Richard Linklater’s Texas True Crime: 'Bernie' and 'Hit Man'
Featuring an exclusive, recorded introduction by Richard Linklater
Oscar-nominated director Richard Linklater’s sunlit neo-noir Hit Man stars Glen Powell as straight-laced professor Gary Johnson, who moonlights as a fake hit man for the New Orleans Police Department. Preternaturally gifted at inhabiting different guises and personalities to catch hapless people hoping to bump off their enemies, Powell’s character is inspired by an unbelievable true story out of Houston first related in an October 2001 Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth. While Hit Man takes some entertaining liberties with Gary Johnson’s story, this unique true crime tale is at its heart a special mix of endearing and provocative that is Hollandsworth’s specialty.
In fact, Hit Man is the second true crime tale adapted by Linklater from a Hollandsworth Texas Monthly story. In 2012, Linklater’s Bernie, starring Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine and Matthew McConaughey, told a bizarre tale uncovered by Hollandsworth out of Carthage, Texas. Black portrays Bernie Tiede, a mild-mannered funeral director so charming he became the trusted companion of the town’s wealthy but unfriendly widow, Marjorie Nugent. For a time, Tiede and Nugent were the oddest of inseparable companions, but eventually the relationship went sour. Imagine the town’s surprise when Tiede was later charged with Nugent’s murder.
The Paris Theater is excited to present a double feature of these two Linklater-Hollandsworth collaborations, both a testament to the fact that sometimes fiction can’t hope to match the wild twists and turns of a true story.
This is a double-feature presentation, and will include a 15 minute intermission. BERNIE (104 min., DCP) will screen first at 6:30 PM, followed by HIT MAN (115 min., DCP) at approx. 8:30 PM.
Featuring an exclusive, recorded introduction by Richard Linklater
Oscar-nominated director Richard Linklater’s sunlit neo-noir Hit Man stars Glen Powell as straight-laced professor Gary Johnson, who moonlights as a fake hit man for the New Orleans Police Department. Preternaturally gifted at inhabiting different guises and personalities to catch hapless people hoping to bump off their enemies, Powell’s character is inspired by an unbelievable true story out of Houston first related in an October 2001 Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth. While Hit Man takes some entertaining liberties with Gary Johnson’s story, this unique true crime tale is at its heart a special mix of endearing and provocative that is Hollandsworth’s specialty.
In fact, Hit Man is the second true crime tale adapted by Linklater from a Hollandsworth Texas Monthly story. In 2012, Linklater’s Bernie, starring Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine and Matthew McConaughey, told a bizarre tale uncovered by Hollandsworth out of Carthage, Texas. Black portrays Bernie Tiede, a mild-mannered funeral director so charming he became the trusted companion of the town’s wealthy but unfriendly widow, Marjorie Nugent. For a time, Tiede and Nugent were the oddest of inseparable companions, but eventually the relationship went sour. Imagine the town’s surprise when Tiede was later charged with Nugent’s murder.
The Paris Theater is excited to present a double feature of these two Linklater-Hollandsworth collaborations, both a testament to the fact that sometimes fiction can’t hope to match the wild twists and turns of a true story.
This is a double-feature presentation, and will include a 15 minute intermission. BERNIE (104 min., DCP) will screen first at 6:30 PM, followed by HIT MAN (115 min., DCP) at approx. 8:30 PM.