Just a reminder that this 10-part series on our fave USC player premieres Tuesday on FX.

I've read many, many gushing reviews about it. This is the most I've looked forward to a TV show in years.

(I was in L.A during the O.J. thing...in fact, when I was seeing growing up, I used to see a pre-O.J. Johnnie Cochran quite a few times because his offices were/are across from my school.)

[video=youtube;J2-vm-L_dk4][/video]

:headbang

10 parts? I think 10 minutes should do. I had enough of it when I was working as an law clerk near the LA County Criminal Courts Building and saw the daily circus ("Camp OJ") in summer 1995.

KoreAmBear;842642563 said:

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10 parts? I think 10 minutes should do. I had enough of it when I was working as an law clerk near the LA County Criminal Courts Building and saw the daily circus ("Camp OJ") in summer 1995.

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+1 ... I'd enjoy 1 minute watching his Heisman removed ... one of many that $c had to remove.

Never really thought about it before but can you imagine if social media existed during the OJ trials

KoreAmBear;842642563 said:

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10 parts? I think 10 minutes should do. I had enough of it when I was working as an law clerk near the LA County Criminal Courts Building and saw the daily circus ("Camp OJ") in summer 1995.

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Man o man +to infinity
..
10 that is ridiculous

Making a Murderer was also 10 parts....must be a formula

dajo9;842642570 said:

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Never really thought about it before but can you imagine if social media existed during the OJ trials

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omg ... chaos

Will they find the real killer?

GB54;842642583 said:

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Will they find the real killer?

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yes, in the last episode. OJ has a bad tee shot on the 17th hole, and knocks a guy out of a tree. turns out it's zachary running wolf.

watermelon;842642601 said:

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yes, in the last episode. OJ has a bad tee shot on the 17th hole, and knocks a guy out of a tree. turns out it's zachary running wolf.

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OJ gets off by arguing the CTE defense? http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/14677428/dr-bennet-omalu-bet-my-medical-license-oj-simpson-cte

GB54;842642583 said:

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Will they find the real killer?

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They did. They just weren't able to convict him.

tydog;842642618 said:

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OJ gets off by arguing the CTE defense? http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/14677428/dr-bennet-omalu-bet-my-medical-license-oj-simpson-cte

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great catch ... first video is telling ...
CTE is the result of a player's choice to play a dangerous, potentially damaging game ... and a pretty poor excuse for anti-social behavior.
Can prolonged voluntary use of controlled substances also become a "defense"?

SonOfCalVa;842642566 said:

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+1 ... I'd enjoy 1 minute watching his Heisman removed ... one of many that $c had to remove.

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Why? He was the best college player of his time - he earned that Heisman. Subsequent events should not impact.
What should have impact is conviction and incarceration.

KoreAmBear;842642563 said:

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10 parts? I think 10 minutes should do. I had enough of it when I was working as an law clerk near the LA County Criminal Courts Building and saw the daily circus ("Camp OJ") in summer 1995.

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I watched 8 parts of Hunting Hitler (I don't know why) only to find out that. . . Well I didn't really find anything out.

dajo9;842642570 said:

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Never really thought about it before but can you imagine if social media existed during the OJ trials

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Imagine if the internet existed....actually it did, but the internet really begin catching on until the year after the O.J. verdict. The NY Times launced its website during the trial.

The fact that you would spend your time on a 10-part sensationalized fictional series based on a factual event that we all know how it ended. And that this is a TV show you've most looked forward to in years...wow. That is sad.

