The People vs OJ Simpson: American Crime Story
 

Just watched the first episode. I think it's going to be very interesting.

oh, it's episode based?

shit...for some reason I thought it was a docudrama movie etc.
bummer.

oh well....set to record it last night; i"ll just need to remember to record the entire series.

10 episodes.

First episode was good, but 10 seems excessive.

Also, Travolta is hard to watch. What has he done to his face?

Become old

Why the **** would anybody want to watch this it was so saturated in the mid-90's it makes me gag.

Dude, I listened to the trial every day on local radio, watched the analysis every day over lunch and watched it again on CNN when I got home from work each and every day.

I went to the Bundy house, the Gretna Green house and OJ's house on Rockingham, not to mention watching the "Chase" live during the NBA playoffs.

Kato is an idiot, Faye Resnick a ****ing twat and just about everyone else an attention seeking fame whore/star ****er.

The entire ordeal brought out the worst in American society and reality TV has exploded since the trial began.

The world would be so much better off with Nicole Simpson being alive while no one ever heard about the Kardashians.

It was actually well done and entertaining. Lots of big name actors (Cuba Gooding Jr., Travolta, David Schwimmer, Connie Britton, etc.). Couldn't stop watching and will definitely continue to watch.

The best part was when Mama Kardashian yelled at her little spoiled brat kids running around at the funeral..."Kim and Kourtney! Stop running!". :)

Interesting show . Will watch the second episode.

Very, very true.

If OJ doesn't kill Nicole, Rob Kardashian never gets the limelight. So Kim's sex tape would not have blown up, and no Kardasshole Klan on TV or in the media. Such a sting of asshattery.

So this is all OJ's fault. ****ing bastard!

I really enjoyed the first episode. Even though I Remer it all, I haven't consumed the stuff since, so I guess there is a ton of background and behind the scenes I didn't know.
I think it's hilarious how hard Shapiro is playing Kardashian.

It was good. Like how they had Cochran take a shot at Michael Jackson and his phobias.
Some details I had forgotten.

Yea, Travolta is creepy. But think about Shapiro. ICK!

I also like the stretch of blaming OJ for the Kardashian fame. He should rot for that too.

Probably wont watch this, but I do hope Cuba Gooding revives his career with it... even if he doesnt look anything like OJ Simpson.

Yep, funny how things work, isn't it?

And man, when it was announced that OJ was a suspect and in custody, I thought "No way can OJ be guilty!".

I worked with a singer for a while in 1994 that worked in Bert Field's office in the mail room. He told me shortly after the murders that Bert had crime scene photos and that OJ essentially decapitated Nicole. There was but a little thread of skin left on her neck.

Obviously, Fields had to recuse himself from the case because by all accounts, OJ confessed to Fields and Fields wanted nothing to do with defending a murderer.

I've hung out with Cuba a few different times and he's a nice, pleasant guy but at the end of the day, there just isn't something "right" about him.

He's definitely an odd duck, which I think is part of the reason he's all but disappeared.

I like Cuba, but IMO he's not big or physical enough to play OJ.

He's a good actor though.

He's about 5'10, 5'11. He claimed he was 185 but he seemed a little heavier, like 200, but we we hanging with some NHL player last time we were at a bar (plus drinking our asses off), so who knows?

:drool:

I'd like to hear a little more about what gave you the creeps about him.

I'd rather not point to specific events (like a friend's wedding reception) but there are plenty of documented events on the 'net.

You sonuvabitch. :#

There are some pretty graphic photos of it online. Whether it's actually the real photos, who knows

Never thought of it like that. How one man ****ed the world for generations to come.

Mark me down for having zero interest in revisiting this steaming pile of American drama.

And, OJ was guilty as a mother****er. He'll just have to live with that guilt outside of bars instead of inside them.

And, **** him for the Kardashian whatever the **** it is and every "reality" bullshit show ever invented.

Actually oj is in jail

Oh, yeah, hahahahha I forgot. Karma. That whole Vegas thing right? Hell I don't remember.

Real nice E1. Definitely will be tuning in for the entire series. Cant wait for the OJ White Bronco chase!

I was young enough to not really get the whole jist of what was going on, but really remarkable how just the names of everyone involved jolted my memory. I suspect Ill learn alot of new stuff too.

