4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today is Harvey Keitel’s 86th birthday! Harvey Keitel is one of the great, fearless actors of our time (BAD LIEUTENANT, anyone). He has been working hard since 1965, and he’s still going strong today, adding up to a career that spans 60 years and counting. His work for great directors like Scorsese and Tarantino has been vital to the quality and success of those films. I really came to appreciate Keitel when he had somewhat of a career resurgence in the early 90’s when I was in my late teens. He’s just a great actor who makes everything he appears in better.
Today, in honor of Harvey Keitel’s 86th birthday, here are 4 Shots from 4 Films!
Charlie Smith (Jack Nicholson) gets a job with the Texas border patrol and goes from scrounging in a California trailer park to living the high life in a duplex in El Paso. His wife (Valerie Perrine) is looking forward to spending all the money that he’ll be making as a border agent. But then Charlie discovers that his bigoted superior (Warren Oates!) and his partner (Harvey Keitel) are running a human smuggling ring. When the baby of a young Mexican woman (Elpidia Carrillo) is kidnapped and sold to an illegal adoption ring, Charlie is finally forced to take a stand.
The Border seems to be one of Jack Nicholson’s forgotten films and it really can’t compete with some of the other movies that Nicholson was making around the same time. Compared to films like The Shining, Terms of Endearment, and The Postman Always Rings Twice,The Border really does feel and look like a poorly paced made-for-TV movie. British director Tony Richardson doesn’t really seem to know what type of movie he wanted The Border to be or what he wanted to say about immigration. This is the type neo-Western that Sam Peckinpah could have worked wonders with but Tony Richardson just doesn’t seem to have any feel for the material.
Still, Jack Nicholson is pretty good here, playing the type of weary character that he specialized in during the pre-Batman portion of his career. I especially liked the scenes that he shared with Valerie Perrine, who gave a good performance as someone who viewed buying a waterbed as being the height of luxury. Harvey Keitel’s performance sometimes felt too familiar. He’s played a lot of similar villains but he and Nicholson act well together.
And finally, Warren Oates in this movie, bringing his rough-hewn authenticity to his role. This was the last of Oates’s films to be released before his premature death. Blue Thunder and Tough Enough were both released posthumously. Warren Oates is an actor who was only 52 when he died. Whenever I see him onscreen, I think of all the great performances he would have given if he had only made it through the 90s.
In 1995’s Get Shorty, John Travolta stars as Chili Palmer.
Chili is a loan shark for the mob, an effortlessly cool guy who lives in Miami and who loves to watch old movies. Chili may work for the Mafia and he may make his living by intimidating people but he doesn’t seem like such a bad guy, especially when compared to someone like Ray “Bones” Barboni (Dennis Farina). Bones is an uncouth and rather stupid gangster who steals Chili’s leather jacket from a restaurant. Chili reacts by breaking Bones’s nose with just one punch. Bones reacts by trying to shoot Chili but instead, he gets shot by Chili himself. (The bullet only grazes his forehead.) Chili can do all this because he’s protected by Momo (Ron Karasbatsos) but, after Momo drops dead after having to walk up several flights of stairs just to then be given a surprise birthday party, Chili suddenly finds himself working for Bones. (This all happens in the first few minutes of this perfectly paced film.)
Bones, eager to humiliate Chili, sends him to Vegas to collect on a debt owed by a dry cleaner named Leo (David Paymer). Leo is thought to be dead but Bones wants to collect the money from Leo’s widow. It’s not the sort of thing that Chili likes to do so instead, he ends up going to Hollywood to collect a debt from B-movie director Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman). Chili happens to like Harry’s movies. He also likes Harry’s current girlfriend and frequent co-star, actress Karen Flores (Rene Russo).
