USA Today - 13.11.2019

2D z WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2019 z USA TODAY LIFE

For Judd Apatow, Garry Shandling
was a mentor and a matchstick.
“He gave me most of the big breaks of
my career,” the filmmaker, who directed
comedies including “Trainwreck,”
“Knocked Up” and “The 40-Year-Old
Virgin,” says of his former colleague and
friend who died in 2016. Shandling se-
lected Apatow to write jokes for him
when he hosted the Grammys multiple
times in the early ’90s.
They also worked to-
gether on “The Larry
Sanders Show,” a sa-
tirical look at late-
night TV that ran on
HBO from 1992 to 1998.
Their latest col-
laboration comes
more than three years
after Shandling died at 66 from a blood
clot. “It’s Garry Shandling’s Book,”
available Tuesday, which Apatow edit-
ed and wrote an introduction for, is part
scrapbook, part biography. It contains
pictures, scripts, journal entries and let-
ters telling the story of Shandling’s ca-
reer. In the intro, Apatow describes it as
“the ultimate hoarding of Garry.”
Though a lack of visible mementos
made Apatow believe his friend “wasn’t
nostalgic for the past,” he stood correct-
ed after sorting through Shandling’s
personal items after his death.
“I would open closets, and I found
that he saved everything,” he says.
“There were these very personal jour-
nals, thousands of pages of jokes and
ideas, tons of incredible photographs,
and as a fan of comedy, I thought it
would be terrible if no one ever got to see
this again.”
Apatow was surprised again when he
dove into his friend’s written thoughts,
finding “he was an even better person”
than he’d imagined.
“When you read someone’s journals,

you always think there’s going to be a lot

of darkness and bitterness and com-

plaining,” Apatow says. “His journals

were mainly filled with reminders to

himself to be a good person.”

The book features numerous per-

sonal items, including a letter Shandling

wrote to his brother Barry, who died

from cystic fibrosis in 1960, and text

messages from the comic to his driver

looking for a ride to the doctor the day of

and before his death.

Including the latter gave Apatow

pause.

“His driver wasn’t available, and in-

stead of going to the hospital by cab or

getting a ride from someone else, he just

delayed to the next day, and then the ap-

pointment was delayed, and then he

died,” Apatow says. “And in his texts,

you see this happen.

“And I thought, is it too morbid to put

that in the book? But then I thought, you

know what? I think it’s important for

people to know that they shouldn’t hes-

itate to see a doctor when they’re feeling

pain,” he continues. “It’s very hard to

read those, because you realize he

would be around if he just jumped in

the car the day before. But everybody

needs to jump in the car and tune in to

their bodies and make sure they’re get-

ting help when they need help. So I in-

cluded it.”

Apatow misses his “brilliantly hilar-

ious friend who always made me laugh

hard and was supportive in a com-

pletely selfless way.”

“Anytime I wrote a movie or made a

movie, he would read the script and go

to all the cuts of the film and give me

notes,” Apatow says, “and he was gen-

erally there for me and a lot of people

in ways that only now do we realize

were so giving. It’s uncommon for

someone to really take an interest in

helping other people.”

Apatow says Shandling is still with

him in a way.

“I think a lot of us hear his voice and

his advice in our head. So if I’m writing

or thinking about some personal situa-

tion I have, I know the advice that Gar-

ry would give me,” he says. “That’s

how deeply seated he is in a lot of our

minds.”

Apatow recalls friend

in ‘Shandling’s Book’

Erin Jensen
USA TODAY

Garry Shandling and Judd ApatowJON WEINBERG

BOOKS

known only as “The Mandalorian” (Pe-

dro Pascal), the name of his tribe. It

depicts a gritty, lawless, murderous

world where Pascal’s skilled warrior

hunts bail jumpers and criminals

without a flicker of feeling, encasing

them in carbonite prisons like the one

that held Han Solo (Harrison Ford)

captive at the end of “The Empire

Strikes Back.” (There are plenty of oth-

er classic “Star Wars” visual cues, from

R2 droids to Stormtroopers to tiny

puppet aliens on spits).

