To thine own self be true

(the recommended, ever-intriguing 1990 movie)

Watched this one (one of my daughter’s favorites) for about the 4th or 5th time last evening. It remains a curious, engaging movie about one of the sensational rich trials of the past century. But it also remains frustrating because of its deliberate ambiguity about a real-life crime, case, and trial that defied resolution each time Claus von Bulow was tried for supposedly murdering his wife Sunny. The first time around he was convicted; the second time proclaimed innocent of all charges.

The Information. What drives us each day as I have said here before. We search for facts and conclusions to resolve our conflicts and lives daily. Even in our reading and viewing (this movie for instance), we seek answers and form personal opinions about what really happened. This much is clear. Sunny abused drugs and had definitely tried to kill herself at least once (the aspirin overdose. Claus didn’t want to lose his ‘gravy train’ and hung onto his mistresses. Claus was mean, cold, and uncaring. Sunny was very difficult to live with and was unlovable after a certain point. The rest is open to interpretation and debate.

Glenn Close, in her coma-narration and scenes from the past, is effective in communicating her parts of the above sentence. Jeremy Irons is a little hammy in his performance (that sounds and looks like the real Klaus), but remains appropriately ambiguous in his surface behavior and actions. (For this role, irons won a Best Actor Oscar btw.) Director Barbet Schroeder’s direction is likewise effective in conveying the cold, unloving world of Sunny and Klaus. As well,, he succeeds in laying out the possible, plausible explanations offered in Alan Dershowitz’s memoir-source as to what happened at the time of Sunny’s death.

I think anyone who figures they have the answer as to whodunit, is simplifying what was and remains a very confusing case which resembles many other mysteries of Life. Only Claus would know the real truth and he either told or withheld it in the trials. He has remained mum as he turned 90 and Sunny died in 2008. The real Dershowitz still visits Claus in London and he probably never knew the final truth either, as in the last speculations offered in the movie. The viewer is given some possible explanations, but no–any viewer or reader who thinks he or she knows, can’t or doesn’t know for sure with the still limited, available information of the trials, book, and movie.

“There is pleasure in the pathless woods. There is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not man less, but nature more.”

(two masterpieces: Welles’ best film and Fitzgerald’s best book–both the best works, respectively in their genres–about the American Dream, about imperfect larger-than-life human beings, about the price of fame, about personal integrity vs. public response, about im/balanced perspectives re. character and life-story assessment and opinion)

There is always going to be sniping, criticism, and nastiness in comments and opinions about others, even of the nicest and greatest people, for the rest of time.

I was just reading about a new book by Bette Davis’s young companion late in life, as she reveals what Davis was like in private life. Not exactly a thoroughly bitter Mommy Dearest trashing memoir which Joan Crawford got from her daughter. Hey, nobody’s perfect, not even the stars or the rich for sure. But to put these public figures with clay feet on a similar plane as the big losers and dopes like Trump or Anthony Weiner shows a lack of perspective and common sense-based judgement.

It was Orson Welles’s masterpiece Citizen Kane, which was itself a takeoff on millionaire-tycoon William Randolph Hearst, that illustrated the obsession with fault-finding and criticism of others better than any other film I can think of. (For a literary parallel, try F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, in which narrator Nick’s views contrast with those of others offered by other characters of Gatsby.) Fitzgerald and Welles both skewered popular notions and fault-finding of human nature beautifully and accurately.

No, as in Citizen Kane, a person’s life is made up of many facets and episodes which reveal different aspects of character and personal values. Often “the evil that men do lives after them,/The good is oft interred with their bones.” (Julius Caesar) And hence, the ambiguous reputations of many controversial historical and political figures, even populat entertainer greats like Sinatra and Presley.

Which brings me to the recent news about Jerry Lewis leaving his six sons by his first (divorced) wife out of his will. His wife and sons had trashed him at various times; why should he leave them a dime of his hard-earned fortune? Lewis is being turned into an ogre as myriad trolls turn their backs on the billions he relentlessly and altruistically raised for charity. Now I’d be the first to admit that his approaches were schmaltzy and there may have been some ego-aggrandizing–this was Jerry Lewis after all. But even the charity folks are criticizing him for being used by him. Give me a break! How easy and conveniently have these ignorant types turned their backs on the guy who did so much for their causes and for less-fortunate humanity.

But that is the nature of human beings, (as both Welles and Fitzgerald pointed out), to which I would add the title of a famous old blues song–“Nobody loves you when you’re down and out.” People and fans are that fickle, that unfair, that unkind, that mean, that ungenerous when it suits their nasty personal agendas and limited knowledge and appreciation.

The times are such that this lack of perspective and balance in judgement and appreciation of others has worsened considerably and is more prevalent than ever. Integrity goes largely unappreciated these daze. Kindness, charity, good characteristics, and best behaviors, acts, and actions are automatically disparaged and flushed down the memory hole with the snap of a finger or a single-finger Send.

I have long been a fan of reason, personal integrity, and the good and great individuals, works, and deeds that have helped mankind and move civilization and human behavior (human nature too) forward. But today we are mired in the current Age of Trolls and Dirt-Dishing Obsession. If there be the slightest whiff of clay feet, bad days, or the effects of non-pc culture on the good and the greats, then the results are very limitedly predictable.

O for an age of people capable of using civility, respect, common sense, clear-headed distinctions, and balanced perspective! O for an informed, educated public, not a bunch of ignorant phone-addicted dopes pseudo-authoritatively spouting off, all the while implausibly assuming or implying how perfect and flawless they are themselves.

