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Boston Globe
03-07-2025
- Boston Globe
Roy Cohn makes another pop culture appearance, this time alongside Barbara Walters
As Walters explains in the doc (in an archival interview), Cohn, at one time a high-powered lawyer and fixer, helped get her father out of trouble with the IRS. 'I don't know what judge he talked to,' she says. 'I forgot about ethics. I have been severely criticized by my friends, and I understand, because Roy did some terrible things.' Peter Gethers, who edited Walters's autobiography, puts it this way in the doc: 'She did not have the strongest moral compass. She was a pretty transactional person.' Advertisement Cohn mastered the dark arts of the big lie (repeating the same falsehood over and over until it is perceived as the truth) and indignant denial. For all his brutality, he was also seductive, and very influential. A cursory glance at the current political landscape should provide ample evidence of that. Chris Vognar, a freelance culture writer, was the 2009 Nieman Arts and Culture Fellow at Harvard University.
Boston Globe
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
‘Love & Mercy' told Brian Wilson's story in a way that fit him
But the film's real magic came in its recreations of the studio sessions that yielded the glory of the 'Pet Sounds' album and the singular single 'Good Vibrations.' We see Dano's Wilson orchestrating his session players, many of them from the loose, unparalleled collective known as The Wrecking Crew, through the recording of 'Pet Sounds.' We see him obsessing over that perfect cello sound that makes 'Good Vibrations' purr, as Beach Boy Mike Love (Jake Abel) snarls his impatient disapproval. I've seen few movie sequences that better capture the euphoric, frustrating creative process. Advertisement Chris Vognar, a freelance culture writer, was the 2009 Nieman Arts and Culture Fellow at Harvard University.
Boston Globe
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
‘Poker Face' offers a fantasy of truth divining that would be exhausting in real life
Pop culture has often batted around the idea of what it means to lie and tell the truth, usually to comic effect. In 'Liar Liar' (1997), Jim Carrey plays a truth-challenged lawyer whose son makes a wish that Dad will no longer lie. Presto! A movie full of (often quite funny) jokes about a lawyer forced to be honest. In 'The Invention of Lying' (2009), Ricky Gervais, who also co-wrote and co-directed, plays a writer in a world where the first lie has yet to be told. In a burst of inspiration, he becomes a pioneer in the field of fabulism. A lineup of criminals and hucksters test Charlie in the new season, played by the likes of John Cho, Katie Holmes, and call them out. She's not naïve, but she is offended by dishonesty. In the present-day real world, she would never get a wink of sleep. Advertisement Culture critic Chris Vognar was the 2008 Nieman Arts and Culture Fellow at Harvard. He cannot tell a lie.
