On the Trials and Tribulations of ‘Old Money’
It can be dauntingly difficult to be rich. Here is another chapter in the humilations rich people can experience from their nouveau riche imitators.
Rich vs. Richer In Palm Beach, The Old Money
Isn’t Having a Ball
Influx of New Wealth Sparks Spat Over Red Cross Event;
Inheritance’s Smaller Role
A 1930s Landmark Is Razed
By ROBERT FRANK
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
May 20, 2005; Page A1
PALM BEACH, Fla.—For nearly a half-century, the Red Cross Ball was the most prestigious party for old Palm Beach society. Then Simon Fireman took over.
Continue ReadingThe Manchurian Candidate
I toyed with the idea of watching the remake of this 1962 film that came out last year with Denzel Washington in the lead. Having had bad experiences with remakes, I decided to see the original film instead. Frank Sinatra not only owned the rights to the film but also played a main role. The plot line is simple: The Russians capture an American soldier in Korea, brain wash him, and send him back to America to carry out missions that would help the Soviet cause. Altough we can still detect the tensions of the cold war lurking in the background, the narrative is initiallly much too slow for the contemporary viewer. In the middle the film—almost surprisingly—gets back on track. Freud was clearly at the peak of his influence when the script was put together: at the center of the personal and political drama is the relationship between mother and son who hate each other. The Manchurian Candidate is not a film you have to see.
Ray
If Ray Charles had been a Hollywood rather than a music star, Ray would have cleaned up at this year’s Oscars. Instead, Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby and Martin Sorcese’s Aviator about Hollywood director and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes won five and four Oscars respectively. Ray is a labor of love and a much better film than both Million Dollar Baby and Aviator. Every scene is crafted with thoughtfulness and attention to details. Ray is wonderful in every regard and will be the yardstick for any future biographical drama. The only saving grace for the Academy of Motion pictures is that it gave Jamie Fox an Oscar for Best Actor. Fox’s performance is stunning and an extravagant pleasure to watch. Go see and hear Ray. You will experience an extraordinary motion picture event.
Genius Works Better Alone
Starbuck’s sells Ray Charles’s new and last album Genius Loves Company together with a recording of Ray’s greatest hits. I bought this Box of Genius and discovered that a genius works better alone. The compilation of classic Ray Charles hits is infinitely better than his new CD of duets with others stars such as Norah Jones and Elton John.
Listen to Samples from CD
Talk is cheap but surprisingly effective
Sometimes one piece of writing changes one mind. Until today I thought that talk therapy was utterly discredited. But there appears to be strong evidence that a skilled therapist can help the brain to change its relationship to the world.
Depression From The Economist print edition (Apr 14th 2005)
FOR almost a century after Sigmund Freud pioneered psychoanalysis,
Continue ReadingLove’s a Bitch
Love’s a Bitch (Amores Perros) received an Oscar Nomination for Best Foreign Film, rave reviews, and prizes at numerous festivals. The film did not resonate with me. I think as an observation about the human condition the film is wrong: yes, love can be a bitch, but it is not always a bitch as the director (Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu) implies. I also found the effort juvenile and lacking in perception. The stories we are told are old stories: a young man is in love with the wife of his brother, a woman loses her body that is so central to her identity, an old man gives up his family for the sake of fighting for the larger social good and finds himself disappointed. If you tell old stories, put them at least in a new light. Otherwise we are better off hearing the originals.
A Real Run-Away Bride
Unlike in the romantic comedy with Julia Roberts, the story of this Run-Away Bride is leaving everyone with a sour taste in their mouths. But the reaction of her uncle made me smile: “Jennifer had some issues the family was not aware of. We’re looking forward to loving her and talking to her about these issues.” What a conversation that must be.
Hotel Rwanda
The film highlights powerfully that in the European and American mind a black African life is worth less than a white life. A catastrophy that kills 500 Europeans is emotionally judged to be worse than the killing of 500,000 Africans. The latter event hardly makes the news. Don Cheadle stars in the true-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand Tutsis refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda. The acting is spotty. Cheadle is superb, but Nick Nolte, for example, delivers a ghastly performance as an UN colonel. Roman Polanksi directed The Pianist with a sure hand, showing the right amount of cruelty and brutality to neither trivialize the suffering portrayed in the movie nor to numb the viewer. The ending of Hotel Rwanda trivializes everything you witnessed earlier.
“My Life so Far” by Jane Fonda
MAUREEN DOWD has written a funny review of Jane Fonda’s autobiography in today’s NYT.
‘My Life So Far’: The Roles of a Lifetime
One day when she was playing cowgirl in the annual bison roundup on one of the New Mexico ranches of her husband, Ted Turner, Jane Fonda realized with a jolt that she was about to turn 60. She decided that the best way to meet this unnerving milestone was to make a short video of her life ‘‘to discover its different themes.’‘
She invited her daughter, Vanessa Vadim, a documentary filmmaker, to help her. ‘‘Why don’t you just get a chameleon and let it crawl across the screen?’’ Vanessa suggested dryly.
‘‘Ouch,’’ Jane writes. ‘‘This was the rap on me: I’ve had so many personae over my lifetime that it’s easy to think, Who is she, anyway? Is there a ‘there there’? . . . When I looked at photos of myself over the years and matched them up with my husband of the time, I couldn’t help feeling that maybe it was true—maybe I simply become whatever the man I am with wants me to be: ‘sex kitten,’ ‘controversial activist,’ ‘ladylike wife on the arm of corporate mogul.’ . . . Was I just a chameleon, and if so, how was it that a seemingly strong woman could so thoroughly and repeatedly lose herself? Or had I really lost myself?’‘
Continue ReadingThe Incredibles
Would Pixar Studios be able to put out another movie in the league of Finding Nemo? During the first hour I became skeptical but the second hour proved this film to be amazingly good as well. I am awed by the creativity of Pixar. How do these people continue to crank out one commercial and artistic hit after another? The Incredibles manages to mix Superman, Spiderman, Catwoman, Speed, The Matrix, James Bond, and Austin Powers all into one film. Incredible, isn
© 2026 Peter Murmann. Powered by ExpressionEngine.
