Midmost Coast

In June, the On Set Cinema series brought a screening of Empire Records to the real life building that served as its filming location in Wilmington, North Carolina. We took this opportunity to examine the makings of this 90s era cult classic. In this episode we also talk to On Set Cinema organizer Kenny Caperton, who also happens to live in a replica of the Meyers house from the horror classic Halloween. You can find out about future On Set Cinema screenings at myershousenc.com. Read More ...

We wheel the HistoryCast 5000 machine back out to analyze a classic masterpiece of cinema for historical accuracy. Lawrence of Arabia is widely loved by critics, but how true is it to history? We make a quantifiable determination in this episode. Read More ...

In 1976 a team of specialists finished a two year project to build a giant bus. Then they stayed up all night writing the script for a movie based around it. Read More ...

In our latest installment of Script Bandits, we turn to Russia at the turn of the twentieth century to get some real life inspiration for a good old fashioned naval comedy. Read More ...

To select the subject of this Very Local History show, we threw a dart at a map and it landed in the mystical city of Charleville in Queensland, Australia. The life of eccentric meteorologist Clement Lindley Wragge leads him around the world. But it's in Australia where he attempts an experimental method to make it rain during a severe drought where he gains his fame. Read More ...

The film career of David Lynch had an unlikely savior after the poorly received 1984 adaptation of Dune. Dino De Laurentiis gave Lynch license to make a personal film with unheard of final cut rights: Blue Velvet. In this episode we return to the scene of the filmmaking miracle, Wilmington, North Carolina, considered by some to be the loose basis for the town of Twin Peaks. Read More ...

In this mega-episode we take Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK and run it through our HistoryCast 5000 machine for an in-depth analysis of its historical accuracy. We chose this film based on its notorious reputation for historical inaccuracy. Will it break the HistoryCast 5000? Listen and find out. Read More ...

In our first installment of Script Bandits we examine the life of a female sword fighter turned opera singer who lived in France during the 1600s. She became famous, wooed men and women alike, and was briefly sentenced to death for infiltrating a convent and sneaking out her girlfriend using a dead nun and arson as a distraction. But that was just in her early days. In this podcast episode we overview the plot points of her life and discuss the possibilities of adapting her life for the big screen. Or maybe a six season Netflix series. Read More ...

The movie Weekend at Bernie's kicks off with two lowly employees discovering an accounting irregularity which they unknowingly bring to the perpetrator. After he is killed by the mob they keep up the ruse he is still alive to protect themselves.   This silly movie has a slightly less silly real life parallel with the life and times of David Begelman, head of Gladden Entertainment which produced the film, and the eye of the hurricane for a real life Hollywood embezzlement scandal. Read More ...

In this Very Local History episode we tackle the concept of "urban renewal," using Wilmington, North Carolina as a case study. In the 1970's the Downtown Area Revitalization Effort was formed to spearhead the transformation of the languishing central business district back into a center of commerce. But the story begins long before this, spanning decades of history that paralleled momentous national trends that were affecting the very heart of American cities. Read More ...

We’ve launched the HistoryCast 5000, a reoccurring segment in which Sean and Allen examine the historical accuracy of movies and other media. To break in the machine, we have selected a movie widely considered to be one of the most Read More ...

Last year the Midmost Coast podcast took a look at the pilot episode of Dawson's Creek, a teen drama produced out of our home base in Wilmington, North Carolina. Its impact to the area's television and film production community was significant, bringing other productions and talent to the area. Despite this we decided it was horrible and to never watch it again. This month, one year later, we watched it again. This time we chose a Christmas themed episode from the last season. We are joined by two panel guests to help us get through it. Read More ...

Just upstream from the mouth of the Cape Fear River is a restricted military base, occupying thousands of acres of sprawling and undeveloped wetlands. Within it runs miles and miles of railway that leads to nowhere. The base is Sunny Point, also known as MOTSU, and the story of its creation begins with three catastrophic explosions in the early and mid twentieth century. Read More ...

This month we watch and talk about the film that built the movie industry in Wilmington, North Carolina. Firestarter starred a young Drew Barrymore, and was based on a novel by Stephen King. It was produced by Dino De Laurentiis who went on to found DEG, which present day is now EUE/Screen Gems. Read More ...

Shipwrecks. Rocket engines. U-boats. Atom bombs. Regular bombs. There's a lot of stuff in the water off the Carolina Coast and beyond, and we talk about them in this episode. Read More ...

In 1985 Arnold Schwarzenegger came to the fair city of Wilmington, North Carolina to film an old fashioned rampage film called Raw Deal. Mostly mad cap and light-hearted, this film features some of the best and worst tropes of an 80's action film. Read More ...

You might think Greenfield Lake is filled with water, but it is in fact filled with history. And that green stuff on top? Extra history. In this episode we fill out the backstory of Wilmington's once and future playground. Read More ...

We take a break form being serious with a holiday bonus episode. Our home base of Wilmington has hosted not one but two teen television dramas. Watching these shows is co-host Sean Gallagher's worst nightmare. Read More ...

The Fort Fisher Hermit was born in the 1890s, lived through the Great Depression, was committed to a mental institution by his in-laws, and ultimately became a local celebrity and tourist attraction on Pleasure Island. Read More ...

With a new King Kong movie in theaters, we look back at the 1986 film "King Kong Lives," filmed largely in Wilmington, NC, out of Dino De Laurentiis' freshly minted film studio. This movie didn't kill at the box office, but it did kill some careers. Read More ...