Worth Watching

No Comments

Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

Directed by Otto Preminger

Starring James Stewart, Lee Remick, and Ben Gazzara

Anatomy of a Murder was shot in black and white – mostly indoor scenes – and directed by Otto Preminger (whom I knew virtually nothing about before seeing this, but it turned me into a fan).

The plot is simple: A small-town Michigan lawyer (James Stewart) defends and succeeds in exonerating a US Army Lieutenant (Ben Gazzara) arrested for murdering an innkeeper that raped his wife (Lee Remick). The defense is temporary insanity.

As a courtroom drama, Anatomy of a Murder is not particularly profound, by, say, Inherit the Wind standards. But there are some clever legal and procedural jousts between Paul Biegler, the defense attorney (played by Stewart) and the two prosecuting attorneys (played by Brooks West and a young George C. Scott). And the many brief scenes involving the judge were so amazingly good that I said to K, “This guy has to have real-life courtroom experience.” Sure enough, he did! The judge was played by Joseph N. Welch, the lawyer famous for confronting Joseph McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings. (He’s the one who said, “Have you no decency, sir?”)

Welch’s scene-stealing scenes, Jimmy Stewart’s acting, and the almost shockingly seductive beauty of  Lee Remick are enough to merit the two hours you’d have to invest in this film.

Throughout the movie, K and I were disturbed by a dozen or so smallish things that made it difficult to decide what the facts of the case really were, and even which of the characters we could believe.

Was the Lee Remick character really raped, or did she claim to be to put her husband in jail and run off with her lover? Or was the story concocted by her and her husband, the murderer? And what about the Jimmy Stewart character? Was he a legal version of Mr. Smith (in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington)? And if so, why did he encourage his client to “remember” that he was temporarily insane? And if the couple were truly victims of a terrible rape, why, after Stewart won the case for them, did they leave town without paying him?

Thinking about it later, it occurred to me that the plot beneath the plot is one of moral ambiguity: A small town lawyer triumphs by guile, stealth, and trickery – and in doing so, frees a murderer.

In fact, all three of the main characters were culpable of unethical behavior.

* Lt. Manion is jealous and prone to violence and possibly abusive.

* Laura is manipulative and insincere. She admits to taking advantage of her beauty by being flirtatious.

* Biegler thinks of himself as principled, but subtly coaches Lt. Frederickson into inventing the defense of temporary insanity.

And that brings me back to Otto Preminger. A brief look at his filmography suggests that he had a preference for movies with challenging moral themes:

* The Moon Is Blue (1953), a comedy, was criticized for taking a flippant view towards sex.

* The Man With the Golden Arm (1955) focused on a heroin addict.

 

Critical Reviews 

* “Simply the best trial movie ever made,” (Kim Newman in Empire Online)

* “Spellbinding all the way, infused by an ambiguity about human personality and motivation that is Preminger’s trademark.” (Jonathan Rosenbaum in Chicago Reader)

* “Coolly absorbing, nonchalantly cynical.” (Jessica Winter in Time Out)

 

 Interesting Facts

* The opening credits are very cool.

* The movie is based on the book by Robert Traver, the pen name of Michigan Supreme Court Justice John D. Voelker. The story is based on a murder case in which he was the defense attorney earlier in his career.

* This was one of the first mainstream Hollywood films to challenge industry censorship guidelines (the Hays Code) and address sex and rape in graphic terms. Dialog included the first on-screen use of such words as “intercourse” and “semen.”

* Duke Ellington (who appears in the film) wrote the Grammy-winning score.

Worth Reading

No Comments

A Moveable Feast

By Ernest Hemingway

1st ed. published in 1964 by Charles Scribner’s Sons

2nd “Restored” ed. published in 2009 by Seán Hemingway

223 pages (1964); 256 pages (2009)

This was the second time I read A Moveable Feast. Well, I didn’t read it this time, I listened to it. And I’m glad I did.

