The Lost Leonardo · The Malice At The Palace · The Dropout
Plus a sobriety cult, Discovery steps to "Love After Lockup," and more
the true crime that's worth your time
The August bonus-review topic has been chosen! Not the direction I thought y’all’d end up going, but I’m intrigued to see what The Salisbury Poisonings has in store for me — and/or for you, if you want to watch along and compare notes.
But that review is for paid subscribers only, I’m afraid, so if you’d like to read that — and all the other paywalled content we’ve got back here in the climate-controlled archives with the special gloves* — join us at the paid level! — SDB
*not actually a thing we do, but it’s fun to think about
The crime
It’s not entirely clear if there IS a crime in The Lost Leonardo, or if there is, which ONE it is: art fraud, Famous Ray’s Original fraud, illegal arms-dealing…of course, what The Lost Leonardo is really about is appearance vs. perception and the mystery surrounding the work’s actual location. So, whether a crime occurred is almost as secondary to the conversation as whether the Salvator Mundi is a “real” Leonardo, because the documentary isn’t entirely about the painting itself.
The story
And that’s the problem. Even a “bad” art-crimes doc is worthwhile IME — if only because, for 90-110 quiet minutes that smell faintly of nailpolish remover, I’m immersed in a crime that ISN’T investigating the terrified demises of “special victims” — and The Lost Leonardo isn’t even bad; it’s just not as much about said Leonardo as it is about marketing and branding in the 21st-century art world. TLL gets great access to key figures in the story of this disputed work, and the idea that, to art-world denizens, works aren’t about the emotion they elicit or the skill they evince but the money they’re license to print for auction houses and musea isn’t uninteresting.
But as Slant’s Chris Barsanti points out, while that part of the Salvator Mundi’s story may be the “real” story, it may not be what viewers come for, because…we know:
While the intersection of hype, art, and money is fertile territory and Koefoed makes the most of it, he misses the opportunity to look more deeply at the somewhat mediocre painting itself and whether it deserved the fairly laughable billing as the “male Mona Lisa.” Aside from a couple very justifiable questions about whether Modestini went too far in her five-year restoration—possibly making it more a Modestini than da Vinci—aesthetic matters are mostly put to the side, with Koefoed more engaged with the business surrounding the art.
Director Andreas Koefoed (Ballroom Dancer) is capable, and he and cinematographer Adam Jandrup how to shoot: the art, the shadowy “free ports” where great works sometimes live in loan-collateral limbo for years on end, the matte-crimson frown of restorer Dianne Modestini. As is, it’s a pleasant and informative hour and a half, at least until the Saudi prince shows up to cast a pall over a story that, until then, had felt like a fizzy and bookish minor scandal — even when a Russian oligarch was suing his art agent to hell and gone for taking a 100-percent markup. But when the film moves away from the provenance proper and into the fiscal and emotional investments IN the provenance, it misses an opportunity.
The Lost Leonardo opens in New York and L.A. next Friday, August 13; I’d thought the film was coming to VOD shortly thereafter, but now I’m not seeing that in the press materials. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if it got picked up for distribution by Independent Lens or turned up on Netflix by the holidays, so I won’t tell you to rush out and see it in theaters, but if it crosses your path in another medium, see what you think. — SDB
The “Enthusiastic Sobriety” program: effective rehab — or cult? The second I got to this part of Daniel Kolist’s longread on ES for Atavist Mag,
Today, ES outfits run by members of [Bob] Meehan’s inner circle still exist in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, and North Carolina.
ES also ensnared staff and some clients in what people who’ve abandoned it now call a cult. Meehan and his closest confidants—a group dubbed the Family—controlled every aspect of members’ lives.
I came down on the “cult” side. Amazing how various kookballs sects have corrupted the term “family,” eh what? As I made my way through the article, ES (and all the other names self-professed con artist Meehan came up with for it over the years in order to continue the grift) started to seem more like a shape-shifting healthcare-fraud con than a cult, but it’s not like the cult/long-con Venn isn’t pretty much just a circle anyway. Other “highlights” of the piece include
just how many Carol Burnett Show vets’ kids got ensnared by Meehan’s program, and to what degree;
the member of ZZ Top who produced Meehan’s vanity album;
a Houston Chronicle series called “Profitable Addictions” that I can’t seem to track down, but which IS cited in Kitty Dukakis’s book lauding ECT (…the sentences I type sometimes, I swear);
and that Oprah Winfrey apparently isn’t the best at discerning when recovering addicts are repackaging a load of shit as chicken salad (op. cit. James Frey).
It’s a compelling, well-paced read but very long, so set aside a good chunk of time for this one. — SDB
It took me so long to read it, in fact, that I’m going to close out today’s edish with a fast Friday five. Every Holmes but Sherlock, so buckle up!
Impeachment: American Crime Story replaces Betty Gilpin as Ann Coulter with Cobie Smulders [Deadline] // I love Gilpin, but I think Smulders is also fine in the role; the most striking aspect of this headline is that, the last time I looked, I:ACS was supposed to debut in like a month.
The first episode of Netflix sports docuseries Untold drops next Tuesday [Netflix PR] // Here’s more on the series — from the looks of it, the ’flix’s answer to 30 For 30, as episodes will drop weekly — from What’sOnNetflix.com. As with 3F3, while it’s not specifically crime-forward, there’s a lot of crossover in a couple of the stories. The premiere, “Malice At The Palace,” is kind of a neighborhood play in that regard, as the infamous November 2004 NBA brawl did lead to assault charges for some. Here’s a trailer:
Discovery+ twist on “intra-carceral intimate relationships,” Prisoner of Love, set to drop Monday August 30 [The Futon Critic] // Looks like Discovery’s trying to eat WE’s …After Lockup lunch (Life After Lockup is back the previous Friday) with their own twist on the docuseries concept, namely “prison matchmaker” Chelsea Holmes (and a whole lot of impressively bad puns about pickup BARS…geddit?).
Dr. Death’s third season focuses on an Italian surgeon [Rolling Stone] // Wondery’s multi-platform hit heads overseas to look at Paolo Macchiarini, who “manipulated his patients, including the woman he was set to marry,” and performed experimental procedures on them sans consent. No word on whether Italian statutes classify Macchiarini’s puzzling Boris Johnson coif as a misdemeanor.
Theranos podcast The Dropout will return to cover Elizabeth Holmes’s trial at month’s end [ABC] // Well, I’m in! From the podcast’s landing page: “Starting August 31st, 2021, in a series of new episodes, ‘The Dropout: Elizabeth Holmes on Trial’ will take you inside the courtroom, breaking down the evidence and keeping score for both sides until 12 jurors decide the fate of the Theranos founder and new mother. Three years after she was first charged, we find out how this saga finally ends.” I mean, I don’t know — this is starting to feel like the MacDonald case in terms of its ability to taffy-stretch itself out for years on end — but I’ll try to enjoy the narrative ride. — SDB
Next week on Best Evidence: Super Heists, bus-nappings, and Hilarie Burton Morgan joins the fray.
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