Satan · The Winklevosses · The Ingebrigtsenes
Does everybody *really* love diamonds?
the true crime that's worth your time
When you watched Ocean’s 12 did you think “enough Clooney and Pitt, give me more Vincent Cassel”? If so, your true-crime weekend plans are set, as Vjeran Tomic: The Spider-Man of Paris just hit Netflix.
This French documentary feature lets Tomic explain — in his own words — how he robbed the Paris Museum of Modern Art in 2010 (six years after Ocean’s 12, if you want to feel old). You might remember the 2019 New Yorker feature on the crime. In that property, too, Tomic speaks with the writer. Clearly, he’s remained in the game for the fun and thrill of it — this is not a guy who wants to live in the shadows. I’m hopeful the doc communicates that joy and sensation of “rush” as well as the NYer feature did.
(As a side note, my favorite part is how Netflix offers a “smoking” content warning on the movie’s page. Cigarettes, in a documentary about a French criminal? Mon dieu, indeed.)
I griped about the timing of Monster Inside’s release on Wednesday, but here’s a spooky season release I applaud. The Devil on Trial is another Netflix documentary feature (two non-series in one weekend? Love to see it), this one about the real case that inspired the The Conjuring 3.
As we all know, The Conjuring franchise of films is a diminishing-creative-returns-offering series of fictional movies about Ed and Lorraine Warren, who in reality are largely believed to be serial paranormal scammers. In the movies, they’re presented as as real as Jim Caviezel’s (alleged serial sexual harasser) Tim Ballard is in Sound of Freedom, an assertion that in my opinion deserves more scrutiny but we’ll talk about that some other day.
ANYWAY. The Conjuring 3 was the crappiest of the Conjuring movies thus far, but you can see why the Arne Cheyenne Johnson case intrigued the filmmakers, as it is wild. Netflix’s content marketing item for the doc doesn’t do much in the way of explaining why it needs to exist, though, and reviewers are roundly calling it out for its failings — hey, Screen Rant even managed to turn the doc’s holes into a listicle. But, still, including mention in today’s weekend watches because I still think the timing is as it should be — and that you could do worse than this as background noise while you carve that pumpkin.
Italian heist series Everybody Loves Diamonds made its way to Amazon Prime last week, but I didn’t realize that till today — but that’s fine, it pairs well with the French heist content above, right? This show is loosely (is suspect veeeeeery loosely) based on the 2003 Antwerp diamond heist, a $100 million theft of gems, precious metals, and jewelry. The trailer looks sexy and slick and very of that type of heist genre (think Lupin). It’s the least true crime rooted of my three picks this weekend, but it also looks like too much fun not to try. — EB
Hearsay
New York AG accuses crypto firms of deceiving investors in $1 billion fraud [CNN]
In docs filed Thursday, Letitia James accused crypto firms Gemini, Genesis, and DCG of (per a James press release) “defrauding more than 230,000 investors, including at least 29,000 New Yorkers, of more than $1 billion.” The filing is here, but cast your eye to the URL, where “Gemini” is the prime firm named.
That could be because it’s first on the list of named plaintiffs, or because the suit names specific alleged acts of Gemini’s that seem especially egregious…or it could be because Gemini is arguably the boldest-faced name on the list, as it’s the one founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss — the Ivy League twins who transitioned from tech world objects of bemusement to mainstream ding dongs in 2010 film The Social Network.
It sure doesn’t help those guys that the average person who knows who they are now conflates them with ongoing pariah Armie Hammer, and suggests that a jury trial — should James’s case make it that far — will be fun at selection time. More coverage on how the twins, as well as these other companies, allegedly misled investors behind the paywall at Wired, the NYT, and Bloomberg. — EB
Jakob Ingebrigtsen, brothers accuse father of violence, threats [Reuters via ESPN]
In an op-ed for Norwegian newspaper VG, internationally famous sprinters Jakob, Henrik and Filip Ingebrigtsen write that their father and former coach, Gjert, was physically and emotionally abusive to them on and off the track.
All three of the Ingebrigtsen sons won the European 1,500 meter title during their running careers, and Jakob took Olympic gold in the event in 2021. “We have grown up with a father who has been very aggressive and controlling and who has used physical violence and threats as part of his upbringing. We still feel discomfort and fear which has been in us since childhood,” the man write.
“Somehow we have accepted this. We have lived with it, and in adulthood we have moved on. At least we thought so. In retrospect, we realise that it was naive. But two years ago, the same aggression and physical punishment struck again. It was the drop that made the cup run over.” Via statement, their father denies their claims, but says “That I have weaknesses as a father, and have been too much of a coach, is a realisation I have also come to, albeit far too late.” — EB
The Strange but True Story of the Pioneer Woman’s Link to Killers of the Flower Moon [Vanity Fair]
It took me a lot longer to write this for Vanity Fair than I expected it to — as it turns out, many folks who live near the Drummond family’s estimated $275 million worth of land in Osage County are very reluctant to speak on the record. But public and historical records tell the tale of how the family started its accumulation of riches during the Reign of Terror, that wave of homicides depicted in the Scorsese movie that comes out today. (BTW, the movie is stunningly, breathtakingly good. If you’re comfortable with indoor gatherings, seeing it in the theater is ideal.)
Since the story dropped, yesterday a number of folks have asked me if I think the 1920s-era Drummonds did more than I wrote about here. Did they “just” work within the corrupt and racist systems set up by the U.S. government, generating the generational advantages and wealth that folks like the state’s attorney general (a grandson of the Drummond brothers) and Ree “Pioneer Woman” Drummond (who married into the family) benefit from today?
I don’t know the answer to that question, but, man oh man, the number of folks who darkly suggested to me that there was more to the tale sure is staggering. Osage leader Everett Walker told me when we last spoke that he believes that the film (in which he appears) will spur even more investigation into “who did what back then.” Of course, if you go back far enough in many privileged folks’ family histories and you’ll find a shameful aspect to their wealth. The question, I guess, is what you do when you find out about that. Do you work to make up for the sins that led to your current comfort, or do you continue to capitalize on them, saying that that is how things were “back then,” and there’s not much to do about it now? — EB
Monday on Best Evidence: Sarah lends her ear to Erased: The Murder of Elma Sands.
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