Too Big To Fail was first broadcast on HBO last year. Now it’s out on Blu-ray. Essentially, Too Big To Fail is the story of how Lehman Brothers, an investment bank, failed and almost brought the U.S. economy to its knees. William Hurt plays a quizzical Hank Paulson, Treasury Secretary. Most of the time, William Hurt looks stunned in this documentary as the entire financial system becomes unraveled. James Woods plays Dick Fuld, the head of Lehman who becomes his own worst enemy. Cynthia Nixon stands out as one of Paulson’s aides. I especially liked Paul Giamatti as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke (amazing resemblance!). Too Big To Fail traces the financial disaster from the beginning, but there really is no ending. We’re still in the same situation. Banks are still reckless with money. The financial system is still unstable. We need to return to the Glass-Steagall Act which divided commercial banks from investment banks. Until that reform is enacted, we’re all still in peril! GRADE: B+

I’m a sucker for a book like The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books. J. Peder Zane collects the lists of favorite books by Norman Mailer, Annie Proulx, Stephen King, Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, Margaret Drabble, Michael Chabon, Peter Carey, and others. Then, Zane takes the results and comes up with a master list: THE TOP TOP TEN LIST of the “best” books from all the selections. I love browsing books like this because you never know what you’ll find. Although the THE TOP TOP TEN LIST is a bit bland and safe, there are some surprises in the individual author selections. There are also summaries of 544 books identified by the writers. Here are the top ten books according to Zane:
THE TOP TOP TEN BOOKS
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
Collected Stories by Anton Chekhov
Middlemarch by George Eliot

Harry Cummings McPherson, Jr. (August 22, 1929 – February 16, 2012) served as counsel and special counsel to President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson from 1965 to 1969. McPherson was also Johnson’s chief speechwriter from 1966 to 1969. But McPherson worked in Washington since 1956. The evolution of a green Texas lawyer to the ultimate Washington insider is enlightening. As preparation to start reading Robert Caro’s multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson, I thought I’d prep with McPherson’s book. If you want to know how the U.S. Senate worked back in the Fifties and the Sixties, McPherson illustrates the process in great detail. The battles over civil rights, foreign aid, aid to education, and energy policy make fascinating reading. I liked McPherson’s blunt descriptions of all the U.S. Senators, too (many are unflattering). GRADE: A

The Dark Knight Rises concludes director Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. Batman Begins (2005) recreated the Batman legend. In 2008, The Dark Knight broke attendance records with Heath Ledger’s iconic performance as The Joker. Now, Nolan wraps up his Batman saga with basically the same cast as the first two Batman film: Michael Caine as Alfred, Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox. Yes, Anne Hathaway is fetching as Catwoman. Tom Hardy plays a convincing Bane. Christopher Nolan is a canny director and his vision of Batman comes into true focus in The Dark Knight Rises. This film will be on plenty of Year’s Best Film lists. GRADE: B+

In her informative “Introduction” to the New York Review of Books edition of Three Bedrooms in Manhattan (translated by Marc Romano and Laurence G. Blochman}, Joyce Carol Oates points out that much of Simenon’s work involves obsession. In Three Bedrooms in Manhattan it’s sexual obsession, but Oates provides plenty of examples of other obsessions Simenon explored both in his stand-alone novels like this one and in his famous Maigret mystery series. Clearly, Simenon was driven by obsessions: his claim that he had sex with 10,000 women, his compulsive work habits that produced 400 novels, and quirks that made Simenon a “difficult” person to deal with. No matter. Simenon’s noirish novels take readers to dark places even in cities that never sleep.

Director Christopher Nolan’s concluding film in his Batman trilogy opens tomorrow. But BEST BUY has a bargain offer today. Buy the Blu-ray versions of the first two Batman movies, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight and BEST BUY will give you $5 toward the admission ticket to the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. That’s roughly $5 each for the Blu-ray versions. That’s a deal in my book!

As I’ve mentioned in other blog postings, audiobooks became my major source of delight and diversion while I spent almost two weeks in REHAB. The Lortabs I was taking to manage the pain turned my brain to mush. I couldn’t read. Or, rather, I could read the same paragraph over and over with no retention. However, my drug-addled mind had no problem with audiobooks. Art Scott sent me a fistful of audio CDs of a number of Bertie and Jeeves stories before my surgery. I took the CDs to REHAB and had a rollicking good time listing to these P. G. Wodehouse classics. And Martin Jarvis, the skilled narrator of these stories, captures the characters of Bertie and Jeeves perfectly. If laughter is the best medicine, listening to these wonderful CDs that Art sent me hastened my recovery. Highly Recommended! Thanks, Art!
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
“Jeeves Takes Charge”
“Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest”
“The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy,”
“Clustering Round Young Bingo,”
“The Artistic Career of Corky”

Singing in the Rain is one of my favorite movies and this new Blu-ray edition shows the film off to its best effect. Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, and Debbie Reynolds star in this 60th-Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition (newly remastered in 2011 4K transfer) of one the best Hollywood musicals. Singing in the Rain is filled with memorable songs, lavish dance routines, and Gene Kelly’s classic song-and-dance number performed in the rain. This DVD should be in everyone’s collection! GRADE: A

Boston College asked my daughter Katie to represent the Eldercare program at a two-week conference in Switzerland. After graduating from Boston College last month, this trip to Europe was a fine way to close out a successful academic experience. Katie used Skype on her iPhone to keep in touch with Diane. I was in REHAB while this was all going on, but Katie would call me on a daily basis to check on my progress and to relate her latest adventures in the Alps. It’s best to travel when you’re young and both Patrick and Katie have logged plenty of air miles. Ah, youth…

I’m a huge Sigourney Weaver fan so you know I’ll be watching this West Wing clone tonight at 10 P.M. on the USA Network. Sigourney Weaver plays Elaine Barrish, a divorced former First Lady and the now current Secretary of State (sound familiar?). USA only ordered six episodes so if you blink, you’ll miss this mini-series. Hopefully, the ratings will be strong so Political Animals will be renewed. Other than Longmire and The Closer, there isn’t much on to watch this summer until the Olympics begins.