After our lovely dinner

Date last night, the Wife had a few rules about what we would be allowed to watch at home:  No reading (subtitles); no stories about young people in love; no coming of age stories; although black and white could be acceptable it was not preferred; and more than anything, she expressed a desire to see a documentary about political scandal and corruption, especially if it involved sex. Something like Client 9.

The Wife even suggested we just find Client 9 on the apple teevee, and see what suggestions they had for us based on that choice.  After a fair amount of circumnavigating I came across Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S Thompson.  I had seen it before, the Wife had not.  She was reluctant but prob too sleepy to put up much of a fight.

Gonzo was just as good as I had remembered it to be.  My fave parts are Hunter's coverage of The Hell's Angels, the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas bit, and his unsurpassed, groundbreaking coverage of the 1972 General Election (Renee said, "Gosh, McGovern seemed like such a nice great guy." Yup.)

But, the best part is the retelling of Hunter's Rolling Stone article about Jimmy Carter's tour de force Law Day speech in 1974, wherein Carter quoted Bob Dylan's song Maggie's Farm, and told all those rich privileged Southern lawyers and judges how bad they should feel for not getting behind someone like Martin Luther King Jr back when he was still alive.

Here is the speech in full:

Anyhoo, sure enough the Wife fell asleep, and I finished the film, completely forgetting that Alex Gibney directed it.  (And, that Graydon Carter was one of the producers!)

Alex Gibney has got to be the best political documentary filmmaker alive right now.  Look at this credit list:  We Steal Secrets; Mea Maxima Culpa; Catching Hell; Client 9; the abortion segment of Freakonomics; Casino Jack; Taxi to the Dark Side; and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. All of those have been made in just the last eight years.  Stunning.  And, a quick look on his imdb CV indicates that he has a doc about Fela Kuti coming out next.  (I have just discovered Fela recently, and will be v eager to see it.)

Keep up the good work, Mr Gibney.  And, all of those films, plus Gonzo come v highly recommended by me, espec Enron, Casino Jack, Catching Hell, and Client 9.  

Mwah, ...

Work week over.  Woo-hoo!

P.S.  I started watching Melville's Le Cercle Rouge after Gonzo.  Meaning the Wife woke up to a v long French early 70s thriller with subtitles.  I told her before we crawled in to bed, "Are you sure you can not stay out here a little bit longer? There are only two more hours left with the film."