Don McGovern wraps up his assessment of Netflix’s newly hyped documentary, The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes, by exposing the evidence that Anthony Summers excluded from the film and deducing that the “documentary” is, in actually, just a sensationalized melodrama featuring dramatized pantomime by unidentified actors where viewers are treated to maudlin music and grimy film-noir-like cinematography.

Now that Netflix has released its newly hyped documentary, The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes, Don McGovern starts his assessment of the sometimes dubious content and often dubious qualifications of the sources interviewed by Anthony Summers in these “unheard” tapes in part 1 of this two-part article. McGovern notes that Summers offers some commentary as well about his investigation into Marilyn’s life and her death, but, sadly, primarily about her death and her sex life.

Many historians tend to give President Lyndon B. Johnson credit for policies that President John F. Kennedy actually originated and then assign blame to JFK for policies that LBJ actually originated. Jim DiEugenio sets the record straight in part 1 of his series on CNN’s Joseph Califano-inspired mini-series LBJ: Triumph and Tragedy.

Jim DiEugenio evaluates the new Showtime documentary, The One and Only Dick Gregory, and provides missing insight into Gregory’s work with Martin Luther King, Jr. and his expanding agenda toward opposition to the Vietnam War and focus on the common class struggle that culminated in the Poor People’s March.

Saving his best for last, Aaron Good finishes his review of Adam Curtis’ Can’t Get You Out of My Head with Part 3, dissecting the methods Curtis uses to muddle the truth and revealing his tendency to dissemble when dealing with very crucial aspects of state criminality, the dual state, geopolitics, Western imperialism, and the West’s adversaries. Part 1  Part 2

Aaron Good shares Part 1 of his review of Adam Curtis’ Can’t Get You Out of My Head, which examines the problems with Curtis’ view of postwar US hegemony and his obscurantist tendencies regarding US monetary policy and international finance.

“The only good thing about this picture [Once Upon a Time in Hollywood] may be that Tarantino has said he is only going to make one more,” concludes Jim DiEugenio.

As a corrective to yet another tendentious Hanks-Spielberg historical rewrite, Jim DiEugenio provides a review of past work which puts The Washington Post in a more accurate perspective. See now "The Post and the Pentagon Papers" at Consortium News.

Because Beatty has made some distinguished historical films, many had high hopes for this one. But the result seems to be rather uninspired for a film that he has contemplated doing for so long.  The best one can say is that it is competently made, writes Jim DiEugenio.    

A well wrought, smaller piece of chamber music, telling the story of how part of the Vietnam nightmare was constructed and the efforts of those who did what they could to try and correct it, writes Jim DiEugenio.