December Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman: THE CROWN, SEASON 3 -- 1964-1977

There was a young lady from Dallas 

Who used a dynamite stick as a phallus. 

They found her vagina in North Carolina 

and her asshole in Buckingham Palace. 

Imagined not real, the limerick, above, that the screenwriter put in the mouth of Princess Margaret at a White House party in 1965 did the trick: At a lavish dinner party hosted by the Johnson’s for the Snowdon’s, Margaret wooed our president in vernacular they both enjoyed, getting Lyndon to agree to the British government’s plea for a U.S. bailout during an urgent financial crisis. Johnson had been refusing PM Harold Wilson’s calls (the Brit’s weren’t backing his war in Vietnam). But following Margaret and Tony’s visit, the ‘special relationship’ went from cool back to sure-footed. Her thrilling success didn’t widen Margaret’s sphere of influence at home as she was regarded as a bomb-thrower best kept on the down-low. Peter Morgan says he made up what happened at that dinner, but it was so like the principals, one can only wish it did, and pity poor Margaret — the little ‘vice queen’ with an applause deficit.

Morgan’s marvelous Netflix series continues with vignettes that are smaller than the drama of the world war era but absorbing. Here is Britain during the middle years of the Queen (now played by Olivia Colman of The Favourite), the young adulthood of Prince Charles and Princess Anne and the Snowdon scandals. One feels a tad sorry for the Windsors— the ruthless scrutiny and humiliations visited on this ordinary family living under glass.

The royal porn may pay for itself despite the schadenfreude and outright rejection it brings on itself, fed by the soap-opera tales of their private lives. The Windsors function with great success as a soft-touch but powerful PR firm — the outcome of the Crown’s search for meaning as it evolved from ruling monarchy to figurehead. Many royals work full time dutifully promoting civic and social causes. The self-imposed rules they live by assure that duty and kindness are quite, if not perfectly, constant; the Crown ‘firm’ functions as parent archetype, committed to useful work and maintenance of the public image. (Prince Andrew, having embarrassed himself in an unapologetic interview about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, has just been cut from the firm’s public face upon the intervention of Prince Charles, it is reported, asserting himself as monarch-to-be.) Maybe the US could profit from more do-good, apolitical authority.

The salacious chapters have some nuggets. We learn new about the origins of Charles (Josh O’Connor, Only You) and Camilla (Emerald Fennell, below). Camilla’s relationship with Andrew Parker-Bowles (Andrew Buchan) was more passionate than imagined in which they used others to make each other jealous, involving Charles and an acerbic Princess Anne (well-acted by Erin Doherty) who joined the quadrangle “for a bit of fun”. Lord Mountbatten and the Queen mother then broke up the party, instigating Camilla’s marriage to Parker-Bowles while Charles was on Naval duty. (No wonder he would later defiantly flout his marriage to Diana.) Much more domestic nastiness appears in the chapter about the affairs of Tony Snowdon (he who winsomely charmed the Queen to secure her favor) and Princess Margaret precipitating the deterioration of their marriage — splashy tabloid fodder then, soap-opera now.

It’s not all soap. A KGB spy is discovered living in the Palace and there are labor troubles. Prince Philip, splendidly acted by Tobias Menzies (Game of Thrones, Outlander; click here to read a fine interview with the actor), has a mid-life crisis coinciding with the US moon landing and visit of the astronauts to the palace. The Prince, a pilot himself, unhappily sidelined from adventure, waxes in awe of the young astronauts until he meets them, drippy with colds, having nothing of awe to report beyond the lists they had to tick off as they worked through their mission. Philip doesn’t get that ‘meaning’ is all in the doing — the action of climbing the mountain not getting to the top. Menzies (below, l; Prince Philip, r) conveys Philip’s emotions with such self-restraint, he has made himself the stealth star of this ensemble.

A chapter is devoted to the passing of David, Duke of Windsor (Derek Jacobi) living in exile in France and shunned with his notorious wife Wallis (Geraldine Chaplin), for whom he abdicated the throne. Again, Morgan ignores the elephant in the room — the pair’s unholy infatuation with the Nazi’s that led to their non-grata status, making government quietly grateful that divorced American Wallis kept David from the throne. Perhaps a different screenwriter at a different time will dramatize that juicy story.