Really liked the first episode, interested to see the rest of it...Courtney Vance is bang on as Johnnie.

Man I had forgot just how brutal those murders were...crazy shit.

Turned the channel....
saw it was on.....
turned the channel again.

This.

Another great episode tonight.

I'm hooked.

Haven't seen it yet. No spoilers!

solid show.

Guy that was Ross *name eludes me* in friends is just not a good actor outside of Ross- he excelled in that cast but his serious acting is a joke.. especially in BoB.

His name is David Schwimmer. And personally, I thought he was a fantastic "weasel" in Band of Brothers.

That's who the character was and Schwimmer delivered.

It's Travolta as Shapiro that is putting me off. He's sucking at it. At least Ross is believable. As are the rest once you get into it.

He was perfect in BoB.

I almost didn't state that about BoB as he did a fine job of making me hate him.. but perhaps I just can't outsee "ross" and take him as a serious actor.

It's on the DVR but I thought that the casting of Travolta, without seeing him as Shapiro yet, was an odd choice.

It's hard to look at John Travolta and not see John Travolta.

Sure, he was great in Pulp Fiction and Get Shorty (and Grease and Welcome Back Kotter). But those guys are all similar in many ways: Italian, New York attitude and cocky.

Shapiro's a "thinking man's" defense attorney who's none of the above.

Travolta is just there, neither great nor terribad. He lost his spark.

Yeah, I redact that statement as he was actually good I was just hating. lmao


Anyone read Johnnie Cochran's book? excellent read.

He was good in domestic disturbance ironically. lol Just a simple TNT style movie.

He's actually very, very good and extremely entertaining in the Madagascar series, especially #2.

He's a talented guy.

Face off was great. Both he and Cage rocked that movie.

Travolta's a talented actor but there's a reason why his career was dead in the water between Urban Cowboy (1980) and Pulp Fiction (1994).

He has limited range (as most actors do) and the thought of seeing him portray a "historical" figure such as Shapiro, someone who was in our family room and on radio for 2+ years, seems out of place.

i only saw one Madagascar and that was when it first came out.

Fine danny boy, i'm a hater lol.

LMAO

He Produced the first episode.

The People vs OJ Simpson: American Crime Story
 

It's a great production. Here's a couple of reviews.



http://www.rogerebert.com/demanders/...-vs-oj-simpson

FASCINATING DRAMA OF "THE PEOPLE VS. OJ SIMPSON: AMERICAN CRIME STORY”
by Brian Tallerico


The OJ Simpson case was the first such event we watched live on television. I’m old enough to remember where I was when Simpson took flight in that white Bronco, and where I was when the verdict came down. In between, there was a parade of characters straight out of central casting, from the legal players like Bob Shapiro and Marcia Clark to the fringe personalities like Kato Kaelin. The world really could not get enough of this story. It changed the way we process news, as networks like CNN devoted days of programming to the story of the sports hero-turned-murder suspect. It really had a little bit of everything from the tawdry to the racially sensitive. It felt like the Simpson case sparked so many conversations about everything, from racial profiling to the privileges of the rich to spousal abuse. The actual victims of the crime even became bit players in the story.

There have been TV movies about OJ, but the case now gets its biggest production ever with FX’s “The People vs. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story,” a star-studded mini-series from Ryan Murphy, the man behind “American Horror Story” and “Glee.” Is Murphy just exploiting this true story for soap opera escapism or is he using it to comment on how much the OJ case still has to say about its era and even its impact on today?

Can both be true?

Even for those of us who can remember many of the details of the OJ case, “American Crime Story” has some remarkable behind-the-scenes details to offer. In some of its best moments, it plays out like a procedural, offering insight you may not have heard from the source material in The Run of His Life: The People vs. OJ Simpson by Jeffery Toobin. I forgot exactly what went down when OJ decided to flee in the Bronco on that fateful day, not remembering how even the people close to him presumed he had killed himself. I forgot exactly how each attorney on both sides got involved or that Chris Darden was brought on really as a racial response to Johnnie Cochran coming aboard the other side. The historical details of “American Crime Story” are fascinating in that they show a larger-than-life case grew into what it became by the time the trial began.