In its first episode, the Mandalorian

is hired by a mysterious man (Werner

Herzog, the most vivid performance)

to track down an unidentified, highly

guarded target for a huge sum, but the

mission becomes slightly more com-

plicated than the Mandalorian real-

ized. To say anything further about the

plot would unleash the wrath of le-

gions of fans fearful of spoilers.

The series is more of an intimate

space Western than the grand space

opera style of the films, leaning into

the dusty streets of the unnamed plan-

ets the Mandalorian stalks and images

of him bursting through mechanical

doors. The pilot, directed by “Star

Wars” animation alum Dave Filoni,

looks impressive enough, although

some of the action sequences are hard

to follow. Despite taking place in a uni-

verse millions of fans are acquainted

with, “Mandalorian” doesn’t spend

enough time explaining its own world.

Still, there is a lot of potential in the

series. The episode is just 40 minutes,

a delight in the streaming era when

some drag on for an hour or more.

There is plenty of intrigue when it

comes to “Star Wars” lore, and a slight

twist ending sets up a story that could

involve bigger ideas from the film se-

ries. And there are a few bright mo-

mentswhere Pascal makes his equivo-

cal bounty hunter feel more grounded.

“Mandalorian” was always going to

be judged by a higher standard than its

Disney Plus siblings. It doesn’t match

the quality of the films or, frankly, the

franchise’s superb animated series.

But it does offer something almost no

other TV series can: A trip, every week,

to a world of blasters, light sabers and

parsecs.

Series

Continued from Page 1D

If you’re not already convinced that

survival of life on Earth is a tenuous

high-wire act, read this novel, then

press reset. “The Andromeda Evolu-

tion” (Harper, 384 pp., eeeE) is as

much the long-awaited sequel to the

best-selling “The Andromeda Strain,”

published 50 years ago, as it is an in-

fectious evolution of the Michael

Crichton literary legacy.

Arguably the most

successful science

fiction writer of the

late-20th century,

Crichton, who died in

2008 (though his

credit joins Daniel H.

Wilson’s on this cov-

er), was a master at

creating contempo-

rary cautionary tales using plausible

speculation based on dead-serious

science. Think “Jurassic Park,” “West-

world” and “The Terminal Man” – all

techno-thrillers that combine top-

shelf science, tedious technical details

and a probability of dire consequences

to create intense drama and edge-of-

your-seat suspense.

Not a bad formula for convincing

readers this actually could occur – or

has. (Wait, wasn’t the original “The

Andromeda Strain” based on a top-se-

cret, nearly disastrous 1967 incident in

Arizona?) While Crichton’s method-

writing imprint is all over this book,

Wilson, author of the best-selling nov-

els “Robopocalypse” and “Robogene-

sis,” adapts his own tricks to the

“Crichton voice” to create another

compelling chronicle of imminent ex-

istential catastrophe.

“The Andromeda Evolution” begins

with the true-to-Crichton explanation

that this is a top-secret, post-incident

report about a five-day scientific crisis

“that culminated in the near extinction

of our species.” Throughout, scientific

documents, top-secret government

files, official interviews and diagrams

are provided as verification.

A Brazilian security outpost in the re-

mote Amazon awakens to an image on a

computer screen of something terrify-

ing, “not built by any human hands.”

Enter the watchdog group Project Eter-

nal Vigilance, launched after the origi-

nal Andromeda incident to monitor for

new outbreaks. For over 50 years, noth-

ing’s happened... until now.

A new team of four Project Wildfire

scientists is sent to the Amazon to in-

vestigate how to stop the unexplainable

anomaly. A fifth scientist is tracking the

crisis from the International Space Sta-

tion (ISS) orbiting Earth. Meanwhile, a

deadly, self-replicating, microparticle

structure grows exponentially, eating

the jungle and killing nearby habitants.

The novel’s characters are intriguing

if not deep personas, including odd ro-

botics genius James Stone, son of An-

dromeda Strain hero Dr. Jeremy Stone,

and astronaut Sophie Kline, who’s para-

lyzed waist-down but whose brain im-

plants are hot-linked into an experi-

mental onboard humanoid robot. But,

as the story gains momentum, Wilson’s

cast of diverse characters engage the

head and heart as they struggle to save

humanity, yet remain quite human – for

better and for worse.

