Nice Journalist, Bad Journalist 

When police want to intimidate someone into copping to a crime – regardless of whether the suspect is guilty – they use the good cop/bad cop routine because it is very effective. When people don’t understand their rights and feel somewhat defenseless, like you might feel in an interrogation room, they will often believe in the “good cop’s” good intentions because they want to. They want to believe that someone – i.e., this “good cop,” is trustworthy.

Journalists do the same thing, but they do it without a partner. They introduce themselves to the person they’re interviewing by sounding nice and friendly and asking questions that seem totally harmless. Then, once they feel they have the interviewee’s trust, they gradually ask the gotcha questions.

I’ve been in this situation more than once. If you give in, you get double punishment. They write the negative story they had decided to write before they spoke to you – and when you see it, you feel like you’ve been intellectually and morally raped.

This is why experts, including ex-cops, tell you to give the police only the minimum information you are required to give them if you are “detained” for any reason.

With a journalist, you can refrain from taking the interview, knowing that they are going to write their story anyway. Or, if you are as smart as Konstantin Kisin, you can have some fun with them.

Click here.

An Impressive Speech by RFK Jr. 

Watch Time: 50 minutes

Whatever your political preferences, I urge you to watch RFK Jr.’s speech on why he left the Democratic party and took his name off the ballots in the “battleground” states.

First, use your emotional brain to listen to his story and then ask yourself whether you trust him.

Second, use your neocortical brain to register the claims he is making and make a rational judgement about whether his logic is sound.

I’m 100% sure that you will be faced with facts that are new, and possibly disturbing, to you – facts that bear on some of the most important political issues being debated today, including freedom of speech in America, the war in Ukraine, having a sensible immigration policy, the importance to America of maintaining the dollar’s supremacy, the danger of politicizing US intelligence agencies (for Republicans and Democrats), and the hardly talked about global crisis of chronic disease.

Click here.

Kill Tony 

Have You Seen the Kill Tony podcast? I hadn’t until JM recommended it to me, saying, “It’s political satire, but you’ll like it.”

I did like it.

It has the three necessary elements to make political satire do its job (which is to open our minds by reducing our fears and prejudices):

* It must be timely – about topics people care about.

* It must hold a mirror up to life, as the Bard said – i.e., it must depict the target realistically.

* Its fundamental mission is to unify, not divide.

* Its fundamental emotion is tolerance, not derision.

Here’s a recent example.

Curb Your Enthusiasm 

I am not sure whether it’s the result of being in business with more important urgencies or a shortening attention span due to watching social media, but I have been finding it difficult to read one book and watch one movie per week, which is something I’ve been doing quite easily since I began writing Early to Rise 24 years ago.

My list of movies and series to watch keeps getting longer, but the opportunities to find 60 to 120 minutes to scratch one of them off my list are becoming rarer.

Knowing that my return trip from Tokyo to Delray Beach was going to be 28 hours in total, I figured I could put a serious dent in my reading/ watching deficit. But that didn’t happen. Instead, I spent most of my time reading essays and articles online, making notes about them, and writing briefs for this blog. Feeling like I had failed myself (and you), I forced myself to watch two things that I hoped would be worth recommending.

One was a 45-minute artsy film made by a Japanese film student, which I thought was pretty good if you don’t mind movies where very little happens. But I wasn’t sure if I could recommend it to my readers, knowing that the great majority of them would not be able to find it (it was on the Japanese Airlines channel) and that those who did would probably be bored by it.

Then, I watched the first episode of the 12th season of Curb Your Enthusiasm – and that I can recommend strongly and without hesitation. It was very funny. At several points, laughing-out-loud-on-a-plane funny.

You don’t need me to tell you anything about it, plot-wise. If you know Curb Your Enthusiasm, you know that, like Seinfeld, which was also produced and co-written by Larry David, it is about nothing much at all. Every episode is a day in the life of Larry David, a miserable, self-centered, obsessive-compulsive, endlessly kvetching Jewish guy in Hollywood. In this episode, he is paid to attend a party and mingle with the crowd, which, of course, he cannot do successfully, however hard he tries.

I found the episode refreshingly funny in a very obnoxious American way – a bracing welcome home to the USA.

A Live Performance by Greenwood Rye 

A great bluegrass cover of Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”

Watch it here.

Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War

A 9-part documentary series on Netflix
65 to 80 min. per episode
Directed by Brian Knappenberger
Released March 12, 2024

There is nothing remarkable about this series about – well, the title says it.

It spans from the development of the atomic bomb to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, including a good, succinct, exploration of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of Vladimir Putin, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Like most good documentaries of its kind, Turning Point tells its story with a wealth of old videos and photos and with interviews of historians, military experts, and technical experts – all cut and spliced to make it comprehensible and compelling.

It is sober and straightforward. And had I the time, I could have binge-watched the whole series in one seating.

There were several things about this modest (and as far as I know, unheralded) documentary that I especially liked.

1. It was – or at least it felt to me – largely objective and unbiased. It was only until the very end, when it was covering Putin and the events leading to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that I felt it tilt a little too favorably towards Ukraine. But that bias was light. I don’t think it would ruin the series for anyone on either side of that debate.