Before then, Murphy and his brilliant writers, Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski (who are the perfect scribes for this piece having penned “Ed Wood,” “The Man on the Moon” and “The People v. Larry Flynt”) set the stage by giving us a prologue of the L.A. riots only two years earlier and then diving right into the case. Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman’s bodies are found. OJ Simpson (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is immediately a suspect, and it’s not long before Marcia Clark (Sarah Paulson) and Gil Garcetti (Bruce Greenwood) are ready to arrest him. Before he comes in, Simpson gets the counsel of two men who would become pillars of his legal dream team, Robert Shapiro (John Travolta) and Robert Kardashian (David Schwimmer). F. Lee Bailey (Nathan Lee) and Cochran (Courtney B. Vance) would come later. We also get a lot of the bit players, including Faye Resnick (Connie Britton), Kris Jenner (Selma Blair) and, of course, Kato (Billy Magnussen). Rob Morrow will show up later as Barry Scheck and Sterling K. Brown will play Christopher Darden in this brilliantly-cast piece.

There’s not a single weak link in the ensemble.

At its best, “American Crime Story” walks a razor-thin line of tawdry and genuine. Ryan Murphy will never lose his high degree of showmanship, such as playing “I Shall Be Released” as Simpson flees or “Mama Said Knock You Out” after the "Not Guilty" plea, but he directs most of the performance in a lower, more genuine register. Schwimmer plays Kardashian as a man honestly concerned about a friend and unaware of the fame about to come down upon him. Travolta chews the scenery, but Shapiro was always a larger than life character, so it feels genuine. And Paulson is perfectly grounded as Clark. As for Gooding, OJ remains something of a mystery at the center of “American Crime Story,” given numerous chances to actually confess to people who would still defend him but steadfast in proclaiming his innocence.

Alexander and Karaszewski have delivered a drama that’s both as soapy as you’d expect from the man who created “Nip/Tuck” and surprisingly genuine as historical document. There’s not a lot of artistic license, at least in the four episodes I’ve seen compared to what I know of the case, although there is an interesting aspect provided the writers by history (such as knowing what fame would do the Kardashians). Overall, this is not a piece designed to “expose” the truth behind the OJ Simpson case. It’s more about how exposed the case was in the first place. It’s also just flat-out entertaining television, filled with strong performances from top to bottom and razor-sharp writing.

As “American Horror Story” seems to be winding down its cultural relevance, “American Crime Story” can take the baton and run.



http://www.ew.com/article/2016/02/02...tory-ew-review


Early in The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, Marcia Clark (Sarah Paulson) asks about a concept that will soon change her life: “Optics? What are optics?” She’s being sarcastic, and the no-dummy deputy district attorney thinks she understands the politics of appearance, but she has no idea. As she prosecutes the “trial of the century” before a worldwide audience, she finds a rock-solid case shredded by superior, savvier opponents with their cunning framing of fact and narrative. And as she becomes a celebrity, she finds herself judged by self-styled experts and armchair jurists for the way she executes her job, the way she represents her gender, the way she wears her hair. “I’m just not a public person,” she says during the inevitable meltdown. This was 1995. Can you imagine what Twitter would have done to her? Actually, you can.

American Crime Story is a meticulously crafted, powerfully resonant docudrama that crackles with timely issues—race, sexism, privilege, celebrity, broken justice, media manipulation, and more. It’s a creation myth for an era obsessed with true crime and swamped in truthiness. It even explains the Kardashians. Based on Jeffrey Toobin’s book The Run of His Life, the inaugural season of American Crime Story is a triumphant TV debut for writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, so brilliant at biopics (The People vs. Larry Flynt), and a rousing affirmation of the anthology form pioneered by exec producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk (American Horror Story).

Contextualized by the police brutality against Rodney King in 1991 and the L.A. riots of 1992, the 10-episode series begins with the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson, ex-wife of NFL great O.J. Simpson (Cuba Gooding Jr.), and Ronald Goldman in 1994, and turns well-trod history into incredible entertainment. The storytelling digs deep into iconic moments and delights in telling details.

