Almost Famous Turns 20 : The Podcast
I’ve got Almost Famous ranked as one of my all-time favorite movies, yet somehow I never knew that Brad Pitt was director Cameron Crowe’s first choice to play the iconic Stillwater guitarist Russell Hammond and Pitt did several months of prep for the role. And Penny Lane was going to be played by Sarah Polley! These revelations, and so many more, are covered over the course of a 5-part celebration of Almost Famous, on The Origins Podcast. If you’re into process deep-dives, this pod is filled with tons of details on the making of this classic film.
Ready? Player Two..
Ernest Cline’s follow-up to Ready Player One will be published in November. I'm skeptical; I thought the original wrapped it up tightly and didn't need anything more. And the movie, which was okay, still kinda messes with my mental image of the book. I'm gonna try to reread the novel soon to perform a mental cleansing of the movie version. But I had to pre-order RP2. I loved the original novel.
Quick Radar Pings
Alex Winter’s SHOWBIZ KIDS is a fascinating doc on child actors. Features Henry Thomas, Wil Wheaton, Todd Bridges, Evan Rachel Wood & more.
Rorschach Test: DC Comics announces a new Rorshach limited series by Tom King & Jorge Fornés. Might treat HBO series as canon. Add it to my pull list.
PARASITE coming to Criterion Collection in October. Don’t let the fact that it won the Best Pic Oscar ruin it for you: it’s a brilliant film and I can’t wait to immerse myself in the supplemental material.
Great reviews continue to pile up for the forthcoming CHASIN’ THE BIRD: CHARLIE PARKER IN CALIFORNIA by the magnificent Dave Chisholm.
Congratulations to Jordan Alsaqa, whose indie comic RAISE HELL! was successfully funded on Kickstarter. The campaign is still going.
Tweet of the Week
Newsletter Format Experiment
You may notice this edition is less about yours truly. Turns out I don’t always have newsworthy stuff on a consistent recurring basis, so, to make this newsletter have value for those of you who’ve subscribed, I’m thinking of adjusting its mission. It’s been re-branded “Milton’s Comics & Culture Radar.” There will still be plenty of self-serving comics/promotional stuff, when there’s anything to report. Speaking of which…
EFP: Event Fatigue Podcast - NEW episode
Renton Hawkey and I have a webcomic about a gruff-but-lovable podcast host in a comic book multiverse. In the previous episode, the studio got burned down. Check out the latest episode on Instagram.
See you next time…
With the format change, the frequency of the newsletter should increase pace.