2. It managed to provide a surprising amount of relevant and interesting facts about not just the chronology, the strategies, the actions, and the motivations of the Cold War, but also insights into many of the influential people that decided to begin the war and kept it going for so long.

3. Quite rightly, I think, it demonstrated that, contrary to popular myth, the Cold War didn’t end when the Berlin Wall was taken down. It’s alive and well now.

If you have prejudices or preconceived beliefs about either the use of the atom bomb or the Cold War, you should definitely put aside the time to watch Turning Point. It will keep you interested. It will give you facts you didn’t know. And it may even change your perspective a bit.

Critical Reception 

Reviews were mostly positive. But I was surprised to see that Noah Rothman, the critic for the National Review, called it “revisionist history” and said it was “the worst Cold War documentary ever made.” You can read his review here.

I’m hardly an authority on the subject, so you may agree with him.

You can watch the entire series on Netflix and judge for yourself. If you do, tell me what you think.

Here’s the trailer.

Hit Man

Premiered at the Venice Film Festival Sept. 5, 2023
Released in select theaters in the US May 24, 2024
Streaming on Netflix as of June 7, 2024
Directed and co-written (with Glen Powell) by Richard Linklater
Starring Glen Powell, Adria Arjona, Austin Amelio, and Retta

Watch Time: 115 min.

When we watch movies together, which is about once a week, K and I take turns making the selections. This past weekend, she chose Hit Man, a recent release on Netflix that she said had received rave reviews.

Plot: A mild-mannered professor moonlighting as a fake hit man ignites a chain reaction of trouble when he falls for a potential client.

It is a dark comedy loosely based on a 2001 article in Texas Monthly by Skip Hollandsworth – the true story of undercover hit man Gary Johnson. And in my opinion, the true story would have made a fascinating documentary, maybe even a very good movie, had Linklater and Powell not tampered with it as much as they did. (Click here for the facts.)

But that’s my opinion. As I said, Hit Man received rave reviews… and I don’t know why.

It has a good premise: A nerdy physics teacher gets a part-time job working for a police sting operation. He is hired to work the computers in the stake-out truck, but one day he has to play the role of the supposed hit man, talking to and taping suspects who believe they are paying him money to have someone killed.

The first 30 minutes of the movie is that scene repeated about six or eight times. Then the plot changes: The nerdy hit man falls in love with one of his targets – an irresistibly sexy woman (Adria Arjona) who claims she is being abused by her husband. Ten or 15 minutes of hot and romantic comedy follow, then the plot sort of falls asleep until, about 30 minutes before the end, there is another plot twist. “Okay,” I thought. “Not great so far, but maybe this is going to pay off.”

But the denouement didn’t live up to my expectations. It was weirdly immoral in the most disturbing way. It actually depressed my mood for the rest of the evening.

I checked again today and, yes, Hit Man got almost universal praise from critics.

I’m wondering: What I was missing?

Critical Reception 

* “This is a quite entertaining romantic comedy that is masquerading as a fake film noir for a good portion of the film.” (Brian Tallerico on the Roger Ebert website)

* “Hit Man reveals itself in classic Linklater fashion. Below the shiny and accessible surface lies something more expansive, waiting for anyone that might be open to it.” (Robert Levin, Newsday)

* “Hit Man offers pleasure on numerous fronts: the playful chemistry between Powell and Arjona; the funny camaraderie between Gary and the cops; the screenplay’s elegantly twisty triangles.” (Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times)

You can watch the trailer here.

The Best Latin Hip-Hop of the Last Decade

I spend a fair amount of time in Latin America. So when a friend suggested that he’d never leave the US because he’s addicted to hip-hop, I pointed out that some of the best of it is being produced by Latin Americans.

Check this out and see if you agree.

1964: The Beatles Playing Live in Washington, DC 

It was Feb. 11, 1964. At the height of Beatlemania, the Fab Four played live. They are playing with nothing but microphones and speakers – with none of the sophisticated computerized equipment that bands have available now. This is the full show, sourced from the master tapes.

If you weren’t around or listening to music in 1964, and/or have never understood The Beatles’ popularity at the time, watching it may give you a sense of the excitement they generated.

Of Muppets and Men: The Making of “The Muppet Show”

A made-for-TV documentary
Released in 1981

Watch Time: 52 min

Of Muppets and Men is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of “The Muppet Show,” a TV series that ran from 1976 to 1981 and eventually became a prestige program for celebrities to appear on.

During its run, I wasn’t a regular viewer, but I admired it as an amazing cultural accomplishment, bringing a puppet show to tens of millions of people. I also liked the way it managed to produce a continuous flow of mild and sometimes sharp social satire that was easy for viewers across the political and social divides of the time to enjoy.

Of Muppets and Men was recommended by Lori Dorn (Laughing Squid) a few weeks ago. And looking at it now – 43 years since it was released! – improved my already positive view of the show by showing me what it took, in terms of talent, tolerance, and tenacity, to make each episode work so well.

You can watch the entire thing here.

And if you like it, you’ll be interested to know that, on May 31, Disney will be releasing another documentary: Jim Henson Idea Man (directed by Ron Howard).

You can watch the trailer for that one here.