Russell Simmons · Zodiac · Last Days Of August
Plus: Show notes!
the true crime that's worth your time
Oprah has backed away from a documentary about the allegations against Russell Simmons. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Oprah said via statement that she has “decided that I will no longer be executive producer on The Untitled Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering documentary” on allegations made by Drew Dixon, who accused the high-profile music producer of rape in 2017.
It doesn’t appear that Winfrey has decided to take it easy on Simmons, saying, “First and foremost, I want it to be known that I unequivocally believe and support the women. Their stories deserve to be told and heard.” However, “there is more work to be done on the film to illuminate the full scope of what the victims endured, and it has become clear that the filmmakers and I are not aligned in that creative vision.”
Winfrey’s departure means the show has also lost its slot on Apple TV+’s roster, but the filmmakers say that the project will continue. “While we are disappointed that Oprah Winfrey is no longer an Executive Producer on the project,” Dick and Ziering saud via statement, “we are gratified that Winfrey has unequivocally said she believes and supports the survivors of the film…we will continue with our plans to bring the film to The Sundance Film Festival.” — EB
Here are the show notes for The Blotter Presents, Episode 128! This week, Sarah is again joined by Piper Weiss, and they’ll discuss True Life Crime and Life After Lockup, the latter a show about which I actually said “yikes” when I read its details. We’ll see if Sarah and Piper yikes-ed along with me when the episode drops Wednesday.
William Lee from the Trib: the Kenneka Jenkins case was "never a murder mystery"
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FX is plotting a new Zodiac documentary. When we first heard about The Most Dangerous Animal Of All, the show was presented as a fictional adaptation. That’s apparently not the case, the East Bay Times reports, saying that the show will be a four-part docuseries that includes “stuff out that nobody knew,” executive producer Ross Dinerstein says. “We connected some dots that people never connected before. A lot of new stuff will be revealed.”
Of course, Dinerstein has to say that, as at this point the Zodiac case is basically just dry bones that are regularly overturned to no avail. Director Kief Davidson also hustled to stoke the flames on interest, dimeing out SFPD in the process. From the EBT:
“Part of the reason why the Zodiac case was not solved was due to a lead detective’s obsession,” Davidson said. “I can’t reveal too much more because, actually, there’s an element in the Zodiac case that’s really not been talked about before that we uncovered and got people to talk about how that explains why it wasn’t solved in the 1970s.”
Davidson went went on to say that there existed a “culture within the (San Francisco) police department that you don’t talk, you don’t rat out your fellow officers. I wouldn’t go as far to say that there was a cover up, per se, but there is certainly information that these former detectives were not talking about that I ultimately did get them to talk about.”
It will certainly be interesting to see how Davidson succeeded where every other researcher failed! (I’m being sarcastic, as if you couldn’t tell.) I must admit, though, this excess of confidence kind of makes me — someone who has had more than her fill of Zodiac #content over the years — want to watch it when it airs just so I can gripe. The show is set to drop on FX and Hulu in March, and, just thinking aloud here — maybe Sarah and I should do some sort of live open-thread discussion on this here publication when it airs. What do you think? — EB
Speaking of what you think…You still have a couple hours to vote in our Twitter poll on if The Last Days Of August podcast is true crime, or not. Best Evidence readers found it true-crimey enough to nominate it as one of my podcast binge-and-review picks last October, and in the first line of my review, I wrote, “There’s little crime to be found in The Last Days Of August, but that’s okay.”
Poll respondents appear to disagree with me, as it’s over 61 percent for true crime, and only 38 saying the podcast isn’t. True crime or not, it’s a really good podcast, and if you haven’t listened to it before now (and are okay with listening to content that discusses suicide, sexual assault, and self-harm), I highly recommend it. — EB
And while we’re on true-crime podcasts: McSweeney’s, which I find to be either brain-burningly funny or disgustingly smug (no middle ground), has a pretty incisive take on true-crime podcast advertising and the corrections industry. I’m not going to say anything else about it, just: here it is.
Wednesday on Best Evidence: It’s The Blotter Presents, Episode 128.
What is this thing? This should help.
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