As my brother Andrew once told me, one can argue that Ernest Hemingway was one of the two most important prose stylists in English of the 20th century. (I don’t remember who he said the other one was.) Listening to this memoir of his years as a struggling journalist/ writer in Paris during the 1920s made me a believer. You really cannot appreciate how powerful and poetic Hemingway’s language is until you hear it read aloud.

If you are at all interested in the luminaries of literature during this time period, this book is what it claims to be: a literary feast of the most colorful characters of the Lost Generation. Here you will be introduced to the wit and eccentricities of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein, along with artists like Jules Pascin, and Sylvia Beach, the proprietor of the legendary Shakespeare & Company bookstore.

Hemingway died in 1961, before the book was published, leaving some question as to whether he had finished it. It was published posthumously in 1964 by Hemingway’s fourth wife and widow, Mary, based upon his original manuscripts and notes. But a second edition was published in 2009 by his grandson Seán Hemingway, who felt that Mary’s edition had been incorrectly altered to suit her version of his life at that time.

There is ongoing controversy in literary circles over which edition – if either – can be considered the book Hemingway intended.

 

Critical Reviews for the 1964 Edition 

* “Here is Hemingway at his best. No one has ever written about Paris in the 1920s as well as Hemingway.” (Charles Poore in The New York Times)

* “The reader of…  A Moveable Feast, who, of course already knows a lot about Hemingway, quickly suspects that whatever may have been the original facts behind Hemingway’s ruptures with Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Madox Ford, and Hadley Richardson (the first Mrs. Hemingway), he will never get them here. The book is too splendidly, too artfully written; the chapters are sketches and anecdotes often as fine in their texture as Hemingway’s famous stories; the dialogue is too witty; and the real plot of the book – a young writer’s struggles… – has been used up in so many novels and plays that Hemingway was smart to try this as memoir.” (Alfred Kazin in The Atlantic)

 

Critical Reviews for the 2009 “Restored” Edition 

* “Each chapter is short and vignette-like, comical, bitchy, and warm. They are best read a few at a time, so as to get into the flow of Hemingway’s surprising sentences, but not to be overwhelmed by the high concentration of egos gathered together on one page.” (Charlotte Newman in The Guardian)

* “A Moveable Feast  serves the purpose of a double nostalgia: our own as we contemplate a Left Bank that has since become a banal tourist enclave in Paris… and Hemingway’s at the end of his distraught days, as he saw again the ‘City of Light’ with his remaining life still ahead of him rather than so far behind.” (Christopher Hitchens in the Atlantic)

 

Interesting Facts 

* Hemingway’s working title for the book was The Paris Sketches. A Moveable Feast was suggested to Mary by his friend/ biographer A.E. Hotchner, who remembered him saying: “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

* Following the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 people, the city’s worst loss of life since WWII, A Moveable Feast was a surprise bestseller in France. When translated back into English, the book’s title in French – Paris Est Une Fête – is “Paris Is a Celebration.” In the context of the attacks, it became a symbol of defiance.

Postscript

No Comments

The Guggenheim is a great museum. And their performing arts program, which has been going on for years, is a very cool part of it.  But it’s almost invisible. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s because the venue, a small auditorium in the basement, was not able to accommodate more than a limited number of patrons. It deserved its reputation as New York’s best kept secret.

This short documentary explains how the program changed as a result of the lockdown and might make you want to check it out next time you are in New York (if you can get tickets).

Worth Considering

No Comments

3 Facts, 3 Numbers, 3 Thoughts 

THE FACTS

* Kamala Harris is not the first person of color to be named VP of the US. From 1929 to 1933, Herbert Hoover’s number two was Charles Curtis, a member of the Kaw Nation and descendant of two Native-American chiefs (one from the Kaw, the other from the Osage). Curtis championed women’s suffrage, child labor laws, and the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act, which granted citizenship to Native-Americans born within US territory. However, he also notoriously sponsored the Curtis Act of 1898, which resulted in the US forcibly breaking up reservations and gaining control of 90 million acres of what had been Native-American land.