Chili ends up in Hollywood, a town where everyone has some sort of hustle going. Chili finds himself dealing with drug dealers (Delroy Lindo), egocentric film stars (Danny DeVito), stuntmen-turned-criminals (James Gandolfini), and the widow (Bette Midler) of a screenwriter. Chili also finds himself looking to escape from the debt collection business by becoming a film producer. Harry has a script that he wants to make. Chili proposes a film based on the story of Leo the dry cleaner. Danny DeVito’s Martin Weir wants to be a “shylock” in a movie just so he can show off his intimidating stare. (“Is this where I do the look?” he asks while listening to the pitch.) Get Shorty is a whip-smart satire of Hollywood, one in which the gangsters want to be film people and all of the film people want to be gangsters. It features wonderful performances from the entire cast, with Travolta epitomizing cool confidence as Chili Palmer. Hackman, Russo, DeVito, Gandolfini, and Lindo are all excellent in their supporting roles but I have to admit my favorite performance in the film is probably given by Dennis Farina, who turns Bones Barnobi into a very believable (and a believably dangerous) buffoon.
GetShorty is based on a book by Elmore Leonard. First published in 1990, the book is a quick and entertaining read, one that reminds us that Leonard was one of the best “genre” writers of his time. When I read that book, I was surprised to see how closely the movie stuck to the book’s plot. Much of the film’s dialogue is right there in the book. It’s a book that practically shouts, “Turn me into a movie!” and fortunately, director Barry Sonnenfeld did just that.
1976’s Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson takes place in the waning years of the Old West. Civilization is coming to America and the “wild” west’s days are numbered. And yet, even as the days of outlaws and gunslingers come to an end, America is already in the process of building up its own mythology.
Buffalo Bill (Paul Newman) owns a popular wild west show, one where his stars put on a show that claims to recreate the great moments of western history. The show is made up of a motely collection of performers, some of whom are more talented than others. This is a Robert Altman film and, as usual, the emphasis is more on watching how his large ensemble of actors interact as opposed to highlighting any one actor. Indeed, it can be hard to keep everyone in the film straight and one gets the feeling that this was intentional on Altman’s part. Buffalo Bill and the Indians may be a revisionist western and a satire of American history but it’s also a showbiz film. The emphasis is on people continually coming and going, sticking around long enough to either prove their worth as a performer or moving on to a hopefully more receptive audience.
Geraldine Chaplin plays Annie Oakley, the sharp shooter who takes joy in firing her gun and who barely seems to notice that her husband (John Considine) is terrified of getting shot. Joel Grey serves as the unflappable manager of the show while Harvey Keitel is miscast as Buffalo Bill’s somewhat nerdy assistant. (Keitel, with his natural intensity, seems like he’s desperately waiting for a chance to explode, a chance that never really comes.) Burt Lancaster plays Ned Buntline, the writer who made Buffalo Bill into a celebrity and who provides a somewhat sardonic commentary as Bill’s current activities. Shelley Duvall shows up as the wife of President Grover Cleveland (played by Pat McCormick), who comes to the show and is amused until an Indian points a gun towards the president.
Throughout it all, Buffalo Bill enjoys his fame and pushes his vision of the Old West on those who come to see his show. Newman plays Bill as being a blowhard, an eccentric who is obsessed with opera and whose entire persona is a fake. He can’t shoot straight. He can barely ride a horse. His trademark long hair is actually a wig. The only people who take Bill seriously as those who come to see his show. Those who know him view him as being a buffoon but they also understand that he’s a very successful and very famous buffoon and that ultimately matters more than any sort of historical truth.
What conflict there is in the film occurs when Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts) and his translator (Will Sampson) arrive on the scene. Sitting Bull has agreed to appear in the show but only under his own terms. Buffalo Bill grows frustrated with Sitting Bull and his refusal to pretend to be a savage but he also knows that this audience wants to see the last remaining great Indian chief.
It’s a big and sprawling film and it’s really not entirely successful. Altman was an intelligent director who was willing to take risks and no one deserves more credit for popularizing the idea of the ensemble film. That said, he could also be a bit heavy-handed and that’s certainly the case here. It takes a certain amount of courage to cast a star like Paul Newman as a thoroughly unlikable character and it also took a bit of courage on Newman’s part to give the performance that he did. At the same time, neither the shallow Buffalo Bill nor the dignified Sitting Bull are really compelling enough characters to carry a film that runs for more than two hours. The film’s message is an obvious one and it’s also one that Altman handled in a much more memorable way with Nashville.
That said, the film is a memorable misfire. It’s at its best when it abandons the politics and just concentrates on the community of performers that popular Buffalo Bill’s show. The film’s best moments are not the ones with Paul Newman growling but instead the ones with John Considine hoping that Geraldine Chaplin won’t accidentally shoot him. As with many of Altman’s film, Buffalo Bill and the Indians works best when it focuses on the misfit community at the center of its story.
