The Treatment

Dime Davis: ‘A Black Lady Sketch Show’

This week on The Treatment, Oscar-winning director and screenwriter Oliver Stone sits down with host Elvis Mitchell to discuss his new memoir, ‘Chasing the Light,’ which covers the first 40 years of his life and career as a filmmaker. Stone won a screenwriting Oscar for ‘Midnight Express’ and two as a director of ‘Platoon’ and ‘Born on The Fourth of July.’ 

Playwright and showrunner Katori Hall joins Elvis Mitchell this week on ‘The Treatment.’ Hall’s plays include ‘The Mountaintop’ and ‘Hurt Village,’ and her most recent project is the Starz series ‘P Valley,’ which is about people who work at a strip club in the Mississippi Delta. Hall and Mitchell discuss how her work can often be a “backstage into Blackness” where characters can be unapologetically themselves. She takes issue with her plays and series being called melodrama, saying they are a reflection of real Black experience. And Hall explains why her work is like putting “vitamins into Kool-Aid.”

Stephen Root: ‘Perry Mason’

What do Earth, Wind & Fire and Michael Bublé have in common? Mega music producer David Foster. Before he became famous for his presence on reality TV, Foster brought his soaring sensibilities and steely concentration to artists like Barbara Streisand, Whitney Houston, and Chicago. Documentary filmmaker Barry Avrich turned a camera on Foster for the Netflix film, “David Foster: Off the Record,” and tracked the difference between control in the studio and the chaos outside of it. Avirch discusses what draws him to such subjects when he stops by “The Treatment.”

In author and cultural historian Sam Wasson's new book, 'The Big Goodbye', he tells us that the 1970s ended in Hollywood in 1974, with the release of the epochal film 'Chinatown'. He takes us inside the chaotic and creative environment that brought screenwriter Robert Towne, director Roman Polanski, studio chief Robert Evans and star Jack Nicholson together -- a once in a lifetime union.

Director Gina Prince-Bythewood found a project that fit into many of the themes she's explored in her films going back to her debut, 2000's "Love & Basketball" in, of all places, the pages of an action-adventure graphic novel. She talks about how her upcoming Netflix feature, "The Old Guard", connected many of the dots for her on "The Treatment".

Author and crisis historian Max Brooks (‘World War Z’, ‘Harlem Hellfighters’) brings his affinity to translating dystopian scenarios into compelling narrative with his project, ‘Germ Warfare: A Very Graphic History’.

Writer/Director Judd Apatow has focused his career on making comedy – and drama – people who, when forced to make a choice between adulthood and remaining a kid, put it off. And the emotional wreckage that indecision leaves. For Pete Davidson's turn and first starring role, Apatow exposes Pete Davidson to indecision. He'll discuss that perspective taking him from '40-Year-Old Virgin' to 'The King of Staten Island' on The Treatment.

The IFC comedy series 'Sherman's Showcase' uses a parody of 'Soul Train' as its launch point, because 'Soul Train' packed so much under its tent. Most importantly, the songs exist for them as music pieces first and foremost -- and then, as comedy. 'Sherman' stars and creators, Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle, talk about that and more in discussing the upcoming 'Sherman's Showcase Black History Month Spectacular' -- in June! on 'The Treatment'.