the entirety of the conspiracy theories floated along the way (the Tuttle ministry and family! Maggie’s father! What happened to Audrey?): “We ain’t gonna get ‘em all. That ain’t what kind of world it is.”  

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://nypost.com/2014/03/09/true-detective-delivers-in-miniseries-finale/

How James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano Became TV's Favorite Mobster, Monster And Tormented Therapy Patient

Jim Shelly at the British newspaper the Daily Mail offers a piece on the late James Gandolfini, who died in Italy at age 51, and his popular TV character, mobster Tony Soprano.

Unlike any other mobster since Marlon Brando in The Godfather, Gandolfini's performance had two great facets: he made Tony both palpably human and compelling complex.

He could switch from a character of immense, charm, warmth and vulneability to the most intense, charmless violence in a second; from big noble bear to cold-eyed shark

You can read the rest of the story, view photos and a video clip featuring James Gandolfini in his best roles, via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2345049/James-Gandolfini-How-Tony-Soprano-TVs-favourite-mobster-monster-patient.html

Manhunt: CIA Women Who Hunted Bin Laden In The Spotlight In HBO's Documentary

Rowan Scarborough at the Washington Times offers a piece on the new HBO documentary on the CIA officers who hunter Osama bin Laden.

The look at those who hunted Osama bin Laden begins with the sisterhood — a collection of female CIA analysts who became somewhat obsessed with al Qaeda and its leader.

They now are talking on camera for the HBO documentary "Manhunt," which debuted Wednesday night, two years after the terrorist mastermind was killed and weeks after another jihadist attack on America at the Boston Marathon.

The film, which HBO is showing throughout May, is not about the raid that killed bin Laden but the inside story of the CIA's bin Laden hunters — their frustrations, guilt, joy and, for one, a violent death.  

“The night of the raid, I just had this gut feeling that there was a deeper, darker, richer story other than just the story of the raid itself,” said Greg Barker, a journalist and the director of "Manhunt."

“It’s about an intelligence story that spoke to the decisions made in secret inside our government that led us to Abbottabad.”

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/1/cia-women-who-hunted-bin-laden-in-the-spotlight/?page=all#pagebreak

Game Of Thrones: Charles Dance Interview

James Lachno at the British newspaper the Telegraph offers a good interview with Charles Dance, who portrays Game of Thrones' villain Tywin Lannister.

“The battle is over ... we have won” proclaims Charles Dance in his contemptuous bellow at the end of the second season of HBO’s compulsive fantasy epic Game of Thrones.

His character, Tywin Lannister, had just ridden to victory at the Battle of Blackwater, keeping the Iron Throne securely in the brutal grip of his Lannister clan: spiteful, malevolent child King Joffrey, conniving Queen Regent Cersei, and their coterie of duplicitous advisers.

Adapted from novels by American writer George RR Martin, Game of Thrones has been a huge success around the world since it premiered in 2011. It’s secured two Emmys, a Golden Globe, wide critical acclaim, and a fanatical fan base hooked on its heady mix of gory battles, racy sex and slow-burning political manoeuvring.

Until now, 66-year-old Dance’s role in the series dubbed “the Sopranos of Middle Earth” had been an auxiliary one. But in the third season – which begins in the UK on Sky Atlantic on Monday 1 April – he’s to be far more crucial. As the newly-appointed “Hand of the King” – the King’s most important adviser – he'll assume the role of fearsome, all-powerful patriarch of a ruthless ruling family.   

You can read the interview via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/game-of-thrones/9961779/Game-of-Thrones-Charles-Dance-interview-I-treat-Peter-Dinklage-appallingly.html

Note: Charles Dance was also very good as Ian Fleming in the biography of the James Bond creator in the TV film, Goldeneye.

'Game Of Thrones' More Brutally Realistic Than Most Historical Novels

Like millions of other TV viewers, I look forward to the new season of HBO's Game of Thrones.
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So I read with some interest a piece by historian Tom Holland in the British newspaper the Guardian on how Game of Thrones is more brutally realistic than most historical novels.
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Although Hilary Mantel is apparently yet to begin the third volume of her trilogy of novels about Thomas Cromwell, we can be confident of several plot twists that it will not feature. Cromwell will not precipitate a civil war. He will not betray the husband of his foster-sister, with whom he is in love. He will not escape the executioner's block. His downfall is scripted. The history books cannot be cheated. Mantel's Cromwell is as bound to the inevitability of his doom as any prisoner to a rack.
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In the hands of a great writer, of course, the fact that we already know a character's fate can serve to heighten rather than diminish tension. For all that, though, the pleasure to be had in following a narrative and not knowing what will happen is a primal one. Next week sees the return to our television screens of a series that, like Mantel's two Tudor Booker prize winners, charts the pleasures and perils of political ambition. In a trailer for Game of Thrones, the voice of the actor Aiden Gillen can be heard defining chaos as a ladder: "The climb is all there is."
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Gillen's character, Petyr Baelish, certainly knows whereof he speaks. The world he inhabits is one that will seem perfectly familiar to readers of Wolf Hall: courtly, treacherous and full of people having their heads chopped off with axes. Politics is portrayed as a game, in which only the most skilful can hope to win. Baelish himself has risen from humble beginnings to a position of understated influence and power. In the first series of Game of Thrones, he is shown serving a warrior king gone to seed and oppressed by serious marital problems. Baelish's talent is for keeping his spendthrift master in cash. "Within three years of coming to court he had been made master of coin and a member of the small council, and today the crown's revenues were 10 times what they had been under his predecessor."
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If Baelish sounds more than a little like Thomas Cromwell, then perhaps that is not entirely a coincidence. He may inhabit a world, Westeros, which features dragons, walking corpses and a 700ft wall of ice – yet it is far from wholly fantastical. George RR Martin, whose series of novels inspired the HBO drama, has woven a tapestry of extraordinary size and richness; and most of the threads he has used derive from the history of our own world.
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You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2013/mar/24/game-of-thrones-realistic-history
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You can also read the Guardian's beginners guide to the HBO series via the below link:
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2013/mar/25/game-of-thrones-beginners-guide

