151: The Business Of Drugs and Summer Of Sam

The Blotter Presents

Filmmaker and baseball-Twitter-improver Randy Wilkins joins me to talk about Netflix's The Business Of Drugs, a six-part series hosted by Amaryllis Fox that tries to take a value-neutral look at the economics of black-market substances. But is it TOO neutral? Does it try to do too much in each episode? Might it have been better off only following a single figure through each drug's "story"? And what do coverage of cocaine cartels and MLB have in common?
Later, we dig into Spike Lee's Summer Of Sam: why it was rejected by critics, how Lee uses local detail to get at universal truths, and whether Lee would come back to the chaotic summer of 1977 and David Berkowitz in a documentary format. All the nefariously used stuffed animals and Reggie Jackson crackpot theories you could ask for: it's The Blotter Presents, Episode 151.
SHOW NOTES

• The Business Of Drugs
• Where to watch Summer Of Sam
• Summer Of Sam reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
• Randy Wilkins on Twitter
• Randy's website, pamsson.com
• Extra insight from Randy and Spike Lee about Dear… "Spike Lee" from The Root
• Views From 314 Ft.
• BestEvidence.fyi

SPONSORS

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