Based on a True Story

Movies Episodes

42
March 6, 2017

Everest

There's outdoor sports, then there's extreme outdoors activities. In this week's episode we'll compare history with Hollywood's version of Everest. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/ef3413ba-7f1e-4df8-92e8-467c1430074a Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links.boatspodcast.com/42 Support our sponsors: https://links.boatspodcast.com/advertisers Remove the ads by supporting the show: https://links.boatspodcast.com/support Leave a voicemail: https:...
41
Feb. 27, 2017

Lion

Did you watch the Oscars last night? What a crazy turn of events with the whole Best Picture scandal. While most of the media will be covering Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway's goof at the end, we'll be covering one of the movies nominated for Best Picture that was based on the an amazing true story. Today, let's compare history with Hollywood's version of Lion. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/17c6d405-fd39-4687-ab63-46957eef4b18 Find the transcript and ful...
40
Feb. 20, 2017

Bitter Harvest

This Friday, Bitter Harvest hits the theaters and tells a story that most people haven't heard. Learn the true story before you go see the film. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/30ca3a6c-7d5c-41d8-a3e3-22c0e8d35520 Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links.boatspodcast.com/40 Support our sponsors: https://links.boatspodcast.com/advertisers Remove the ads by supporting the show: https://links.boatspodcast.com/support Leave a voicemail: https://l...
39
Feb. 13, 2017

Florence Foster Jenkins

Florence Foster Jenkins is up for a couple Academy Awards. Let's find out how accurate the movie is by comparing Hollywood with history. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/cb3ed6f2-14e0-4311-ad22-1e4a24231185 Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links.boatspodcast.com/39 Support our sponsors: https://links.boatspodcast.com/advertisers Remove the ads by supporting the show: https://links.boatspodcast.com/support Leave a voicemail: https://links.bo...
38
Feb. 6, 2017

Black Mass

Compare history with Hollywood's version of Black Mass. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/62fa1200-fce2-4ac6-a2a6-8017ca21e90c Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links.boatspodcast.com/38 Support our sponsors: https://links.boatspodcast.com/advertisers Remove the ads by supporting the show: https://links.boatspodcast.com/support Leave a voicemail: https://links.boatspodcast.com/call Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoice...
37
Jan. 30, 2017

13 Hours

Compare history with Hollywood's version of 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/e0e8fa46-763b-471d-9e68-9c05e6b9f4bb Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links.boatspodcast.com/37 Support our sponsors: https://links.boatspodcast.com/advertisers Remove the ads by supporting the show: https://links.boatspodcast.com/support Leave a voicemail: https://links.boatspodcast.com/call Learn more about your ad choic...
36
Jan. 23, 2017

The Big Short

Compare history with Hollywood's version of The Big Short. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/dcfa9136-2431-445f-93e2-a30f53a8487e Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links.boatspodcast.com/36 Support our sponsors: https://links.boatspodcast.com/advertisers Remove the ads by supporting the show: https://links.boatspodcast.com/support Leave a voicemail: https://links.boatspodcast.com/call Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adcho...
35
Jan. 16, 2017

Titanic

You've seen the movie. But how much of Titanic was true, and how much of it was made up for the film? Let's compare history with Hollywood's blockbuster film, Titanic. Links Titanic movie Last Dinner On the Titanic: Menus and Recipes from the Great Liner Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/c4eadab1-ac8f-468e-8540-34466835a068 Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links.boatspodcast.com/35 Support our sponsors: https://links.boatspodcast.com/adverti...
34
Jan. 9, 2017

The Pianist

He lived through unthinkable measures. At a time when millions were slaughtered, including his family and friends, Wladyslaw Szpilman managed to survive the Holocaust. He was The Pianist, and in 2003 there was a movie starring Adrian Brody telling his incredible story. But how much of it is true? Let's compare history with Hollywood's version of The Pianist. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/b16bd10c-386d-42ff-bc79-9e05ea46b518 Find the transcript and full ...
33
Jan. 2, 2017

Hidden Figures

This week we'll do something a bit different as we look ahead. Instead of learning about a movie that's already been released, we'll look ahead to a movie coming out this next weekend. Hidden Figures tells the remarkable story of women at NASA who worked as Computers. Before you go see the movie in theaters, learn more about the women so you'll be able to tell just how accurate the movie is on your own. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/60669fb9-4cd7-4253-a...
32
Dec. 26, 2016

A Beautiful Mind

On October 11th, 1994, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced their Nobel prize winners. Three brilliant scientists jointly won the coveted award. They were Professor John C. Harsanyi from the University of California, Berkley, Dr. John F. Nash from Princeton University and Professor Dr. Reinhard Selten, from the University of Bonn in Bonn, Germany. Less than a month later, on November 13th, 1994, a writer for The New York Times wrote a great article called The Lost Years of a Nobel La...
31
Dec. 19, 2016

Joyeux Noël

With the Christmas season upon us, I wanted to cover a film that'd help represent the Christmas spirit. In 2005, French filmmaker Christian Carion released his second full-length feature film. Joyeux Noël, which translated to English means Merry Christmas, was released in France on November 9th, 2005, and only ended up making about $3.5 million at the box office. That's significantly less than the $22 million it cost to make. The film wasn't released in the United States until June of 2006, wh...
30
Dec. 12, 2016

