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    L.A. Times’ “Dirty John” Podcast Spawns Bravo TV Series

    By SHOOTUpdated:No Comments3664 Views
    This image released by Bravo shows Eric Bana as John Meehan in a scene from "Dirty John," a series derived from the popular true crime podcast of the same name. (Nicole Wilder/Bravo via AP)

    By Alicia Rancilio

    NEW YORK (AP) --

    Eric Bana is bringing the popular true crime podcast "Dirty John" to TV with a weekly series on Bravo.

    Bana plays John Meehan and Connie Britton plays Debra Newell, a couple in California who met online and fell in love. John claimed to be a doctor, just back from volunteering his services for Doctors Without Borders in Iraq.

    Newell, who had already been married multiple times and had grown children, thought John was the man she had always been looking for. Her kids, however, immediately didn't trust him. As they make their concerns known, John succeeded in driving a wedge through Debra's family.

    A Los Angeles Times reporter, Christopher Goffard, covered the story and turned it into a wildly successful, addictive podcast. Bana didn't tune in until he heard of the TV project.

    "I downloaded and listened to all six very quickly and loved it," he said. "There were parts that I couldn't quite believe really happened."

    While Britton spoke to the real Newell to play the part, Bana didn't have the opportunity to contact Meehan. He said he was fine with that and didn't go looking for ways to exactly replicate the man. He said he was most concerned with portraying how Debra could fall for him, and why it would be so hard for her to walk away.

    "We need to see what Debra saw, we need to get a sense that the attraction and the relationship was real and genuine and wasn't a caricature so that was the tricky part, I think," he said.

    Bana also thinks people will be drawn to the conflict between Debra and her family, because of Meehan.

    "It plays into relationship dynamics within families, what advice we take and listen to and clashes we can have."

    He said manipulators like Meehan are very calculated.

    "These guys know what they're doing. This is not like a normal relationship. He's picking on his prey deliberately and targeting a particular type of personality. It's never a fair match and it's simple to judge for a lot of people, but I think the more research you do, the more you understand how someone stays with a person like that."

    Category:News
    Tags:BravoConnie BrittonDirty JohnEric BanaL.A. Times



    Does “Hundreds of Beavers” Reflect A New Path Forward In Cinema?

    Monday, November 25, 2024

    Hard as it may be to believe, changing the future of cinema was not on Mike Cheslik's mind when he was making "Hundreds of Beavers." Cheslik was in the Northwoods of Wisconsin with a crew of four, sometimes six, standing in snow and making his friend, Ryland Tews, fall down funny.

    "When we were shooting, I kept thinking: It would be so stupid if this got mythologized," says Cheslik.

    And yet, "Hundreds of Beavers" has accrued the stuff of, if not quite myth, then certainly lo-fi legend. Cheslik's film, made for just $150,000 and self-distributed in theaters, has managed to gnaw its way into a movie culture largely dominated by big-budget sequels.

    "Hundreds of Beavers" is a wordless black-and-white bonanza of slapstick antics about a stranded 19th century applejack salesman (Tews) at war with a bevy of beavers, all of whom are played by actors in mascot costumes.

    No one would call "Hundreds of Beavers" expensive looking, but it's far more inventive than much of what Hollywood produces. With some 1,500 effects shots Cheslik slaved over on his home computer, he crafted something like the human version of Donald Duck's snowball fight, and a low-budget heir to the waning tradition of Buster Keaton and "Naked Gun."

    At a time when independent filmmaking is more challenged than ever, "Hundreds of Beavers" has, maybe, suggested a new path forward, albeit a particularly beaver-festooned path.

    After no major distributor stepped forward, the filmmakers opted to launch the movie themselves, beginning with carnivalesque roadshow screenings. Since opening in January, "Hundreds of Beavers" has played in at least one theater every week of the year, though never more than 33 at once. (Blockbusters typically play in around 4,000 locations.)... Read More

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