I also have an OJ story. I was the supervisor of the major crimes unit in the Ventura DA's office at the time and appeared on a local news program (Channel 63 in Oxnard) at the time the verdict was to be read live. I predicted OJ would be acquitted, the defense attorney said he would be convicted. The verdict came in exactly as I had predicted and they asked me how I got it right. I reminded them that some national surveys had shown that, before the verdict, only 16% of the Black population believed OJ was guilty. That meant that there was only a 1 in 6 chance that any black juror would vote guilty. There were 9 black jurors. So the chances that all 9 black jurors would vote guilty was 1/6 to the 9th power. I said the chance that all of the black jurors would vote guilty was less than one in a million (in fact, it was 0.000000099 - less than one in ten million)
Moreover, I had tried more than 25 homicide cases and knew that the Caljic (California jury instructions) take hours to read and understand, much less argue about in the jury room. No jury reaches a guilty verdict in California on a complex homicide case in the time this jury deliberated (a couple of hours iirc).
Moreover, the case was horribly mishandled by the LADA's Office and I saw that from the beginning.
I know some have questioned my predictive abilities in the past (MoragaBear has been very skeptical that I foresaw JT's decline in mid 2009) but those skeptics can all watch my videotape of the aforementioned broadcast and kiss my arse.

CaliforniaGoldenBear;842642636 said:

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Why? He was the best college player of his time - he earned that Heisman. Subsequent events should not impact.
What should have impact is conviction and incarceration.

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The Heisman is "awarded annually to the most outstanding player in college football in the United States whose performance best exhibits the pursuit of excellence with integrity."

It doesn't say anything that would indicate it could be forfeited if the winner walked out the door and spent the rest of his life as a convicted felon for reselling bundled bad mortgages to the World markets, a lousy physicist/architect/engineer/dentist/geology consultant practitioner, fencing Rx drugs to old timers, operating an auto agency at high altitude, or running a Ponzie scheme.

Shoreline;842642650 said:

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The fact that you would spend your time on a 10-part sensationalized fictional series based on a factual event that we all know how it ended. And that this is a TV show you've most looked forward to in years...wow. That is sad.

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Why so quick to insult? Reflects poorly on you.

Shoreline;842642650 said:

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The fact that you would spend your time on a 10-part sensationalized fictional series based on a factual event that we all know how it ended. And that this is a TV show you've most looked forward to in years...wow. That is sad.

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You moron! This isn't a series on whether OJ is guilty or not...or about Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman...This is a look back at the trial from the perspective of 20 years, and the perspective of race and gender in America and how things have and haven't changed.

It's a complex and intelligent look back at the surreal part of American life, which is why it's receiving such glowing reviews and which I've been looking forward to it.

But hey: You're a moron who doesn't think telvision can be complex and intelligent.

You probably were too dumb for The Wire.

You probably avoided all films about Vietnam and World War II because you knew the outome. What an idiot!

okaydo;842642665 said:

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who doesn't think telvision can be complex and intelligent.

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Hardly. I just finished watching 10 hours of "Making a Murderer"....complex and intelligent. But, 10-parts on OJ...to each their own.

dajo9;842642570 said:

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Never really thought about it before but can you imagine if social media existed during the OJ trials

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I think that is why this is the perfect time for something like this because not many people can imagine hysteria like we have occurring in the social media age happening 20 years ago, except it did and on a scale unseen in contemporary America.

Nevada fixed his wagon. Ya think? I will watch it.

Strykur;842642669 said:

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I think that is why this is the perfect time for something like this because not many people can imagine hysteria like we have occurring in the social media age happening 20 years ago, except it did and on a scale unseen in contemporary America.

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That's what they said during the Watergate trials. And the Alger Hiss trials. Nothing changes except more buffoons get to have their say.

I spent the 'White Bronco' weekend taking my daughter's girl scout troop backpacking in the Sierras. Had no idea what was going on until I got home late Sunday night. Maybe I should watch that episode?

LudwigsFountain;842642722 said:

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I spent the 'White Bronco' weekend taking my daughter's girl scout troop backpacking in the Sierras. Had no idea what was going on until I got home late Sunday night. Maybe I should watch that episode?

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You chose the best option then.

The Eagles fly. This was an excellent game to see in 1966.

http://www.laneytower.com/news/view.php/497709/1966-team-was-simply-the-best

As you know Irby Augustine and John McGaffie transferred to Cal. Some say the Juice and his Big Al went to $uSC.

LudwigsFountain;842642722 said:

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I spent the 'White Bronco' weekend taking my daughter's girl scout troop backpacking in the Sierras. Had no idea what was going on until I got home late Sunday night. Maybe I should watch that episode?

