Film

Reba Merrill & Tandy Culpepper Look at Two Films Rooted in Fact: The Apprentice , a Mesmerizing Biopic of a Young Donald Trump and September 5, A Riveting Thriller at The 1972 Summer Olympics

In this episode of The Hollywood Beat, Reba and Tandy look at two films that have nothing in common other than that they both skirt the fringes of politics, and both are rooted in fact.

The first film is the origin story of a young man who comes under the tutelage of a ruthless lawyer who molds his charge into an equally ruthless businessman. The second film depicts a terrorist attack at the world’s preeminent sporting venue.

The Apprentice from Iranian director Ali Abasi is the story of Donald Trump’s early days in New York City as he tries to gain traction as a real estate developer. There he meets attorney Roy Cohn, a conservative firebrand notorious for his work with Senator Joseph McCarthy of fifties Hollywood Blacklist fame. The original screenplay comes from journalist and author Gabe Sherman. (Sherman is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair and is the author of the nonfiction bestseller about the late Fox News Channel executive Roger Ailes, The Loudest Voice in the Room.

September 5 is also from an original screenplay, this by writer-director Tim Fehlbaum and Alex Davis along with German screenwriter Moritz Binder. The time is the summer of 1972, and the setting is the Olympic Village in Munich, Germany. Peter Sarsgaard portrays ABC TV sports chief Roone Arledge who very quickly finds himself presiding over one of the network’s biggest news stories since its inception. Members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September infiltrated the Olympic Village and took much of the Israeli team hostage.

Published by Tandy Culpepper

I am a veteran broadcast journalist. I was an Army brat before my father retired and moved us to the deep South. I'm talkin' Lower Alabama and Northwest Florida, I graduated from Tate High School and got botha Bachelor's degree and Master's in Teaching English from the University of West Florida, I taught English at Escambia County High School for two years before getting my m's in Speech Pathology and Audiology from Auburn University. Following graduation, I did a 180 degree turn and moved to Birmingham where I began ny broadcasting career at WBIQ, Channel 10. There I was host of a weekly primetime half-hour TV program called Alabama Lifestyles. A year later, I began a stint as a television weathercaster and public affairs host. A year later, I moved to West Palm Beach, Florida and became bureau chief at WPTV, the CBS affiliate. Two years later, I moved to Greensboro, North Carolina where I became co-host of a morng show called AM Carolina. The next year, I moved cross-country and became co-host and story producer at KTVN-TV in Reno, Nevada. I also became the medical reporter for the news department. Three years later, I moved to Louisville, Kentucky and became host and producer of a morning show called today in WAVE Country at WAVE-TV, Channel 3, the NBC affiliate. Following three years there, I moved to Los Angeles and became senior correspondent at the Turner Entertainment Reportn, an internationally-syndicated entertainment entertainment news service owned by CNN. I went back to school afterwards and got an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore. Oh, yes. I won a hundred thousand dollars on the 100 Thousand Dollar Pyramid, then hosted by Dick Clark.

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