movies

DiCaprio as Hoover.

J. Edgar, the Man, Was as Pissy as J. Edgar, the Film, Is Passionless and Plot-Starved

In spite of a fusillade of P.R. overkill about what a brave, risk-taking actor he is, and how he spent five hours a day in a makeup chair squirming, Leonardo DiCaprio’s portrait of a balding, sweaty, gristle-chewing, half-mad J. Edgar Hoover is gimmicky play acting. J. Edgar, Clint Eastwood’s exhausting chronicle of power obsession about the enigmatic, self-serving egomaniac who, as director of the F.B.I., kept America trembling with terror for half a century under the phony guise of patriotism, is a long, tedious and hollow disappointment. Read More

White Collar Grime

FBI Now Giving Madoff the Serial Killer Treatment

The FBI has tasked agents from its Behavioral Analysis Unit with profiling the tics and traits of a Wall Street fraudster, according to Reuters.

As is pointed out a number of times in the article, this is a difficult task, since what makes people good at business might coincide with the things that make them Read More

Editorial

Taxi Driver

It seems hard to believe, but it’s true: The Taxi and Limousine Commission can find out if a would-be driver ever had a brush with the law in New York, but if the potential cabbie committed a felony outside of the state, well, there’s no way of knowing.

That ought to change, and Read More