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That would be tonight's episode...because the focus is completely on the trial. They didn't even cast an actor to play Ron Goldman.


Anyways, here's the best review I've seen:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2016/01/the_people_v_oj_simpson_american_crime_story_on_fx_reviewed_by_willa_paskin.single.html

Quote:

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The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story



FX’s mini-series feels as urgent and compelling today as the trial did in 1995.

By Willa Paskin

The trial of O.J. Simpson for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman is often described as the “trial of the century,” a clich that does what clichs do: dulls and deadens. Simpson’s trial, which stretched from late 1994 to October 1995, was not just the trial of the 20[SUP]th[/SUP] century. As FX’s hugely watchable new miniseries The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story demonstrates, it is the trial of our current century as well. It extends tentacularly into the present moment, when we are once again in the midst of a national reckoning about the intrinsic racism of our police forces, when the NFL is grappling with violence done to and by its players, and when a 24/7 celebrity news culture is dominated by the O.J.-connected Kardashians. Race, sex, violence, fame, football: the live wires of the O.J. trial are still sparking with the same powerful, electrifying charge. The series’ timing is so propitious as to be vertiginous. The truth is more prompt than fiction.

But Simpson’s trial was also, in its way, a time capsule: the last gasp of our national undivided attention. From the moment in June of 1994 that Simpson’s white Bronco sped across Los Angeles’ freeways to his acquittal, Simpson held the spotlight in a way no one has replicated. His case proved that there was a voracious national appetite for celebrity and crime stories, to say nothing of celebrity crime stories, and media outlets have been feeding it ever since.

When the verdict came down I was in ninth grade, and like nearly everyone else in America, I heard it. My chorus teacher put a pair of speakers on the piano, and we sat around them, listening to the not-guilty verdict instead of singing. Just try to imagine a present-day circumstance in which teenagers would be spontaneously assembled to listen to breaking news during school hours: It would likely involve guns and bombs, not celebrities. The O.J. trial was the first of its kind of sordid spectacle, but in its reach, it was also the last.

The 10-episode FX series, which begins Tuesday night and stars Cuba Gooding Jr. in the title role, is based on Jeffrey Toobin’s book, The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson. It is adapted by screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski and produced by Ryan Murphy, the creative force behind Glee and American Horror Story. Murphy has said that the series is agnostic on the subject of Simpson’s guilt or innocence, but this is coy. In the opening pages of his book, Toobin flatly states his belief in Simpson’s guilt, as well as his belief that this guilt is a lesser feature of the trial. Its essential aspect is race and how a seemingly straightforward murder case, insofar as such things can ever be straightforward, became a racial litmus test.

The People v. O.J. Simpson shares this interest and traces, qua the Toobin book with some embellishments, how Simpson’s legal “dream team” realized the racially polarizing nature of Simpson’s arrest and successfully harnessed that polarization by putting a racist, postriot LAPD on trial before a jury composed largely of middle-aged black women. This strategy proved so effective that the prosecution, made complacent by the bounty of physical evidence and miscalculating the depths of the divide between the black and white citizenry of Los Angeles, did not know it had lost until it was too late to win. The series does not show the murders, contain a confession, or declare O.J. guilty, but it gives even less quarter to the possibility of evidence-tampering or alternate suspects. The show is faithful enough to Toobin’s source material that it carries the intimation of O.J.’s guilt.

The O.J. trial was the first of its kind of sordid spectacle, but in its reach, it was also the last.

The People v. O.J. Simpson is not, unlike much of Murphy’s output, particularly campy. Yes, John Travolta plays Simpson’s fatuous lawyer Robert Shapiro, looking as if he were wearing a mask of his own face, but despite certain such grace notes, the show eschews outright kitsch. Yet it is not exactly the somber and sober retelling one might expect of serious-minded awards bait, either. There is a bubblegum veneer to the series, a preference for watchability, enjoyment, and juicy asides rather than for the propriety of the prestige drama. It is, perhaps, a little more fun than might be strictly appropriate for a true crime story about the brutal murder of two people—but even solemnly told true crime tales such as Serial and Making a Murderer are ultimately experienced by their audiences as fun-adjacent. The People v. O.J. Simpson has no internal angst about delivering on true crime’s unseemly pleasures.

