Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All

On Thanksgiving Day, I saw two movies, and they both featured Sam Rockwell—unexpectedly.

Iron Man 2 was ok. I think it is about what you would expect it to be, but it wasn’t bad and for an action blockbuster, that’s a win.

On Sam Rockwell: We’ve seen him play this over-the-top personality before. His character is a bit manic, a bit crazy, but portrayed in a way that is not cringe-worthily embarrassing. That’s also a win.

I thought Everybody’s Fine was going to be a pretty hokey family comedy, but it turned out to be a nice movie buoyed by solid acting performances. It is not a great or memorable movie. It actually comes up short in many obvious ways, but it gets points for not playing like the movies we all see nowadays. This may be due to the fact that it is an American adaptation of an Italian original.

It took its time and wasn’t afraid to be quiet. The texture and the acting made this just a bit more than a rather standard movie about a dysfunctional-but-loving family.

On Sam Rockwell: It’s great to see him be (and look like) a regular person. He toned it way down and played a rather normal, average guy really, really well.

Tags: Movies by Ms. SP
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Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

We all know about Ponzi Schemes and how Ponzi has become identified with financial cons, but how many of us really know the story behind the phrase?

In Ponzi’s Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend, Mitchell Zuckoff has produced an interesting and understandable narrative of not just Ponzi and his business attempt, but Zuckoff also paints an intriguing picture of Boston and the American landscape of the early 1900s. As history nerds know, people and the things they do do not really change over time. When investigators began closing in on Ponzi, they also shut down two other banks for making shady loans and other finanical mis-dealings. And do we even need to talk about the politicians and civil servants?

Overall, Zuckoff’s portrayal of Ponzi as a man of his times is a sympathetic one. I think it comes out of trying to understand his subject. My main quibble with the work is that Zuckoff occasionally mixes in scenes of fiction, such as Charles Ponzi having a conversation with his wife, Rose, where the dialogue is probably representative conjecture. I generally don’t like that in my nonfiction.

But Ponzi himself is an interesting figure. I had no idea that Ponzi’s scheme originally arose out of an idea for a legitimate business. But when millions of dollars come rolling in the door, things start going sideways really quickly.

Zuckoff does not let Ponzi off the hook, but we do learn about the good along with the bad. In the end, Charles Ponzi does seem like a uniquely American figure that became possible out of a combination of media promotion, common greed, and the dreamlike promises of the United States. As we’ve found out, those factors are not only still in play today, but we’ve managed to export them all over the world.

Audiobook Challenge: eleven down, one to go.

Tags: Books by Ms. SP
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Recommended reads from the past week:

• In my write up about the finale of Doctor Who’s Season Five, I complained about the feel of Steven Moffat‘s Doctor Who run as compared to that of Russel T Davis‘s. Leave it to Jacob to deftly explain one aspect of the difference.
• Ryno goes to the Phillies. Amen and good luck. You can’t win if you stick with the Cubs. You’ve gotta be like Maddox and Gracie to get your due. Here’s to hoping that Number 23 has a ring in his future.

Tags: Recommendations by Ms. SP
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