101: The Old Man & The Gun and Incendiary: The Willingham Case

I'm so glad I could finally welcome Omar G to the TBP guest chair...and that it was to talk about David Lowery's The Old Man And The Gun, a charming joint about a senior bank robber and escape artist, Forrest Tucker, that flew totally under our radar last year. It shouldn't fly under yours, though; it's fun, smart about managing story, and elegantly shot, and an American legend is having the time of his life in his last go-round. And the movie's based on a New Yorker story by the great David Grann...

...as is the documentary we watched for the Cold Case section, Incendiary: The Willingham Case. This too got the scripted treatment, in a Laura Dern vehicle that's already left theaters after it premiered last month, but the doc had a lot of good things to say about the frailty of the forensic science we take for granted, the CYA maneuvering of state governments, and...a defense attorney's attention-whore rooster? Just listen, you'll see. Why Tom Waits should be in everything, why we shouldn't use space heaters for anything, and much more in The Blotter Presents, Episode 101.

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• The Old Man And The Gun: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-old-man-and-the-gun
• (Relevant Grann-ule: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/01/27/the-old-man-and-the-gun)
• Incendiary: The Willingham Case // on iTunes (or whatever it's called now), Vimeo, et al.
• (Relevant Grann-ule: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire)
• Omar's Los Espookys piece on Primetimer: https://www.primetimer.com/features/hbos-los-espookys-is-a-weird-endearing-charmer

Special Guest: Omar Gallaga.