Books, Celebrity Chatter

“Diving for Starfish” is a 14-karat mystery, wrapped among the rich and famous and 71 cabochon rubies and 241 amethysts

It’s a fascinating read, a sparkling mystery wrapped in the world of the super-rich and priceless jewels. Literally. In Diving for Starfish: The Jeweler, the Actress, the Heiress, and One of the World’s Most Alluring Pieces of Jewelry (St. Martin’s Press, 26.99), Cherie Burns takes readers on a search for a dazzling, elusive starfish pin—one of the most coveted pieces of jewelry in the world. 

Created in the early 1930’s by a young designer in the workroom of the famous Parisian jeweler Boivin, the starfish pin was distinctive because its five rays were articulated, meaning that they could curl and conform to the bustline or shoulder of the women who wore it. The House of Boivin crafted only three of these gold starfish, each one encrusted with 71 cabochon rubies and 241 small amethysts. The women who were able to capture the rare starfish were as fabulous as the pin itself.

Millicent Rogers, socialite and fashion icon, and Claudette Colbert, Hollywood leading lady, were two of the women adorned by one of the three pins that exist today. Obsessed with the pin after she saw it in the private showroom of a Manhattan jewelry merchant, Burns set off on a journey to find out all she could about the elusive pins and the women who owned them. Her search took her around the world to Paris, London, New York and Hollywood.

Image result for starfish pin colbert
Millicent Rogers wearing her starfish brooch.

Both a history of fine jewelry coming out of Paris in the Golden Age and a tour through the secretive world of high-end, privately-sold jewelry, Diving for Starfish is a stylish detective story with a glittering piece of jewelry and the equally dazzling women who loved them.

DVDs, Movies

The breakthrough “Shakespeare Wallah”, with a gorgeous 2K digital restoration, is now on Blu-ray, DVD and digital platforms 

One of the first Merchant Ivory productions, the sumptuous Shakespeare Wallah established the tone for so many of the collaborations to come from producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory: the deft, multilayered screenplay by their frequent collaborator Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, luminous cinematography, a wry sense of humor and a cast of characters rich in their very human complexity.
Cohen Film Collection’s new restoration of the film, released in theaters nationwide in 2017, came from the 35mm composite fine grain master held at the archive of the George Eastman Museum. The scan and 2K digital restoration was completed in conjunction with the British Film Institute’s Unlocking Film Heritage program. This breakthrough film is now on Blu-ray, DVD and digital platforms.
The true story of British actor-manager Geoffrey Kendal and his family of traveling theatrical players is used as a fascinating lens into the ever-evolving relationship between Great Britain and India. The film follows Tony Buckingham (Geoffrey Kendal) and his wife, Carla (Laura Liddell), as the actor-managers of a troupe who travel through ’60s post-colonial India staging Shakespeare’s plays. But the Buckinghams come to realize to their dismay that classic English theater is falling out of favor in a changing country where the public has become more excited by the explosion of vibrant Bollywood films – and, more deeply, is looking to move beyond everything British. Meanwhile, the Buckinghams’ daughter Lizzie (future Britcom favorite Felicity Kendal) becomes involved in a love triangle that would fit perfectly in both a Shakespeare drama and a Bollywood musical.
With music by the great Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray and memorable performances by cinema icons Shashi Kapoor and Madhur Jaffrey (who won the Silver Bear award for Best Actress at the 1965 Berlin International Film Festival), Shakespeare Wallah remains a one-of-kind gem of modern world cinema.
Both the Blu-ray and the DVD editions are supplemented with a wealth of bonus material, including a conversation with the filmmakers, featuring Ismail Merchant, James Ivory, Shashi Kapoor and Felicity Kendal; the film’s original trailer; and its 2017 rerelease trailer.
DVDs, Movies

“My Friend Dahmer” tells the fascinating story of Jeffrey, before he went on his infamous killing spree

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was known as the Milwaukee Cannibal—more precise, he was a serial killer and sex offender, who committed the rape, murder and dismemberment of 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. Many of his murders involved necrophilia, cannibalism and the preservation of body parts. Ugh.

My Friend Dahmer is the story before that story. It’s based on the acclaimed graphic novel about him; its screenplay landed a spot on the coveted “Black List,” ranking it as one of the best un-produced screenplays (at the time) before becoming a hit movie.

Jeff Dahmer (portrayed by Lynch) is an awkward teenager struggling to make it through high school with a family life in ruins. He collects roadkill, fixates on a neighborhood jogger (Kartheiser), and copes with his unstable mother (Heche) and well intentioned father (Roberts). He begins to act out at school, and his goofball antics win over a group of band-nerds who form The Dahmer Fan Club, headed by Derf Backderf (Wolff). But this camaraderie can’t mask his growing depravity. Approaching graduation, Jeff spirals further out of control, inching ever closer to madness.
The flick played extensively on the festival circuit, premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival and going on to play at LA Film Festival, Deauville Film Festival and American Film Festival. The film features an all-star cast that includes Emmy Nominee Anne Heche, Vincent Kartheiser, Ross Lynch, Alex Wolff and Dallas Roberts.
Books, Celebrity Chatter

The road to all things Broadway can be found in architect Fran Leadon’s “Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles”

They say the neon light are bright on Broadway. But Manhattan’s “Broadway” is much more than flashing marquees and glitzy shops. It is a 13-mile street stretch that runs from State Street at Bowling Green through the borough of Manhattan. (There’s 2 miles through the Bronx, exiting north from the city to run an additional 18 miles through the municipalities of Yonkers, Hastings-On-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Irvington and Tarrytown, and terminating north of Sleepy Hollow in Westchester County.
Broadway is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in New York City, dating to the first New Amsterdam settlement, although most of it did not bear its current name until the late 19th century. The name Broadway is the English language literal translation of the Dutch name, Brede weg.