* Throughout the 2020 election, Jeff Bezos, the man behind Amazon, was a staunch supporter of mail-in voting. That was then, this is now. Amazon/Bezos has taken legal action to try to squash an attempt to unionize workers in the company’s Alabama warehouse by keeping them from doing the vote by mail. Because of COVID, the National Labor Relations Board had ruled that the vote would take place entirely by mail. To keep that from happening, Amazon filed a motion seeking to delay the election so it could take place in person… with no votes by mail (even from workers on sick leave due to COVID). Per an Amazon spokesperson, “We believe that the best approach to a valid, fair, and successful election is one that is conducted manually, in-person.”

* The WHO is finally telling the truth about the PCR (nasal swab) tests for COVID – considered the “gold standard” in detection of the virus. They are now admitting that they should just be considered a diagnostic “aid.” In a recent notice released “to clarify information previously provided by WHO,” they point to the increased potential for false positives and state that “health providers must [therefore] consider any [PCR] result in combination with timing of sampling, specimen type, assay specifics, clinical observations, patient history, confirmed status of any contacts, and epidemiological information.”

 

 THE NUMBERS 

 * $27.75 trillion – the current US debt, according to data from Statista. Just one year ago, it was at $23.2 trillion. A dramatic jump occurred between the months of March and July, at the height of the pandemic and as the first stimulus checks were going out.

* 400,000 – the number (approximately) of Holocaust survivors still living. Most of the survivors are in Israel and the US.  January 27 – the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945 – was designated by the United Nations as International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2005, 16 years ago this week.

* $376.5 million – the budget of the most expensive movie ever made: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. The film earned $1 billion in worldwide box office sales.

 

THE THOUGHTS 

* “Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.” – Anne Frank

* “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” – George Bernard Shaw

* “You earn the right to criticize someone only after you have demonstrated the willingness to help someone.” – Michael Masterson

Postscript

No Comments

Billie Eilish is clearly a very clever, calculating, and self-conscious artist. But watching her react to fan covers of her songs makes me think she’s genuine, too. Do you agree?

Wednesday, January 27, 2021, Delray Beach, Florida


Notes From My Journal

No Comments

For the past week or so, the press has been covering what it calls a dangerous new strain of COVID-19 (B.1.1.7 ). You’ve probably heard and/or read about it.

The increase in risk, the reports say, is 30% higher.

That’s misleading.

In terms of relative risk, it’s a fact. But the actual, absolute risk of the new virus is only a small fraction higher than the original. So small, it could be a rounding error.

Here’s how it works: With the original COVID-19, out of 1000 people aged 60 or older, about 10 might be at risk of death. But with the new B.1.1.7 variant, 13 or 14 out of 1000 who are 60 or older might die.

This is a common problem with published reports on the relative risks of any disease: The average reader is misled into thinking the difference is significant. And that misconception sells. It sells drugs. And medical procedures. And it sells papers.

Notes From My Journal

No Comments

“Bad actors try to cry, and good actors try not to. Bad actors try to laugh, and good actors try not to.” – Martin Landau

 

It’s Not All About the Director 

The same is true with making movies. Contrary to what the auteur school of film criticism would have you believe, a great director is not the sole reason for a great movie. There are others involved: the cinematographer (also known as the DP or Director of Photography), the editor, and the actors.

Yes, the actors.

I’ve made four movies, and the most surprising thing I learned about the process is how important acting is. As an amateur film buff, I had subscribed to the preeminence of the director. And when I got on the set and saw how the director really is the boss of just about every aspect of the filming, it made double sense to me.

But even at the level I was working at (low budget), I could see a huge difference in how a scene worked, with the same direction, when we auditioned several actors to play the same role.

Good actors can make a good or even a mediocre script into a compelling scene. Bad actors can ruin the best script in the world.

Gifted actors don’t need a director to tell them how. Here’s an example: Henry Thomas’s audition for E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Watch how this 9-year-old boy plays the lead role of Elliott without direction…

o start and grow a good business, you need more than yourself – even if you are a natural-born entrepreneur. You need to surround yourself with a small team of talented, super-smart, and relentlessly determined people, each of whom can do their job as well as or better than you.

