HBO made a riveting miniseries about the Chernobyl disaster in 2019. The Soviet Union's corrupt bureaucracy enabled the shoddy design which led to the explosion, but then Russian will and fatalism formed the foundation of a near-miraculous response and clean-up, saving untold tens of thousands of lives.
The miniseries had a fantastic cast, with only Emily Watson's fictional lady character hitting a false note. One of my favorite actresses, Jessie Buckley, plays the wife of a first-responder who suffers an excruciating radiation death. It's a secondary role, but Buckley makes the most of it, and her character's fear, confusion and anger always seems genuine.
If you haven't seen Buckley in the folk horror movie Men, check it out. She is also going to star in a remake of The Bride of Frankenstein.
Also on this day, in 2004, the great American writer Hubert Selby, Jr. died. I read Last Exit To Brooklyn when I was a teenager. I remember thinking: Damn, gay people really do all this shit? Crazy! A great novel, though. Really captures the grimy lives of the American lower classes.
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