Andy Ihnatko joins Moisés to discuss the mind, career, and incalculable impact of Robin Williams. There never has been (nor will there ever again be) one like him.
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Show Notes and Links
Standup clips care all taken from Reality...What a Concept (1979), an album which...is not purchasable on iTunes?
On YouTube, there's a smorgasbord of clips from Robin Williams's appearances on late night talk shows. The latest one posted is from Monday night's Late Show with David Letterman. Dave's tribute to Robin's 50 times on one or another of his shows is both very well-produced and very touching.
Watch The Fisher King. I dare you not to be moved. The guy selling a used copy for $108 right now can go fuck off.
The World According to Garp and Being Human were brought back into print by Warner Archive Collection a few years ago on DVD.
Looking for off-the-beaten-path Williams movies? The Final Cut is the one few have probably recommended to you.
The darkest, most obscure Williams performance I ever recommend is The Secret Agent (1996), based on the novel by Joseph Conrad and starring Bob Hoskins, Patricia Arquette, and Gérard Depardieu, along with Jim Broadbent, Christian Bale, and Eddie Izzard.
Sadly, The Secret Agent is out of print and not sold digitally. Good luck...finding it.
Insomnia, One Hour Photo, and Death to Smoochy are underrated and then some. They make up a "Dark Trilogy" of sorts. The first two are dark and disturbing, full of suspense and psychological terror, but the last is pitch-black comedy.
FUN FACT: Death to Smoochy introduced me to the notion that "gluten-free" things existed.
WARNING: World's Greatest Dad is amazing, but very difficult for me to think about watching due to eerie parallels it contains.
Please, for the love of everything good, don't waste your time on RV.
The Night at the Museum movies are fun and good and (yes) well-written.
Other movies Fair Use-clipped here: Good Morning Vietnam*, **Dead Poets Society*, *Good Will Hunting, and The Birdcage*.
Soon, the full audio of the excerpted Kevin Conroy interview will be posted as Screen Time 38.
Andy's article about cosplay for BoingBoing, and the huge gallery of his photos that he mentions on the show.
Really lovely remembrances of Williams by Mara Wilson and Lisa Jakub, who played his daughters in Mrs. Doubtfire.
I might do a variant (maybe longer, maybe shorter) cut of this episode (as an exercise of sorts) down the line. I'm working (slowly) on a series of video essays. One of them is a case study of a deleted scene from Mrs. Doubtfire.
If you like this episode especially, an iTunes review comment would be nice. I don't troll for validation aside from the standard "support the show", but it would be nice to know I got this one right.