“Okay kid, you got the job.”

Postscript

No Comments

Every time I hear Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of “Somewhere, Over the Rainbow,” I wonder: Is this the best song ever sung?

When I listen to Mozart, I believe in god. When I listen to “IZ,” I believe in angels.

Here’s the official version…

And here’s proof that I’m not the only person that feels about it as I do…

 

 

From My Work-in-Progress Basket

No Comments

“The best early-stage venture capital investments appear obvious in retrospect; however, very few of them are actually obvious when you make them.” – David Sze

Early-Stage Investing: What You Need to Know About This Hot New Alternative to the Stock Market 

In the financial advisory business, angel investing is on fire. After years of watching college drop-outs become billionaires, many individual investors today are not happy with a long-term return of 10% on their stocks. They want more. And they believe they can have more with “early-stage” investing.

My clients that publish investment information are being dragged into this once esoteric corner of the market by customer demand. As a result, I’m seeing a stream of new information products and promotions generated by them.

I’ve done a lot of early-stage investing during my career. And I’ve learned a thing or two from the mistakes I’ve made. Despite those mistakes, I’ve done well over the years because a handful of these companies grew quite dramatically. There’s no doubt that early investing has contributed to the bulk of the success I’ve had.

But there is a difference between what I did and “angel” investing. I was always a founding member of the companies I put money into. I was, in other words, a first-stage investor.

Angel investing is second- or third-stage investing. As an angel, you are invited to put your money into a company after it has begun operations and, in most cases, is already making money. Which makes it, in my view, an entirely different kettle of fish than the kind of direct investing I did. Angel investing is riskier because (a) you don’t know the business or the industry very well, and (b) you have no control over its operations.

One thing I’ve done for many years that is similar to angel investing is putting money into limited partnerships that were developing real estate – apartment buildings, office buildings, single-family homes, and hotels. As a limited partner, I had limited knowledge of those real estate deals, and little influence on how the general partners ran them. By comparing what they did to what I knew about the direct investments I’d made, I was able to figure out some fundamental patterns that were typical of the businesses that flourished and those that failed.

The most important thing I’ve learned from this experiment is that, although it’s easy to identify business plans that make zero sense and/or feel flaky, it’s very difficult to be able to discern, among 5 to 10 good-looking business plans, the one that will become super-successful.

And so, I decided on this approach: (1) find someone I trusted to do the initial vetting for me, and then, (2) buy a dozen or more of his/her recommended companies, and (3) hope that one of them will be the breakthrough company that makes up for the rest and gives us the big results we need to make the whole effort pay off.

Recently, I’ve been reading the advice published by some of the investment advisory publications that have been touting angel investing. In the past week, for example, I’ve read 3 essays on how to do it. Two of them, I was disappointed to discover, provided advice that was not very helpful:

* Understand what you’re investing in.
* Know how much you want to invest before investing.
* Be patient.

The third essay was written by Roy Bahat, head of the Bloomberg Beta venture fund. I liked his advice because it sounded like it was based on experience A few examples:

* Expect (and embrace) the downside.

“Naïve angels worry about salvaging money from their losing investments,” says Bahat. “Experienced angels worry about keeping the upside by investing at a reasonable valuation so the winners make up for the losers.”

* Avoid deals that come with any mention of guaranteed returns.

“Extra control provisions, options in future iterations of the company, and milestone-based valuations are also no-nos,” he says.

* Take many bets.

Bahat recommends investing in a dozen companies to get your feet wet and to “get the hang” of the market. But, he says, a portfolio of 20 to two dozen companies will give you the best chance of success.

I’m sure there are far more secrets to be learned about angel investing, but those are a few that make very good sense to me. In future issues, I’ll update you on how my family’s basket of start-ups are doing and tell you what more we’ve learned about how to play this game smartly.

Postscript

No Comments

In case you thought that impeachment might have been a passing phase….

Close Menu