Crown - 3’s most memorable episode may be the mining incident at Aberfan in 1966, a tiny Welch town that suffered a tragic coal-debris slide. After days of rain, a tip (little hill) of coal debris sank, sliding downward and across the street, burying the town elementary school. It killed 144 people, most of them kids. PM Harold Wilson, Prince Phillip, and camera-slung Tony Snowdon went to the scene at once but their description of the horror and the PM’s urgings could not convince the Queen to go — it fell to rogue Labour party members to induce her late visit. Labour threatened to blame the Queen and prior Tory governments who had ignored reported dangers at the mine site. Several lines of copy on the screen report that the Queen’s failure to go at once to Aberfan remains a matter of deep regret to Elizabeth, and that she has visited the town often in intervening years.

Another chapter shows us the character of the monarch-in-waiting — that is the story of Charles’s Welsh language and history instruction prior to his investiture as the Prince of Wales. The Welsh, especially his local university tutor, anticipate the chore with derision, only for Charles to win them over with sincere, earnest effort. Charles is well-conveyed by O’Connor, who conjures him quite completely (O'Connor below r, Prince Charles l)

At end, Crown 3 was as entertaining as earlier series, supporting Morgan’s stated goal to use the monarchy as a canvas for this decade or so of the latter 20th century, all the while laying out a good gossip. Full cast replacement helps his case, as you focus less on individuals and more on the unfolding stories of the era.

At left, screenwriter, Peter Morgan and his partner, Gillian Anderson, who will appear in the next edition of The Crown as Margaret Thatcher.

The above post was written by 

our monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman

What, already? The documentary of the year? Jed Rothstein's THE CHINA HUSTLE hits theaters and digital

Yes, TrustMovies realizes that the 2019 Oscar ceremony is eleven months away but he dearly hopes that over the coming year a small but massively important documentary entitled THE CHINA HUSTLE will not get lost nor be forgotten in the ensuing awards season chaos. Not unlike The Big Short in its righteous condemnation of Wall Street, the banking industry and the SEC, the documentary demonstrates (for anyone who still remains unconvinced) not only how little-to-nothing has been done to regulate our wretched finance industry in the years since the housing bubble burst but how newer and ever-more-sleazy scams have come down the pike to relieve investors, together with pension and retirement funds, of their resources.

Very well written and directed by Jed Rothstein (shown at right) in a manner that allows us to understand the ins and out of a rather complicated scheme/scam, the doc begins with a few voices, including that of Donald Trump, extolling the virtues of China, followed by a most interesting definition of Capitalism. We're then introduced to a fellow named Dan David (below), who immediately tells us, "There are no good guys in this story -- including me." Amen to that because we're back in the territory of short-selling stock, à la The Big Short, and just as with that situation and in that movie, the film here involves people who short sell at a great profit to them, while everyone else in the picture loses.

And yet in The China Hustle this short selling appears to be the only way in which these sleazy scams by China, together with the help of our own financial industry, can be stopped -- since neither the SEC nor our government will do anything to prevent this outright fraud, in which Chinese companies claim huge profitability and/or growth for investors but in reality offer nothing of the kind.

How is this possible -- particularly after all the horrible effects of our earlier financial meltdown? Rothstein's documentary explains this quite thoroughly, cleverly and interestingly: It involves something called Reverse Mergers, in which a company (in this case one based in mainland China) gains a listing on U.S. Stock Exchange by way of buying the corporate shell of a defunct U.S. company that is still trading on that stock exchange. It then promotes the newly merged company’s supposed potential for "enormous" growth -- all of which is utterly fake.

The tale of how this happened (it's still happening) and why, and how these frauds came to light, becomes a truly enthralling kind of mystery during which, along the way, quite a set of fraudsters are exposed from under their rocks. Some of these -- that supposed icon of virtue, Wesley Clark (above) is one such -- may surprise you with their embarrassing behavior. Others will seem pretty much like the usual suspects, finance-industry version. And while Mr. David reminds us that nobody's a hero here, a few of the folk we meet would certainly seem to qualify in my book, particularly the young Chinese man who did research in China for one of the fellows who helped expose all this and for his time and trouble went to prison.

Still, heroes or not, some of the (mostly) men we meet here are pretty damned fascinating, as are the various jobs they do -- from Matt Weichert (shown below) and his friend Soren to Jon Carnes (aka "Alfred Little") and Carson Block, the CEO of Muddy Waters (because, as the Chinese proverb goes: You can't catch fish in clear water). Director Rothstein, in addition to making the scams come to such immediate life, also involves us a bit in the life and family of Dan David, as well as in a particular culture of China known as Gwang Hi (trading favors) that makes these dreadful deals all the easier to perform.

