You Can’t Make This Up

In this episode of You Can't Make This Up, we are talking about the Netflix documentary series “Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street," out now on Netflix. Host Rebecca Lavoie interviews director Joe Berlinger.Bernie Madoff was considered an elder statesman of the stock market, but hidden away from his legitimate securities firm, he was running an unregulated hedge fund. But it was all a Ponzi scheme swindling investors out of $64 billion. “Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street” chronicles the rise and fall of a stock market giant. It also exposes the many missed opportunities to protect his victims and discover his scam. SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't watched “Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street" yet, make sure to add it to your watch-list before listening on.

Next up on You Can't Make This Up, we are talking about the Netflix documentary series “Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street." This series reveals the truth behind Bernie Madoff’s infamous $64 billion global Ponzi scheme - the largest in history - which shattered the lives of countless individual investors who had placed their trust in the revered Wall Street statesman.In our next episode, host Rebecca Lavoie interviews director Joe Berlinger. If you haven't watched “Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street,” make sure to add it to your watch-list before next week’s episode. Stay Tuned!

To finish out the year, we're replaying one of our most popular episodes of 2022.Wherever he went, Simon Leviev’s entourage would follow. A carefully curated supporting cast – his business partner, his driver, his security guard – created an air of glamour and legitimacy. But who were these people? Were they in on the scam? Or were they as much victims as the women Simon swindled?The Making of a Swindler Part 1 is a companion to the documentary, "The Tinder Swindler", only on Netflix.

At the top of Rebecca's Best Of list, we're replaying her interview with “Descendant" director and producer, Margaret Brown.The Clotilda was the last known ship to arrive in the United States carrying enslaved Africans, decades after slave importation was outlawed. The ship was burned and sank somewhere in the Mobile River, while its passengers would later settle in the community of Africatown. In the century that followed, the descendants of The Clotilda struggled to preserve their heritage in an Alabama town encircled by industrial property owned by the descendants of the slave owners. As a renewed effort to find the missing wreck gets underway, the community grapples with the implications of its discovery.

One of Rebecca's favorites of 2022, we're replaying her interview with "Trainwreck: Woodstock '99" director Jamie Crawford and producer Cassie Thornton. Organizers from the original Woodstock tried to recreate the music and magic at a new three-day festival in 1999. But concert-goers expecting another groovy weekend were met with high food prices, dirty water, and mountains of litter. And promoters learned too late their audience wasn’t filled with 60s flower children; they’d drawn an army of rowdy thrash-rock fans who showed their displeasure by - literally - burning it all down.

In this episode of You Can't Make This Up, host  Rebecca Lavoie talks with Amanda Richards, the docs and docuseries writer for Tudum, Netflix's editorial companion site, about their favorite Netflix titles from 2022.This year there were intriguing cold cases, historical crimes, and cunning con men. There were meltdowns at power plants and meltdowns at rock concerts. There was also plenty of drama on reality shows. We cheered for cooking, baking, catfights, and matchmaking. There were game shows that asked whether true love is blind…and asked “Is It Cake”?Rebecca and Amanda give their top five favorite things from 2022.  

In this episode of You Can't Make This Up, we are talking about the Netflix documentary series “Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields" out now on Netflix. Host Rebecca Lavoie interviews director Jessica Dimmock.Between 1986 and 1991, the remains of four missing women were discovered in the same field in League City, Texas. Authorities couldn’t rule out the deaths were connected to a string of 30 murders outside of Houston since the 1970s. Then another string of disappearances began in the 1990s. Were all of these crimes linked in some way? And what is their connection to that secluded plot of land on Calder Road?SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't watched “Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields" yet, make sure to add it to your watch-list before listening on.    

In this episode of You Can't Make This Up, we are talking about the Netflix documentary series “Pepsi, Where's My Jet?" out now on Netflix. Host Rebecca Lavoie interviews documentary subjects John Leonard and Todd Hoffman.In a 1996 ad campaign, Pepsi claimed if you earned enough points people could get free sunglasses, leather jackets…or a Harrier jump jet. When a 20-year-old college student found a loophole that would let him obtain a $32 million plane for just $700,000, he and his friend began a campaign to claim the jet. “Pepsi Where’s My Jet?” recounts the landmark case of a kid who launched his own cola war and became the hero of a new generation.SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't watched “Pepsi, Where's My Jet?" yet, make sure to add it to your watch-list before listening on.

In this episode of You Can't Make This Up, we are talking about the Netflix documentary “Capturing the Killer Nurse" out now on Netflix. Host Rebecca Lavoie interviews director Tim Travers Hawkins and author Charles Graeber.Charlie Cullen was an experienced registered nurse, trusted and beloved by his colleagues at Somerset Medical Center in New Jersey. He was also one of history’s most prolific serial killers, with a body count potentially numbering in the hundreds across multiple medical facilities in the Northeast. Based on the best-selling book The Good Nurse  and dramatized in the Netflix feature film starring Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne  – “Capturing the Killer Nurse” reveals the twisted story behind Cullen’s hidden spree of murders and how Cullen’s horrific actions underscore an even bigger danger still lurking in our healthcare system.SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't watched “Capturing the Killer Nurse" yet, make sure to add it to your watch-list before listening on.

In this episode of You Can't Make This Up, we are talking about the Netflix documentary “Descendant" out now on Netflix. Host Rebecca Lavoie interviews director and producer Margaret Brown.The Clotilda was the last known ship to arrive in the United States carrying enslaved Africans, decades after slave importation was outlawed. The ship was burned and sank somewhere in the Mobile River, while its passengers would later settle in the community of Africatown.  In the century that followed, the descendants of The Clotilda struggled to preserve their heritage in an Alabama town encircled by industrial property owned by the descendants of the slave owners. As a renewed effort to find the missing wreck gets underway, the community grapples with the implications of its discovery.SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't watched “Descendant" yet, make sure to add it to your watch-list before listening on.