Actor Clive Owen Discusses His Role As Hemingway In HBO's Film 'Hemingway And Gelhorn'

Alex Suskind at the Huffington Post reports on Clive Owens speaking about his role as the late great writer Ernest Hemingway. 
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Below is part of the Q & A:
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So you are about to play Ernest Hemingwawy in HBO's "Hemingway and Gellhorn." Besides slugging whiskey and shooting bears, what sort of preparation did you do for the film?
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A lot, actually. I took months out and traveled a lot. I went to his house in Cuba. I went to Hemingway's Paris, Hemingway's Madrid, read everything . It was an amazing project. It was a wonderful script. Philip Kaufman is such a great director. And obviously [acting] with Nicole Kidman -- it was one of those rare [movies] that felt like a real gift.
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How familiar were you with Hemingway beforehand?
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Not wildly familiar. That's why I took six, seven months out and sort of read everything. One of the perks of being an actor is you get to travel on these journeys and find out things. Doing that film made me read everything Hemingway [has done], which was great. I loved it.
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You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/29/clive-owen-children-of-men-hemingway_n_1388521.html
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You can also read an earlier post on Hemingway and Gelhorn and other films on Hemingway via the below link:
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http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/06/hbo-to-make-movie-of-ernest-hemingway.html

Actor Clive Owen Given Access To Ernest Hemingway's Cuban Home For Film Role

 

The British actor Clive Owen told the entertainment web site Contactmusic.com that he was given total access to Ernest Hemingway's Cuban home as he prepared to portray the late great writer in the HBO film Hemingway and Gelhorn.

You can read the piece via the below link:

http://www.contactmusic.com/news/clive-owen-given-access-to-ernest-hemingways-home-for-film-role_1309434

You can also read an earlier post on Clive Owen and the Hemingway film, as well as other Hemingway films via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/06/hbo-to-make-movie-of-ernest-hemingway.html

You can also read my online column On Crime & Thrillers on Hemingway's crime stories via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2009/08/on-crime-thrillers-hemingway-on-crime.html  

Nucky Johnson Made An Empire Out Of Crime In Atlantic City

David J. Krajicek wrote an interesting piece for the New York Daily News about Nucky Johnson, the political boss of Atlantic City during prohibition.

The HBO series Boardwalk Empire is based on Nucky Johnson.

Nucky Johnson licked his chops the day the knuckleheads banned booze in America. It was a gift to Atlantic City, transforming it from Philadelphia's sandbox to "The World's Playground."

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/08/14/2011-08-14_nuckys_empire_crime_king_of_atlantic_city.html

Boardwalk Empire: Atlantic City Still Haunted by Nucky Johnson

George Anastasia, the veteran crime reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote an interesting piece about how Enoch "Nucky" Johnson still haunts Atlantic City.

Nucky Thompson, the character in HBO's Boardwalk Empire, is based on Johnson. Johnson was the political boss of Atlantic City.

You can read Anastasia's piece via the below link:

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20101010_Atlantic_City_still_haunted_by_Nucky.html?viewAll=y

HBO's Taking Chance, a good film to watch on Memorial Day

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Every Memorial Day weekend, in between the barbecues, swimming, and laughing and drinking with friends and family, I try to think of the men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country - they gave their lives in America's wars.

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I also try to watch a good war movie or two on TV over the Memorial Day weekend, which is my small way to honor those brave men and women.

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To kick off this Memorial Day, after my wife, my grown children and grandchild had gone to bed, I watched a midnight showing of Taking Chance.

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HBO offered a re-airing of their 2009 film about the true story of a Marine officer who escorted the body of Chance Phelps, an enlisted Marine who died in Iraq in 2004, home to be buried by his family.

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Kevin Bacon (seen in the below photo), a native Philadelphian, portrayed Lt Col. Mike Strobel, the officer who escorted Phelps home.

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Taking Chance was an intelligent and touching film. The film was a true tribute to our fallen Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen. I urge all to try and see this outstanding film.

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You can read about Taking Chance, via the below link:

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http://marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/02/marine_takingchance_022009w/

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Below is a photo of retired Lt. Col. Mike Stroble.

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Below is a photo of the late Lance Cpl. Chance Phelps.

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My late father, Edward M. Davis, served as a chief petty officer with the Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT) frogmen in World War II, and my older brother, Ed Davis, served in the U.S. Army in South Vietnam. Both of them were fortunate enough to come home from war, as did I, having served aboard an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War.

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But of course many American servicemen and women did not return home.

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We owe our freedom and liberty to those who sacrificed their lives defeating Nazism, Japanese imperialism, communism, Islamic fascism and other enemies of freedom.

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Memorial Day is a time to honor them.