We go inside the Bronco during O.J.’s slow-speed flight from police. Legal strategies are illuminated, particularly Team Simpson’s controversial decision to “play the race card,” and the relationships are richly explored. Robert Kardashian’s (David Schwimmer) protective, idol-worshippy friendship with Simpson is heartbreaking. Clark’s rapport with Christopher Darden (Sterling K. Brown) is increasingly moving. The struggle between attorneys Robert Shapiro (John Travolta) and Johnnie Cochran (Courtney B. Vance)—for control, for credit, for the cameras—is as gross as it is engrossing. The victims get lost in the drama—but how appropriate.

Aside from Travolta’s upstaging eyebrows, the actors wow with empathy and nuance. Gooding’s Simpson is a man unhinged by his sudden fall from grace and privilege—a well-played perspective that works regardless of the final verdict. Paulson makes Clark a sympathetic hero without sanding off her edges. Vance’s Cochran rivets with charisma and complexity. We hate him for fogging the jury—and us—with specious skepticism and counternarrative, but we always understand his righteous rationalizations.

An enthralling recollection of a tragic mess with a long legacy, The People v. O.J. Simpson fits our moment like a glove.

A


http://youtu.be/v0qzDpr3xqs

WTF....No Tim Meadows?

I'll pass...

Bet OJ has CTE.

http://tricountysentry.com/blog/o-j-...-bennet-omalu/


In leading expert Dr. Bennet Omalu’s mind, there is little doubt that disgraced football star O.J. Simpson is suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the degenerative brain disease linked to repetitive head trauma, such as that incurred by football players over a career on the gridiron.

Omalu, who first discovered CTE in the brain of NFL player Mike Webster after his 2002 death, recently told People Magazine that he would “bet [his] medical license [on] that” diagnosis, based both on Simpson’s “profile” and the size of his head.

Simpson, who was charged with the murder of his ex-wife and her friend in 1994 before being acquitted the next year, famously has an usually large head — so large, in fact, that he had to get custom-made helmets throughout his tenure in the NFL.

“[And] if you have a bigger head, that means your head is heavier,” Omalu reasoned. “That means the momentum of your impact would be bigger. It’s basic physics.”

As CTE is only diagnosable in the dead, no one will know whether Omalu’s “bet” is correct for the foreseeable future. But, for those who watched firsthand as Simpson unraveled over the years, Omalu’s words certainly ring true.

Reliving this parade of idiocy anew is lunacy.

I'm hooked.

I lived through this crap, there's no way I'm watching a dramatization of it. GTFO

watching 2.

crazy watching this all over again.

Still hate Johnny Cocheran.

I was too young to remember all the details. After reading back and watching this, it's unfathomable to me he got off

Dude, the day the day the verdict was announced, I was on the Universal lot with, I don't know, 200-1,000 people.

In all sincerity, the only person that was shocked was me.

I'm not even joking.

much like Steven Avery, hard to say what was planted and fabricated and not.
I think OJ likely did it, though the theory about his eldest son could hold water too.

So everyone else thought he was not guilty too? I wonder if that was LA, everyone else here thought he was guilty.


I liked Ep 2 that showed the Kardashian kids spelling their last name. They may have been able to then, but not now.

ROFL

Dane's experience is curious to me too.

Yeah, everyone thought he was framed by Furman and the LA PD, which was quite corrupt at the time.

Rodney King, rumors of massive corruption which were later detailed in the Rampart scandal, etc.

It seemed like no one, regardless of race or color, trusted the LAPD at the time.

There was some speculation that the verdict was payback for the Rodney King trial but I don't think that was ever confirmed by the jurors.

Bill Simmons wrote an excellent article about the OJ trial 10 years after the verdict. His stance was that the LAPD framed a guilty man and that the black community was fine with him getting off because they'd felt ****ed over by the justice system for so long.

That makes sense.

What's crazy, IMO, if that it wasn't for the cut on his finger, I doubt that Goldman's family would have won the civil suit because the prosecution really failed at making a case against OJ.

The cut was the most suspicious part of the murder. Without it, I think it would be impossible to connect OJ to the murders.

So you guys don't think he did it?

Oh, I think he did it.

The people I was around on the Uni lot at the time felt he was not guilty.

Well, the cut gives you the blood in his Bronco, and I believe that he originally said that he cut it in Chicago, IIRC.

Plus, they had DNA on his socks, on his glove, in his car, and carpet fibers from his Bronco at the scene. One of his gloves was at the scene.