Wall Street, it appears, has developed a whole new way to scam -- with the "illegality" arising in and from China, making it difficult if not impossible to prosecute here. We hear about Roth Capital, a company involved in so many of these sleaze deals, during which between 2006 and 2012 over 400 Chinese companies managed to list themselves, via the American shell companies, on the NYSE. An estimated $14,000,000,000 in public pension and retirement funds have now been lost to these Chinese reverse merger frauds. And, as usual -- concerning Wall Street, the Banks and "investment" -- the supposed "gatekeepers" remain either outright sleazy or just intentionally ignorant.

Like The Big Short, this film will make you angry enough to see red. And I do not mean just red China. Yes, the Chinese have proven themselves worthless scammers (it is not at all illegal in China to defraud foreign investors), but more of the responsibility lies with the American creeps who have negotiated and profited from all this. Not that most of us any longer have money left to invest, but on the chance that you do, if China is at all involved -- stay the fuck away.

No film I've seen in a long while has made me as angry as this one. Our sleazy finance industry needs an adversary as strong and organized as the student anti-gun movement has so far proven against the NRA. Perhaps, when they've won this battle, the kids can turn their attention to Wall Street. From Magnolia Pictures and running 82 minutes, The China Hustle opens this Friday, March 30, in New York City at the IFC Center and the Landmark 57 West and in Los Angeles at the Landmark NuArt, as well as in cities all around the country. To find a theater near you, click here. Simultaneously with its theatrical release, the film will appear on digital and VOD platforms.

Ridley Scott's ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD brings back the 1973 J.P. Getty III kidnapping

Overlong, ham-fisted, tiresome and melodramatic, ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD is but the latest in a long line of Hollywood product that takes an ugly and sensational real-life incident and turns it into schlock entertainment. As directed with his increasingly heavy hand by Ridley Scott and written by David Scarpa (from the book by John Pearson), the movie gives us the kidnapping and lengthy imprisonment of the grandson of the then-world's-richest-man, John Paul Getty and lets us wallow in it, even as the young Getty's mom does all she can to convince the kid's grand-dad to cough up the ransom money.

As per usual -- of late, at least -- with his woeful returns to the Alien franchise (Prometheus and Covenant) and his hugely overlong The Martian, Mr. Scott (shown at left) dawdles and extends when brevity and crispness are most called for. His new movie, which lasts 132 minutes, could easily have dispensed with twenty or more of those and turned out all the better for their loss.

Most annoying, however, are the melodramatic touches that dot the film -- note the early morning scene outside the Getty estate with the delivery of those newspapers -- culminating in a supposedly exciting will-he-survive? finale that simply reeks of this-never-happened Hollywood contrivance.

Random moviegoers, who pay any attention to those reams of trailers thrust upon audiences prior to the movie we've come to see, may recall a particular trailer for this film that starred Kevin Spacey as the older Getty. Gosh: How come Christopher Plummer (above and below) is up there on screen in the same role now? Well, even though the movie was ready for release earlier this year, once the current sexual predator scandal engulfed Spacey, a series of reshoots -- probably the most lengthy and expensive in the history of modern Hollywood -- was done so that the film could be released without any "taint." Which simply adds a new layer of sleaze to the whole enterprise.

Does anyone else out there find this idea of "disappearing" a performer seem like something out of Stalinist Russia? Sure, Spacey, the man, ought to be pilloried for his actions, but his terrific array of acting over decades now ought to remain untouched.

All the Money in the World is certainly not a complete loss. Plummer is very good, as the man of the year that moviegoers will hate the most. And as young Getty's mother, Michelle Williams (above) gives yet another of her wonderfully lived-in, every-moment-real performances. She's a pleasure to watch, as always. Mark Wahlberg (below, center right), more tamped down than usual and in a much less "heroic" mold, proves adequate, too, though audiences expecting more action out of him may be disappointed.

The story itself is interesting and fraught with enough tension to keep most viewers occupied, even if the cannier among them may do some eye-rolling at the coincidence that pops up now and again. The movie sticks at least somewhat close enough to what happened in this kidnapping to keep those of us who remember it semi-satisfied. (It certainly makes Italy of that day look like a heap of criminally connected sewage, including even certain small town police departments.) Charlie Plummer, below and consistently beleaguered, is as good as he's allowed to be in the role of victim. Overall, however, this movie seems very nearly unnecessary.

From Sony/TriStar Pictures, All the Money in the World opened nationwide this past week and is probably playing in your area. Click here to find the theater(s) nearest you.