The Wall of the Street

This must be documentary week. After “The Lie Detector” on American Experience, I binge-watched the four-part Netflix series, MADOFF: The Monster of Wall Street.

The substance is excellent, but the style is annoying. I agree with everything in this review from The Daily Beast.

Berlinger… falls back on his worst habit: staging dramatic recreations that unnecessarily tip the action toward melodrama.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/netflixs-madoff-the-monster-of-wall-street-is-a-ponzi-scheme-horror-story

The narrative provided by Diana Henriques in the series has great clarity. So it’s no surprise that her book, The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust, was adapted into a movie.

This pre-existing dramatization of the Madoff story further proves the point made in The Daily Beast review of the Netflix series.

There’s little reason to have actors playing Madoff and his associates in dialogue-free sequences designed to accompany interview snippets.

The DeNiro movie is on HBO Max. I’ll get to it after watching the first part of another new documentary, Frontline’s “Global Spyware Scandal: Exposing Pegasus.”

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/global-spyware-scandal-exposing-pegasus/

Ask Me No Questions, I’ll Tell You No Lies

A couple of months ago I mentioned borrowing some images from Ken Quattro, who had posted them on Facebook.

Toth’s Angel and Ghost

Ken is one of the sources appearing in “The Lie Detector,” an excellent new American Experience documentary on PBS. The popularization of lie detectors — which are valid only as an intimidation tactic — has a comic book connection.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/lie-detector/

The documentary doesn’t touch upon another device, that is also used for truth-seeking interrogation. Scientology’s E-meter.

Multi-Part Podcasts

What I’ve been listening to during Nordic Track exercising, and when out walking rather than running. Each podcast automatically plays the next part, or you can go the series pages.

A Freakonomics 3-part series about the father of self-interest Capitalism, Adam Smith. Series page.

WBUR’s 5-part series on the democracy-harming monopolies resulting from Capitalism. Series page.