“Ted knows that the one who has despised him the longest is me,” says Mazin, who was majoring in pre-med as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev glimmered on the nightly news while his country disintegrated. “It took me minutes to loathe him. He is the most inauthentic, pointlessly ambitious person I’ve ever met. A total disregard for the truth.”
The arc of Mazin’s career reads like an anecdote on his podcast, which launched in 2011 and examines the world of screenwriters. His “Scriptnotes” co-host, John August, whose credits include “Go” and “Big Fish,” says Mazin has long wanted to abandon broad comedy films for insightful dramas. “We are now living in a global war on the truth,” Mazin says. “The debasement of the truth is the scariest thing of all. It’s scarier than the lies. We look at this president who lies, outrageous lies, not little ones but outstandingly absurd lies. The truth isn’t even in the conversation. It’s just forgotten or obscured to the point where we can’t see it. That’s what Chernobyl is about.”
The mood of “Chernobyl” is as somber as a cello and gray as a winter sky, like a slow pulse beating toward an uncertain resolution. People smoke, drink vodka, watch for spies, shoot contaminated dogs, salve their blistered skin and commiserate in the humor of the oppressed. But there is a defiance within that has survived world wars, revolutions, purges and famines.
Chernobyl was about an alarming lack of expertise and unmistakable human failure. The technologically advanced plant without advanced personnel to work it. It was a disaster that should be remembered as such because human nature is pretty similar everywhere.
Doesn’t change the fact that they’re hacks who said fuck you to millions of people because they were bored and wanted a new Star Wars project. Rats. That’s their legacy.
Thank God
Sounds like a meltdown.
'Chernobyl' is also my codename for Thrones' Season 8. To be clear, it's because it's a nuclear meltdown.
This is fucking hilarious.