Laws of Man opens with two U.S. marshals driving through the desert of Utah. Tommy Morton (Jackson Rathbone) is young and impulsive, a Korean war vet who is quick to open fire. Frank Fenton (Jacob Keohane) is older and more cautious. He also served in the military, though his service was during World War II. Frank is haunted by flashbacks to a particularly gruesome battle. Tommy and Frank may spend most of their time wearing black suits in the desert but neither one breaks a sweat.
The year is 1963. Kennedy is in the White House. The communists are on the move. And Tommy and Frank are busy executing arrest warrants in the most desolate part of the country. An attempt to arrest Mormon cult leader Crash Mooncalf (Ricard Brake) leads to a bloody shootout that leaves Mooncalf and his followers dead. Their next assignment leads them to a small town in Nevada, where Bill Bonney (Dermot Mulroney) and his violent family is suspected of killing local ranchers and stealing their land.
From the minute that Tommy and Frank arrive in Nevada, something feels off. They stay at a cheap motel, where Tommy picks up a woman named Dinah (Ashley Gallegos) and Frank spends his time talking to a bartender named Callie (Kelly Lynn Reiter). An old rancher named Don Burgess (Forrie J. Smith) shows off his gun and says that he would rather suffer a violent death than give up his land. A traveling preacher named Cassidy Whitaker (Harvey Keitel) approaches Frank in the parking lot and starts talking about sin and redemption. Meanwhile, FBI agent Galen Armstong (Keith Carradine) appears to be curiously unconcerned with the Bonneys and their reign of violence. As for the sheriff (Graham Greene), he spending his time sitting outside a burned-out ranch house. The charred bodies of the owners are still inside, seated around the dinner table.
An attempt to arrest Bill Bonney at his home leads to a violent shootout, one in which no one is killed but Bill is still not happy about having a bunch of bullet holes in his roof. Tommy and Frank attempt to serve the arrest warrant, just to discover that it’s not going to be as easy as they thought. Frank, whose World War II flashbacks are getting more and more intense, wants to leave town. Tommy, however, is obsessed with discovering what exactly everyone is hiding.
And, through it all, people who know their history will notice that the film is taking place in November of 1963 and the 22nd is rapidly approaching….
Laws of Man gets off to a strong start but begins to meander about halfway through. Luckily, the film’s final third features a wonderfully insane twist that recaptures the viewer’s attention. No matter what you may think is going on in the film, it can’t prepare you for just how weird things eventually get. Laws of Man is an entertaining film, one that is occasionally a bit too self-consciously quirky for its own good but which ultimately works. Jackson Rathbone and Jacob Keohane both give strong performances in the lead roles and the familiar faces in the film’s supporting cast all do their best to bring the film’s often surreal world to life. Dermot Mulroney and Keith Carradine give especially strong performance while Harvey Keitel appears to be having fun as the offbeat preacher.
Laws of Man managed to truly take me by surprise. For fans of paranoid cinema, it’s definitely worth making time for.
Though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences claim that the Oscars honor the best of the year, we all know that there are always worthy films and performances that end up getting overlooked. Sometimes, it’s because the competition too fierce. Sometimes, it’s because the film itself was too controversial. Often, it’s just a case of a film’s quality not being fully recognized until years after its initial released. This series of reviews takes a look at the films and performances that should have been nominated but were, for whatever reason, overlooked. These are the Unnominated.
“Honorable men go with honorable men.” — Giovanni Cappa
1973’s Mean Streets is a story about Little Italy. The neighborhood may only be a small part of the sprawling metropolis of New York but, as portrayed in this film, it’s a unique society of its very own, with its own laws and traditions. It’s a place where the old ways uneasily mix with the new world. The neighborhood is governed by old-fashioned mafiosos like Giovanni Cappa (Cesare Danova), who provide “protection” in return for payment. The streets are full of men who are all looking to prove themselves, often in the most pointlessly violent way possible. When a drunk (David Carradine) is shot in the back by a teenage assassin (Robert Carradine), no one bothers to call the police or even questions why the shooting happened. Instead, they discuss how impressed they were with the drunk’s refusal to quickly go down. When a soldier (Harry Northup) is given a party to welcome him home from Vietnam, no one is particularly shocked when the solider turns violent. Violence is a part of everyday life.