Though I never liked his brand of comedy, I admire Lewis finally for his integrity, his humanitarian efforts, his film career recognition by the French (the U.S. film-world completely turned its back on him), and his riskiness for allowing himself to be directed in his best warts-and-all acting performance in Scorcese’s The King of Comedy. Scorcese, too, shows Lewis as he really was: an imperfect human being who had his share of good points and career successes, but could never please the trolls and crazies who lurk among us. Clearly another case of “A man/ More sinned against than sinning.” (King Lear)

(A Scorcese masterpiece–the VHS version; Jerry Lewis as late-night-tv-talk show host Jerry Langford gagged and trussed up–“a man/More sinned against than sinning”)

Easily one of Woody’s top ten, too, incidentally. A 1975 film from early on in his impressive 50 film, thereabouts, directing and acting career.

Inspired by War and Peace and the Napoleonic Wars period, albeit with a heavy European pessimistic philosophy base and Jewish culture tangents, Love and Death is an outstanding steady run of gags and jokes for anyone who loves language and the gamut of different types of comedy (puns, pratfalls, non-sequiturs, high comedy, visual comedy, wild juxtapositions, manic pacing, etc.) There is something for every kind of funny-bone and sense of humor in this classic.

This is also one of the funniest satires in the Allen canon, one of his funniest performances, one of Diane Keaton’s best performances, and one of Allen’s most appropriate uses of music with his scenes (he uses nothing by famous excerpts by Prokofiev and other Russian composers).

An imaginative delight and tour de force from beginning to end, I think it’s one of his best five comedies easily. If you’ve never see it, you owe yourself a treat. If you love the possibilities of language and clever writing, it’s a must-see for any educated English-speaking filmgoers and film aficionados.

(Also highly recommended, another early film that out-Gumped Forrest Gump, seamlessly working Allen’s nebbish character into the realms of more thoughtful, far-ranging history. A clever, technological wonder of its time.)

Wow!

The most important 1977 dual spacecraft journey is still not over even long after they left our solar system in 2012. Voyager 1 continues with its metallic gold record of human/Earth info which could conceivably keep on flying for billions of years. It’ll be up to any other potential alien life to discover it and the signs of our existence and physical reality way back here on the Blue Planet. These missions would be about as close to eternity as any man-made artifact ever created..

Despite several unexpected problems, these two missions escaped the bounds of Earth, technological failures en route, and accidental near-fatal brushes in their encounters with Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Scientists and the rest of us now have clear pictures and much more information about what these planets are really like, thanks to 1977 technological that amazingly still transmits clear pictures back to us via continuous radio transmissions over unfathomable distances.

The journey of the two Voyagers is presented in chronological order with a fair bit of information about its making (temporarily wiping out aluminum foil availability in the area of the launch location) as well as tantalizing info and excerpts (visual and sound) from the gold record that Carl Sagan piloted and created. It is, incidentally, great to see him again and to remember what an influential scientist he was before his death in the ’90s. Also great to hear from so many people who were involved, hands-on, with the project, to hear their memories and impressions some 42 years later.

The inspiring, awesome 2-hour documentary is riveting from beginning to end and the viewer gets the privilege to see and hear many unique things and moments to do with these missions. My favorite moments were the look-back at Earth and the other planets from beyond Neptune, and the many surprises (the no. of moons of Uranus, the various rings on all four planets, and the sheer amount of new information the missions yielded).

This is a documentary especially for space fans who enjoyed the lunar and Mars landings as the initial American forays into space with the early astronauts. An incredible viewing experience minus the conventional surfeit of guessing and fantasized projections.

(Incidentally recommended as well, Tom Wolfe’s nicely illustrated version of The Right Stuff and the engaging movie version, especially the Chuck Yaeger segments in both.)

(Two thumbs up for the two disc special edition)

The perfect tv backdrop sequences for fall mornings and fall company.

(always on a fall Sunday at the large north-side Lions’ centre gym)

(set up and ready to go again–the annual 8 foot table)

(example of a spoken word oldie)

(example of my special LPs–a Cream picture disc)

(example of a signed; obtained last time Buffy played Festival Place)

A fun opportunity to hob-nob with fellow record-collectors and to discuss old music and artists. I am the only one in the gym ecletically selling spoken word LPs with a sprinkling of sealeds, signeds, and movie soundtracks.

What’s not to like about a warm fall evening, dining with my oldest teacher-friend in the Confederation Lounge, then admiring the flower gardens in full bloom out back?

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”
–Henry Matisse

The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg filmed by Jerry Aronson, is a 2 DVD director’s cut updated with unseen footage and many extras. It nicely covers Ginsberg’s writing and influences, main life events, media and live performances, mental problems, homosexuality, and American counter-culture of the 50s through to the ’90s when he died.

In this definitive film, he is often referred to as a genius (which he was) and is fondly remembered for his political activity, social protests, and his calmness in the face of ’60s violence. The viewer gets to meet the poet’s poet-friends, family, and many other celebrities (including Joan Baez, Bono, William Burroughs, Johnny Depp, Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary, Hunter S. Thompson, Andy Warhol, and Bob Dylan). Featured works include Howl, Kaddish, “Father Death Blues”, and “A Ballad of the Skeletons”, the latter which he performs with Paul McCartney.

The film is organized around three deaths: his mentally ill mother’s, his close father’s, and Ginsberg’s own death. There are many extras including 29! interviews; in particular, the ones with Anne Waldman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Philip Glass are wonderfully insightful. The interviews with Ginsberg and Neal Cassidy and Burroughs are a treat and give the viewer a chance to see and hear the latter two. There are also readings by Ginsberg, his memorial, his photo exhibition, and scenes from his last three days. Overall, Ginsberg comes across as a poet mainly preoccupied with death, politics, love, and ecstasy in various manifestations. Guaranteed to alter your consciousness and sense of poetry. Highly recommended.