It was literally as open and shut as you could get, but because DNA was such a novel technology and the prosecution didn't present it well, the jury supposedly didn't buy it.

Oh yeah, that's right. I forgot all about the PCR DNA, which OJ's defense said was planted.

Also, I've done the Rockingham to Bundy drive, back when the house existed - it was sold and demolished in the 90's. I have to say that doing it 10 minutes, which is what was alleged, was just outside of impossible.

He must have been speeding at an extremely high rate of speed and he's lucky he didn't kill anyone because that area, at the time, was very pedestrian heavy.

OJ may be the luckiest guy on Earth because there were so many reasons why he should have been convicted, yet the jury acquitted in near record time.

Crazy.

I do but the influence from the Rodney King situation in addition to everyone thinking the LAPD was corrupt made it obvious that the majority of the black jurists would vote for acquittal.

I can't wrap my head around if he cut his finger during the murder the glove wasn't cut too. That leads credence to Jason a bit.

Imagine this, Jason kills mom & Ron, freaks out and calls OJ. OJ comes running to the house, stuggles to calm down Jason, and gets cut in the process. Juice tells him to go to his house and get cleaned up. Juice looks around, thinking he got everything that identified Jason and then leaves. This explains OJ's presence at the scene. It explains the black watch cap that doesn't match OJ, but has animal hair on it (Jason was photographed in an identical hat with his dogs). Explains why there was DNA found at OJs. Explains why aside from the cut that OJ had no other physical trauma, despite the fact the ME said that Goldman has lots of wounds indicating a significant struggle took place (bruised hands, torn nails, even severe cuts on his feet from kicking the attacker). If Jason jumped over the back wall that lends to Kato hearing it while the limo driver saw OJ walk in from another direction and go into the house. Jason was also quite a bit smaller, so the gloves probably fit easier.

Combine all that with the Bronco suicide chase and what he said to his mother during it....what innocent person goes through that?

what did he say to his mother?

Unfortunately, I've actually had the "pleasure" of serving as a juror on two criminal cases in Los Angeles and countless other days spent on Hill Street as a potential juror. Suffice to say, there are people that want to serve on juries, especially government workers, who receive their entire paychecks while serving and view it as a vacation.

I'm not going to go so far as saying that the jury pool in Los Angeles is "dumb" but suffice to say, both the defense attorneys and prosecution teams look for people that aren't very "bright" and can be swayed by argument.

I sat as an alternate juror on one case in which I was told it wouldn't last more than one day. The defendant was arrested for crack cocaine possession for the third time in three years. His defense was that he picked up a rock on the street and didin't know what he was holding when the LAPD arrested him.

:rolleyes:

And enough jurors bought his story that it ended in a hung jury, eleven days later.

Did they check the son for trauma?

No, he was never interviewed or investigated in any way, despite a history of violent rage, and a couple of incidents with knives.

http://www.defrostingcoldcases.com/i...know%E2%80%A6/

Vincent Bugliosi wrote about it...

Not to mention being found with a disguise, change of clothes, money, etc. with him in the Bronco.

I'd be interested in how he knew the conversation. There were no phone taps, so they don't have recordings. His mother was also in the hospital, having been taken there after his arrest was announced. OJ did call her there from his home after the chase. His mother always maintained his innocence from what I've read, so I doubt the confession.

AC's wife has longed talked about all kinds of shit OJ supposedly said...maybe from there?

Is it reliable? I don't know.

It kinda does fit the bill though along with the suicide notes, the suicide chase in the Bronco, etc. Basically it wouldn't shock me if he actually said that.

Hard to say.

I found it somewhat interesting that he didn't admit to it in any way in any of the notes or chase. Being despondent and suicidal, it seems like he'd lay it out there, but that may have been his ego trying to keep him less "dirty".

Wasn't the dna found with preservative in it or something wacky? dna on the socks was a key point for the defense

3 is going to have more on Kris K.
How did OJ and Robert K know each other? Friends, but how did they meet?
College, business?

Supposedly some type of anticoagulant, but later reviews of the material seem to hint that was a story mostly ginned up by the defense.

OJ was the beneficiary of a historically incompetent prosecution along with a jaded jury. The DNA in his car along with his blood and glove at the scene is unimaginably damnable.