Charlie Cappa (Harvey Keitel) is Giovanni’s nephew, a 27 year-old man who still lives at home with his mother and who still feels guilty for having “impure” thoughts. Charlie prays in church and then goes to work as a collector for Giovanni. Giovanni is grooming Charlie to take over a restaurant, not because Charlie is particularly talented at business but just because Charlie is family. Giovanni warns Charlie not to get involved with Teresa (Amy Robinson) because Teresa has epilepsy and is viewed as being cursed. And Giovanni particularly warns Charlie not to hang out with Teresa’s cousin, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro). Johnny Boy may be charismatic but everyone in the neighborhood knows that he’s out-of-control. His idea of a good time is to blow up mailboxes and shoot out street lamps. Charlie, who is so obsessed with sin and absolution that he regularly holds his hand over an open flame to experience the Hellfire that awaits the unrepentant sinner, finds himself falling in love with Teresa (though it’s debatable whether Charlie truly understands what love is) and trying to save Johnny Boy.
Charlie has other friends as well. Tony (David Proval) runs the bar where everyone likes to hang out and he seems to be the most stable of the characters in Mean Streets. He’s at peace with both the neighborhood and his place in it. Meanwhile, Michael (Robert Romanus) is a loan shark who no one seems to have much respect for, though they’re still willing to spend the afternoon watching a Kung Fu movie with him. Michael knows that his career is dependent on intimidation. He can’t let anyone get away with not paying back their money, even if they are a friend. Johnny Boy owes Michael a lot of money and he hasn’t paid back a single dollar. Johnny Boy always has an excuse for why he can’t pay back Michael but it’s obvious that he just doesn’t want to. Charlie realizes that it’s not safe for Johnny Boy in Little Italy but where else can he go? Brooklyn?
Mean Streets follows Charlie and his friends as they go about their daily lives, laughing, arguing, and often fighting. All of the characters in Mean Streets enjoy a good brawl, despite the fact that none of them are as tough as their heroes. A chaotic fight in a pool hall starts after someone takes offense to the word “mook,” despite the fact that no one can precisely define what a mook is. The fights goes on for several minutes before the police show up to end it and accept a bribe. After the cops leave, the fight starts up again. What’s interesting is that the people fighting don’t really seem to be that angry with each other. Fighting is simply a part of everyday life. Everyone is aggressive. To not fight is to be seen as being weak and no one is willing to risk that.
Mean Streets was Martin Scorsese’s third film (fourth, if you count the scenes he shot before being fired from The Honeymoon Killers) but it’s the first of his movies to feel like a real Scorsese film. Scorsese’s first film, Who’s That Knocking On My Door?, has its moments and feels like a dry run for Mean Streets but it’s still obviously an expanded student film. Boxcar Bertha was a film that Scorsese made for Roger Corman and it’s a film that could have just as easily been directed by Jonathan Demme or any of the other young directors who got their start with Corman. But Mean Streets is clearly a Scorsese film, both thematically and cinematically. Scorsese’s camera moves from scene to scene with an urgent confidence and the scene where Charlie first enters Tony’s bar immediately brings to mind the classic tracking shots from Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, and Casino. One gets the feeling that Pete The Killer is lurking somewhere in the background. The scenes between Keitel and De Niro are riveting. Charlie attempts to keep his friend from further antagonizing Michael while Johnny Boy tells stories that are so long and complicated that he himself can’t keep up with all the details. Charlie hold everything back while Johnny Boy always seems to be on the verge of exploding. De Niro’s performance as Johnny Boy is one that has been duplicated but never quite matched by countless actors since then. He’s the original self-destructive fool, funny, charismatic, and ultimately terrifying with his self-destructive energy.
Mean Streets was Scorsese’s first box office success and it was also the film that first brought him widespread critical acclaim. However, in a year when the totally forgotten A Touch of Class was nominated for Best Picture, Mean Streets did not receive a single Oscar nomination, not even for De Niro’s performance. Fortunately, by the time Mean Streets was released, De Niro had already started work on another film about the Mafia and Little Italy, The Godfather Part II.
