Post by The Maestro on Jan 23, 2006 1:31:25 GMT -5
This is a very unusual film from director Oliver Stone that is based on a play called "Talk Radio" by Eric Bogosian, and a book called "Talked To Death:The Life And Murder of Alan Berg" (Berg's death was inspired by the original stage play). I've known about the film since last year, but didn't see it for the first time until last Friday. It was on Comcast ONDEMAND, and I decided to watch it, because it had John Pankow (one of my favorite actors in it). I don't know how to describe the plot, so I'll post a snippet from a review from channel4.com:
I saw it for the second time last night (or after midnight today), and I don't know if I like it or not still. The film's got me interested about the original play by Bogosian. One other thing:I'd like to comment about the cover artwork for the german-language version of the film:
I saw it for the first time several minutes ago, and if I had seen this before knowing of the movie's existance or whatever, I would've thought the movie was a comedy, and it's definately not. There's been several other times where I saw TV spots for certain serious films thinking they were comedies before I saw them, but that's a whole other story, and I don't want to go into that right now.
Bogosian is Barry Champlain, a late night Texas DJ who specialises in controversial talk radio. He'll as happily bait redneck fascists on air as he will mock the more gentle, implied racism of elderly black callers. Whatever it takes to get a reaction, Champlain will do it - even opening a package he's told is a bomb live on the air.
But just as his show is about to go national, he finds himself becoming a hate figure. People abuse him in public, throw drinks over him and boo him at public appearances. Is he going too far, or is he not going far enough?
But just as his show is about to go national, he finds himself becoming a hate figure. People abuse him in public, throw drinks over him and boo him at public appearances. Is he going too far, or is he not going far enough?
I saw it for the second time last night (or after midnight today), and I don't know if I like it or not still. The film's got me interested about the original play by Bogosian. One other thing:I'd like to comment about the cover artwork for the german-language version of the film:
I saw it for the first time several minutes ago, and if I had seen this before knowing of the movie's existance or whatever, I would've thought the movie was a comedy, and it's definately not. There's been several other times where I saw TV spots for certain serious films thinking they were comedies before I saw them, but that's a whole other story, and I don't want to go into that right now.