Maude Nificent#Watched #theWizardOfLies HBOMax
okay, yeah nah, crapitalism sucks, etc etc but this was interesting in so far as it purported to show us the personality/ motivation of what Bernie Madoff [played by robert de niro] did when he stole 65 billion USDollars with his ponzi scheme.
includes the impact on small investors, large investors, and on madoff’s immediate family; press behaving like their usual unsavoury selves.
spoilers below — great moment
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one of the investigators getting stuck into a family member “how did you not know he was committing such a huge fraud?” family members fires back with “where the fuck were you? how did YOU not know?” (or words to that effect)
but the payoff, for me, was madoff asking at the end (sincerely) if some reporter should be comparing him to a serial killer…
it was a clap and cheer moment, for me. which is to say “they” are all f*ing *sociopaths* (it’s just a question of degree)
or to quote malcolm x out of context:
“I will never say that progress is being made.
If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress.
If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. The progress is healing the wound that's below, that the blow made. And they haven't even begun to pull the knife out, much less pull, heal the wound...
They won't even admit the knife is there.”
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speaking of de niro, yesterday watched the first half of #Novecento (aka 1900) on internet archives — i remember i saw it decades ago and was impressed. this is Bertolucci’s director’s cut and it goes on for yonks.
interesting, even tho i don’t speak Italian and could only get “the vibe” of the thing. (even with english film i usually rely on reading subtitles cos my brain is not good at listening).
included the story of the agricultural strikes in northern Italy and the (now famous) song Bella Ciao.
(cos have been reading bob santamaria’s thesis from 1934, which talks about the Italian sense of national identity etc)
MusiqueNow 
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