Too many skimworthy scientific de-

tails and documents are meant not to

entertain or inform, but to build a ve-

neer of authenticity, which occasionally

detracts from the intensifying narra-

tive. Two-thirds of the way into the

book, readers know who the villain is

and what the anomaly is. What remains

is the how and why.

In the end, “The Andromeda Evolu-

tion” explodes with an unexpected,

gripping, cinematic finale, ready-made.

Crichton and techno-thriller fans will be

entertained, if not awed.

BOOK REVIEW

‘Andromeda Evolution’

is an infectious sequel

Don Oldenburg

Special to USA TODAY

A Brazilian security outpost

awakens to an image of

something terrifying, “not

built by any human hands.”

Spoilers ahead! What follows dis-
cusses a major reveal and the ending of
the Stephen King movie “Doctor Sleep,” a
sequel to “The Shining.”
The new Stephen King horror sequel
“Doctor Sleep” brings back one of cine-
ma’s most infamous antagonists, albeit
wielding a bottle of booze instead of his
usual weapon of destruction.
Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 classic “The
Shining” introduced Danny Torrance, a
young boy with psychic abilities whose
father Jack (Jack Nicholson) takes a job
as a caretaker at the Overlook Hotel, a
haunted locale that possesses Jack and
reverts him to his violent, alcoholic
ways. His wife and son escape, and Jack
winds up freezing to death.
“Doctor Sleep” picks up where “The
Shining” left off, with a grown-up Dan
(Ewan McGregor) battling his own ad-
diction issues. Now sober, Dan helps a
young girl with abilities, Abra (Kyliegh
Curran), escape psychic vampire Rose
the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson). But to truly
defeat her, Dan and Abra have to coax
Rose to the Overlook, which has been
boarded up and abandoned but still
houses a variety of ghosts.
Dan revisits the places where Jack
chased him with an axe, and in the film’s
most riveting sceneDan enters the ho-
tel’s Gold Room and sits at the bar,
where he realizes a familiar face is serv-
ing him a drink: his dad (Henry Thom-
as), now a ghost at the Overlook.
“It was a profoundly cool opportunity
for Dan to have this conversation not
only with his father but with his own ad-
diction,” writer/director Mike Flanagan
says. “That was the scene that made me
want to make the film.”
Jack’s reappearance is a callback to
two “Shining” personalities who inter-
acted with Nicholson’s character: ghost-
ly Gold Room waiter Delbert Grady, the
Overlook’s previous caretaker, and
Lloyd the bartender, the stoic guy Jack
vents to about his family as he falls off
the wagon.
But in the “Doctor Sleep” version of
the scene, Dan refuses the drink and

poignantly chronicles his life and trou-

bles since that childhood trauma as

bartender Jack listens.

“Kubrick had shown us the way,”

Flanagan explains. “That is kind of the

fate that befalls some of these ghosts

at the Overlook: They just become part

of the staff (and) deny any memory of

who they were in life.”

McGregor was surprised by just

how emotional the scene became.

“(Dan) suffered from his dad’s vio-

lence, his dad’s alcoholism, and here

he is given a chance to try and get him

to apologize,” the actor says. “Ulti-

mately, what’s at the heart of it is he

wants to be loved by his father. And he

has this opportunity in that moment

for his father to say, ‘I’m sorry, I love

you.’ ”

When Flanagan recruited Thomas,

he told him the part would require only

a single day of filming but “every single

move you make will be scrutinized like

you wouldn’t believe.”

Flanagan knew that bringing Jack

back would be a “lightning rod.”“Peo-

ple were going to hate that it existed at

all, no matter what we did,” the direc-

tor says. “So there was a lot of care that

went into it.

“To me, it represented the heart of

not only Dan’s journey but why you go

back to the Overlook at all. If you’re go-

ing to go back to confront the past, how

can you do it without that scene?”

‘Doctor Sleep’ scene will

bring back memories

Brian Truitt
USA TODAY

In “Doctor Sleep,” Ewan McGregor

plays Danny Torrance from “The

Shining.”WARNER BROS. PICTURES