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Post by sgev1977 on Oct 28, 2021 18:47:54 GMT
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Post by MagdaFR on Oct 28, 2021 19:24:00 GMT
Why another series about Litvinenko?
David Tennant is playing him in other series. Strange.
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Post by sgev1977 on Oct 28, 2021 20:01:30 GMT
Probably they were already working on this one and they felt pressured to announce it after the other one was first announced. Actually, my first impression was that he was cast instead of another actor. I didn't remembered who was playing him but I remembered that I was excited when I first read about the other project!
Anyway, BC seems to be in the biggest one. I'm actually very interested on the theme and I think the director is a very brave and interesting documentarist. Icarus is brilliant and has something you very rarely see in a documentary: a plot twist. It goes from a personal kind of vanity project about how to cheat in cyclism and somehow ends exposing decades of Russian corruption in the Olympics.
I'm also very interested in watching The Dissident. I know they had problems distributing it because American companies links with Saudi Arabia. But again, a brave documentary exposing dictators.
So yeah, I'm cool with it and I hope they do it soon so they win over the UK one! Lol
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Post by MagdaFR on Oct 28, 2021 20:51:06 GMT
I have not seen the director's work.
The other series is written by George Kay who has a lot of credits as a writer (including Lupin).
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Post by sgev1977 on Oct 28, 2021 20:57:22 GMT
I kind of fear the puritan reaction of The Guardian to BC's political projects! Lol. No, they aren't angry at it! But I think it would had been more interesting if they had mentioned the director considering that he isn't just the director but also a critic of Vladimir Putin himself and someone who helped to a Russian whistle-blower to reveal major stuff against his government. I don't know! If I were a serious and major newspaper, I think I would like to at least mentioning that!
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Post by sgev1977 on Oct 28, 2021 21:14:26 GMT
I have not seen the director's work.
The other series is written by George Kay who has a lot of credits as a writer (including Lupin). [/div]
He apparently did his debut with a romantic comedy based on his own, I imagine successful play and according to Wikipedia it wasn't well received but then he did Netflix's Icarus which it actually gave the impression (again plot twists!) that he did not have the intention of doing a political documentary. It just happened! That's the brilliance of it! It won the Oscar that year and I absolutely loved it but I remember I was also kind of disappointed they didn't gave it to Agnes Varda! He then did The Dissident about Jamal Khashoggi murder. He had problems with the distribution even when it was acclaimed and he was by then an Oscar winner. He claims it was because American companies, including Netflix and Amazon, didn't want to offend the Saudis. I really want to watch this documentary but it's not accessible here! EDITED I accidentally edited your post but I corrected it! I swear I'm not drunk! 😉
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Post by MagdaFR on Oct 28, 2021 21:21:17 GMT
I had searched for Bryan Fogel too. I saw his documentaries were very well received (the comedy not much). I'll search for them.
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Post by sorcerersupreme on Oct 28, 2021 22:23:06 GMT
Isn't HBO the best place to do a series? I hated when Patrick Melrose was with Showtime, I think it would have had a lot more eyes on it on HBO.
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Post by sgev1977 on Oct 28, 2021 22:24:09 GMT
Again, I loved Icarus at the time but when it won the Oscar over the Agnes Varda penultimate film I wasn’t happy! Lol I know, Oscars aren’t everything but I couldn’t understand why the Academy lost that chance to award a myth like her (they gave her an honorary Oscar tho.). I had to confess that I hadn’t seen Varda documentary then. I did later and I think they both are excellent but very different. Varda is Varda and the theme is more humble and human. Fogel’s it’s also very human but in a much bigger and threatening context. But still, you have one (if not two, counting the “cheater” of the filmmaker!) very flawed but charismatic hero who clearly is far away of being a saint but somehow ends doing the right thing risking his life in the way.
He maybe doesn’t have too much experience doing fiction but he just sounds like the right guy to do this series.
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Post by sgev1977 on Oct 28, 2021 22:41:31 GMT
Isn't HBO the best place to do a series? I hated when Patrick Melrose was with Showtime, I think it would have had a lot more eyes on it on HBO. HBO is much more popular than Showtime nowadays but not all series are super popular. BC had worked in three projects with them. The three are brilliant but they weren’t mega hits in the USA: Stuart: A Life Backwards, Parade’s End and Brexit. This time it seems this is mainly an HBO project (not the BBC or Channel 4) and I’m guessing the theme is more relevant to USA interests than the other three. Also writer and director are Americans.
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