Spotlight

Tom McCarthy started his acting career with a short movie in 1989 called Roast Suckling. Although that's probably not something most have seen, he's one of those actors that you'd recognize when you see him. Probably because he's been in a lot of movies and TV shows you've seen. He played a background character in Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts' 1997 thriller Conspiracy Theory. In 2000, Tom has a recurring role on Boston Public as the character Kevin Riley. After more background character roles ...
29
Dec. 5, 2016

The Sound of Music

There are few movies that stand near the top of the all-time list for income. One of those movies is The Sound of Music. With a budget of about $8 million when it was produced in the 1960s, it was one of the bigger budget films when it was made. That $8 million is about $62 million in today's United States dollars. When it was released in 1965, it raked in over 35 times that amount, about $286 million on its way to an impressive five Academy Awards, including the Oscar for Best Picture in 1966...
28
Nov. 28, 2016

Captain Phillips

Between 2004 and 2016, Paul Greengrass directed a total of six movies. Four of those have Matt Damon in them. Three of them are about the fictitious Jason Bourne character. Two of them are based on a true story. Today, we're going to be looking at one of those movies. In an effort to make 2013's Captain Phillips as authentic as possible, Paul Greengrass kept two groups of actors separate. One group had Tom Hanks playing the man the movie is named after, Captain Rich Phillips. In the other grou...
27
Nov. 21, 2016

Pocahontas

With the Thanksgiving season upon us, I thought it'd be a great opportunity to travel back in time to the days of Colonial America. Then I realized there's not really a lot of movies about the actual Thanksgiving story. So I decided to go with something that, although not about the Thanksgiving story itself, could transport us back to those days. And it's also a great opportunity to do something we haven't tackled yet on the podcast, a Disney animation. In the mid-1990s, the animation team at D...
26
Nov. 14, 2016

Defiance

Nechama Tec was born in Lublin, Poland in 1931. When she was eight years old, her life would forever change as Nazis invaded her hometown. As a Polish Jew, she survived the Holocaust thanks to Polish Catholics who hid her from the Nazis. Over forty years later, in the 1980s, Nechama started doing research on the events that she had lived through. Her book, When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland was published in 1986. It was while Nechama was researchin...
25
Nov. 7, 2016

The Wolf of Wall Street

The latest in the line of collaborations between actor Leonardo DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese is 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street. It received positive reviews, and also held the honor of topping the most-pirated films list of 2014. That's according to copyright tracking firm Excipio, which puts out a list of the most pirated films each year. Their report indicated The Wolf of Wall Street was the most-pirated in 2014 with over 30 million illegal downloads. But that didn't stop The Wolf of...
24
Oct. 31, 2016

The Conjuring

Happy Halloween! I wanted to do something special this week. I thought it'd be fun to cover the true story behind something scary. But after starting to look for some movies to fit the bill, I quickly realized most of the scary movies that claim to be based on a true story also require a belief in something extraordinary—something supernatural. Some stories are simply strange, and we don't know the truth. The only thing we do know is what those who lived through the events claim. With that in m...
23
Oct. 24, 2016

Steve Jobs

Few can debate the huge impact Steve Jobs had on the world. So it's no wonder that after Steve Jobs passed away in 2011, there was in influx of news and media surrounding the life of the outspoken Apple co-founder and CEO. If you listened to episode on The Social Network, you'll already know how Aaron Sorkin dropped the true story for a good story. So how did he do for his movie about Apple's famous CEO and co-founder? Let's find out as we compare Hollywood with history for 2015's Steve Jobs. ...
22
Oct. 17, 2016

Amazing Grace

You've probably heard of the song Amazing Grace. It's one of those Christian hymns that just about everyone has heard, or at least heard of, at some point. It was first published in 1779 by John Newton. While you may think the named after John's song is about John's life, it's not. Instead it's about a man who was perhaps the first to be influenced by John's moving life story and the song. It's about a man who was perhaps the single most influential man in the abolishment of slavery in Britain....
21
Oct. 10, 2016

The Finest Hours

In a retelling of one of the greatest moments in U.S. Coast Guard's history, The Finest Hours is a feel-good movie of true heroism. When sitting down to write the film, screenwriters Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson had the chance to do something not everyone does: interview the actual people who lived the story. Since they had the chance to talk to the survivors, does that mean the story was historically accurate? Let's find out as we learn about the true story of The Finest Hours. Did you enjoy ...
20
Oct. 3, 2016

The Black Dahlia

Elizabeth Short's murder was considered to be the crime of the century. And it's a mystery that many are still fascinated by, decades later. So when Brian De Palma directed a 2006 movie of the same name, many moviegoers wanted to see a true crime story of The Black Dahlia. They were sorely disappointed. Let's dive into the real story of The Black Dahlia and find out just how accurate the movie was. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/ad3b4776-6d5d-4602-9a24-d...
19
Sept. 26, 2016

Deepwater Horizon

The movie Deepwater Horizon comes out on this Friday. So again we're going to take some time to look ahead at a movie. Before you go see the movie in theaters, let's take a few minutes to learn what happened before, during, and after the disaster so you'll know just how accurate Hollywood was during its retelling. Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment: https://galas.fm/episode/ca08a419-7062-466f-8cc1-0e26faae9865 Find the transcript and full show notes: https://links.boatspodcast.com/19 ...