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy 85th birthday to the legendary actor, Harvey Keitel! It’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 Harvey Keitel Films
Mean Streets (1973, dir by Martin Scorsese, DP: Kent L. Wakeford)
Taxi Driver (1976, dir by Martin Scorsese, DP: Michael Chapman)
Reservoir Dogs (1992, dir by Quentin Tarantino, DP: Andrzej Sekuła)
Bad Lieutenant (1992, dir by Abel Ferrara, DP: Ken Kelsch)
In 1990, long-time friends George Romero and Dario Argento collaborated on Two Evil Eyes, anthology film that was based on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. An Italian-American co-production, Two Evil Eyes featured two stories. The first was directed by George Romero, while the second was directed by Argento.
The Facts In The Case of Mr. Valdemar
(Dir by George Romero)
The first story is Romero’s, a modernized version of The Facts In The Case of M. Valdemar.
Jessica Valdemar (Adrienne Barbeau) is the 40 year-old wife of 65 year-old, Ernest Valdemar (Bingo O’Malley). Jessica only married Ernest for her money and, now that he’s on his death bed, she and her lover, Dr. Robert Hoffman (Ramy Zada), have hypnotized to him to do and say whatever they tell him to say and do. Even though Ernest is essentially comatose, the hypnosis allows them to force Ernest to sign his name to legal documents and to tell his suspicious attorney (E.G. Marshall) that he indeed wants to leave all of his money to Jessica.
When Ernest dies while under the influence of hypnosis, Jessica and Robert attempt hide his body in the basement. But is Ernest really dead? Jessica is convinced that she hears groaning from the basement and she wonders if the hypnosis has somehow left Ernest in limbo, between life and death. Robert thinks that Jessica is being foolish but it turns out that she’s not. After much paranoia and betrayal, one conspirator is dead and the other is a part of the living dead.
Usually, I like Romero’s work but this one didn’t work for me. From the flat cinematography to the shallow performances, this film felt more like an episode of a television show than anything else. Perhaps if it had been a stand-alone film, Romero could have found a way to make the material a bit more cinematic. (The story’s final shot, of blood dripping on a hundred dollar bill, is the film’s strongest moment and the part that feels the most Romeroesque.) But as a shortened chapter of an anthology film, it fell flat.
The Black Cat
(Dir by Dario Argento)
The Dario Argento segment is based on several different Poe stories. While the majority of the story is taken from The Black Cat, it also contains elements of Annabel Lee, Telltale Heat, The Pit and the Pendulum, and Buried Alive. Though this segment doesn’t really work, it’s obvious that Argento is a fan of Poe’s work and, for other Poe fans, there’s a lot of fun to be found in all of the Poe references that Argento sneaks into his story.
Harvey Keitel stars as Rod Usher, a crime scene photographer who loves his work a bit too much. He’s excited about the fact that his book of photography is about to be published. He’s less happy about the fact that his girlfriend, Annabel (Madeleine Potter), has adopted a black cat that is constantly glaring at Rod. Rod is eventually driven mad by both the cat’s apparent hatred of him and the fact that the cat itself keeps showing up no matter how far he goes to get rid of it. (This film features violence against a cat, which I hated. But it also featured a cat getting revenge and I appreciated that.) Eventually, Rod’s paranoia leads to violence and murder.
Look, this is a film about a guy who has an obsessive hatred of a cat. Obviously, this is not a film that I’m going to enjoy because I love cats. That said, I can still judge the film on its merits, even if it’s not for me on a personal level. While Argento is able to build up a good deal of tension and suspense in this film, the overall film doesn’t work because Harvey Keitel, supremely talented actor that he is, was totally the wrong choice for Rod Usher. Keitel, who reportedly did not get along with Argento during filming, gave a self-indulgent performance that featured a lot of bellowing. It’s as if Keitel is trying to compete with the constantly moving camera. The problem is that a star of a film like this has to be the director and Keitel’s histrionics take the viewer right out of the story.
Considering all of the talent involved, Two Evil Eyes is a disappointment.
“Who is Mike Tyson?” is question that’s asked by the new Hulu miniseries, Mike.