For those who were relatively young when the trial took place (to say nothing of not yet born), the show is a crash course in a fascinating case full of twists so twisty they seem scripted. (See, for example, that Detective Mark Fuhrman, the racist cop who found O.J.’s gloves, was a collector of Nazi paraphernalia.) But even for people who were of age during the trial, and therefore automatically inundated in its every particular, The People v. O.J. Simpson has something to offer—a new perspective on characters long ago written into the national consciousness as one-dimensional versions of themselves.

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Here's the Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/fxs-people-v-oj-simpson-is-near-perfect-and-arrives-at-the-perfect-time/2016/02/01/02371646-c545-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html

Quote:

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FX’s ‘People v. O.J. Simpson’ is near-perfect and arrives at the perfect time

Here’s a strange blessing for our times: May you live long enough to see a sensationally overblown news event that you can still vividly recall turned into a very good and even powerfully thoughtful TV miniseries a couple of decades later.

For, as creator Ryan Murphy and his collaborators on FX’s masterful “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” are quick to remind us old fogies, many viewers will be coming to this material fresh.

“American Crime Story” begins Tuesday from a square-one approach, assuming that anyone under 30 is only vaguely aware that, once upon a time in the dial-up modem days, a retired professional football star was arrested and charged with murdering his ex-wife and a restaurant employee with whom she was casually acquainted.

It happened in June 1994, and by the time of O.J. Simpson’s acquittal 16 months later (oops, spoiler alert), American culture had unwittingly but necessarily entered a new kind of conversation about race, justice and the media — a conversation that remains an important precursor to the #BlackLivesMatter era.

It’s easy for some of us to regard the Simpson saga as a spent narrative, picked apart and talked to death, but “American Crime Story” makes an effective, convincing case that now is a perfect time to turn the story into a piece of topical art. “The People v. O.J. Simpson” isn’t flawless, and it probably won’t stand up to the sort of factual scrutiny that still swirls around its subject matter, but it is ambitiously imagined, surprisingly responsible and practically unerring in tone and pace.

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New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/arts/television/tv-review-people-vs-oj-simpson-american-crime-story.html

Quote:

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The 10-episode series, starting Tuesday on FX, looks at that case from two decades ago and sees today in embryo. The power, and the competing claims, of identity politics. The marathon news stories packaged as entertainments. Above all, the idea that black and white Americans can look at precisely the same scene and see entirely different realities.

The show acquits itself well. Despite the audience’s knowledge that the former football star Orenthal James Simpson will be found not guilty (history is not a spoiler, sorry), the series is absorbing, infuriating and, yes, thoroughly entertaining.

And despite the program’s well-chewed-over subject matter — the Bronco! the glove! Kato Kaelin! — it is revelatory, though not about the murders. You probably have an opinion as to whether O. J. did it. “The People v. O. J. Simpson” is not interested in sharing its own, though the book it’s based on, “The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson,” by Jeffrey Toobin, couldn’t be more explicit: “Simpson murdered his ex-wife and her friend.” (The author was a consultant on the series.)

Instead, “The People,” which was developed by the screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (“The People vs. Larry Flynt,” “Ed Wood” and has Ryan Murphy as an executive producer, focuses on the legal process. Like the true-crime sensations “Serial” and “The Jinx,” it’s conscious of the ways justice is achieved, denied or bought. You’ve seen “Making a Murderer”? Get ready for “Unmaking a Murderer.”

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Here, O.J. shows how he would make an over the shoulder catch.

I have zero interest in the subject matter, having lived through the media storm the first time.

I can understand the sentiment but I want to see it. Especially want to recall that whole context and if I remember it the same way.

OJ used to be a favorite player of mine actually running back used to be a favorite player position of mine overall. It was a game changer for me to see OJs life and the situation unfold for me. It was to me like Watergate and the hostage crisis and 9/11 and many others just indelible and game changing is the only word to describe it for me.