The answer to that question is that he’s a boring guy who did some interesting things.
For instance, he became a boxer and was briefly the world champion before he was brought down by his own hubris. That’s interesting, largely because it’s something that seems to happen to quite a few people who suddenly find themselves on top of the world but don’t have the maturity necessary to handle it. However, that, in itself, does not Mike Tyson an interesting human being. It just makes him an example of how history repeats itself.
He bit off an opponent’s ear during a boxing match. That’s interesting because it was such a savage act and it scandalized people who otherwise have no problem watching two men beat each other until one loses consciousness. Causing brain damage is okay but God forbid you bite off a piece of someone’s ear. But the fact that Mike bit off the guy’s ear does not, in itself, make Mike Tyson interesting. It just makes him a jerk.
Mike Tyson has a facial tattoo that doesn’t really mean anything. A lot of people have stupid tattoos.
Mike Tyson has a distinctive way of speaking. So do a lot of other people.
Mike Tyson spent three years in prison after being convicted of raping a contestant in a beauty pageant. Tyson was and is certainly more famous than the typical convict and, somehow, that conviction has not prevented him from becoming a beloved cultural institution in the United States. The hypocrisy is interesting. Mike Tyson is not.
At least, that’s the impression that I got from this 8-episode miniseries. Seven of the episodes feature Tyson (played by Trevante Rhodes) performing a one-man show in front of an audience in Indiana. Believe it or not, this is based on fact. Apparently, Mike Tyson did have a one-man show, in which he would discuss his career and his life. (Jeff even wrote a review of it for this very site!) We watch flashbacks as the show’s version of Tyson provides a self-serving narration and, to be honest, it seems like it would be the most boring one-man show ever. Tyson talks about growing up poor and with a mother who alternated between hating and loving him. He talks about his first trainer (played by Harvey Keitel, who often seems to be channeling Jonathan Banks) and his first marriage. Mostly he talks about how he feels that almost everyone in his life betrayed him. The first two episodes, which deal with Tyson’s youth, are effective because they examine how a childhood of mental and physical abuse can set the course of someone’s entire life. However, once adult Tyson shows up, Mike becomes far less compelling. It’s hard not to get tired of listening to him blame everyone else for his own increasingly poor decisions.
The one exception to the show’s format is episode 5, which is told from the point of view of Desiree Washington (Li Eubanks), the woman who Tyson was convicted of raping. This is a powerful stand-alone episode, both because of Eubanks’s performance and because it’s the only episode to not be seen through Tyson’s eyes. It’s the episode that allows the viewer to see Tyson the way the rest of the world saw Tyson. And yet it’s difficult to feel that, when viewed in the context of the entire miniseries, this episode is a bit of a cop-out. It’s the only episode to focus on someone who was hurt by Tyson but it’s surrounded by episodes that once again portray Tyson as being a victim of his managers, his fans, and society at large. Desiree is given one episode and then disappears from the narrative whereas the show’s version of Tyson is given seven episodes to justify himself. One gets the feeling that the show’s producers knew that they had to include Desiree but they also knew that revealing Tyson’s version of the events would have also meant revealing that he continues to insist that he was the victim and that would have totally messed up the show’s final redemption arc. And so, the narrative burden is temporarily placed on Desiree and Tyson only returns once it is time to discuss what it was like being in prison.
Mike was produced by Craig Gillespie, who also directed I, Tonya. Like I, Tonya, Mike features characters frequently breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the audience. In fact, it happens so frequently that it gets to be kind of annoying. Breaking the fourth wall really wasn’t even that original when it happened in I, Tonya. In Mike, it becomes a trick that’s used to try to make Mike Tyson into a more interesting character than he is. But it feels empty, largely because it doesn’t tell us anything that we don’t already know or couldn’t have guessed on our own.
The miniseries itself was made without the participation of the real-life Mike Tyson. Tyson condemned the show as being an attempt to make money off of his life and he actually does have a point. Unfortunately, the miniseries itself doesn’t have anything new to add to the story of Tyson. It’s an 8 episode Wikipedia entry. At some point, the streaming services may need to realize that not every celeb needs to be the subject of a miniseries. Simply being famous does not always make for a compelling story.
Through the Shattered Lens 