The road to all things Broadway can be found in architect Fran Leadon’s Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles (W.W. Norton, $35).

Broadway takes us on a mile-by-mile journey that traces the gradual evolution of the 17th-century’s Brede Weg, a muddy cow path in a backwater Dutch settlement, to the 20th-century’s Great White Way. We learn why one side of the street was once considered more fashionable than the other. We witness construction of the Ansonia Apartments, Trinity Church, and the Flatiron Building and the burning of P.T. Barnum’s American Museum. We discover that Columbia University was built on the site of an insane asylum.
Library of Congress
Our fave Broadway site: the Flatiron Building, way back when
Along the way we meet Alexander Hamilton; Edgar Allen Poe; John James Audubon; Emma Goldman; “Bill the Butcher” Poole; “Texas” Guinan, and the assorted real estate speculators, impresarios, and politicians who helped turn Broadway into a living paradigm of American progress, at its best and worst. With maps and more than 75 black-and-white photos throughout, Broadway tells the vivid story of what is arguably the world most famous thoroughfare.
DVDs, Movies

Johnny Orlando, Ambyr Childers and Jon Heder star in a reimagined “Pinocchio”

We never tell a lie. We know what happens if we do . . . our nose starts to grow and we being taking on the look of a famous wooden wonder.

The colorful family adventure Pinocchio includes new wonders you’ve never imagined. This witty, wondrous version of the classic family adventure has been reimagined for a new generation and bursting with songs, color, laughter and thrills. Carved by a lonely woodcutter longing for a real son, playful Pinocchio is eager to do good and become human—but he keeps getting distracted from his quest. Constantly captured by con men, creatures and constables, he finds rescue courtesy of the helpful souls who recognize the wooden puppet’s kind heart.

Awarded the Dove Seal of Approval, this “wonderful family film” (The Dove Foundation) is a modern-day retelling of the timeless fable of a boy puppet and the lessons he learns from his misadventures. It comes to DVD, Digital and On Demand April 10 from Lionsgate.

The film features the voice talents of YouTube sensation and musical artist Johnny Orlando, Ambyr Childers and Jon Heder. Added bonus: The DVD includes a never-before-seen featurette, “Bringing the Characters to Life: At the Recording Studio with Johnny Orlando, Jon Heder and Ambyr Childers”.

This is an adventure you wooden believe!

Books

Historian William Hitchcock’s “The Age of Eisenhower” is an absorbing, serious biography at its best

Historian William Hitchcock shoots straight. Direct. And his news is factual truth. Witness an expert from his USA Today op-ed, published February 12.

“The last Army general to occupy the White House, Dwight D. Eisenhower, would be spinning in his grave if he knew that President Trump, a man who used a medical deferment to avoid combat service in Vietnam, was planning a giant military parade in Washington.”

The op-ed was a well-written reminder that The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s (Simon & Schuster, $35) was being released; Hitchcock’s massive tome is not only an absorbing, serious biography at its best, but it could (if needed) serve as a murder weapon.

Since I grew up long after the I LIKE IKE movement was around, I never had a chance to understand what the fuss was about. Now I do.

In a 2017 survey, presidential historians ranked Dwight D. Eisenhower fifth on the list of great presidents, behind the perennial top four: Lincoln, Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Teddy Roosevelt. Hitchcock shows that this high ranking is justified. Eisenhower’s accomplishments were enormous and loom ever larger from the vantage point of our own tumultuous times. A former general, Ike kept the peace: He ended the Korean War, avoided a war in Vietnam, adroitly managed a potential confrontation with China, and soothed relations with the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death.

He guided the Republican Party to embrace central aspects of the New Deal like Social Security. He thwarted the demagoguery of McCarthy, and he advanced the agenda of civil rights for African Americans. As part of his strategy to wage and win the Cold War, Eisenhower expanded American military power, built a fearsome nuclear arsenal and launched the space race.

In his famous Farewell Address, he acknowledged that Americans needed such weapons in order to keep global peace, but he also admonished his citizens to remain alert to the potentially harmful influence of the “military-industrial complex”.

From 1953 to 1961, no one dominated the world stage as did President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Age of Eisenhower is the definitive account of this presidency, drawing extensively on declassified material from the Eisenhower Library, the CIA, and the Defense Department and troves of unpublished documents. In his masterful account, Hitchcock shows how Ike shaped modern America, and he astutely assesses Eisenhower’s close confidants, from Attorney General Brownell to Secretary of State Dulles.

The result is an eye-opening reevaluation that explains why this “do-nothing” president is rightly regarded as one of the best leaders our country has ever had.

Books

A full-dressed teen found at the bottom of her family’s pool. Dive into Mary Higgins Clark’s latest mystery, “I’ve Got My Eyes on You”

Some whine that Mary Higgins Clark is the Queen of “cut and paste”. Nonsense. Jackie Collins held that title.  Clark maintains the honor of being known as the “Queen of Suspense”.  Mary Higgins Clark remains in top form after more than 40 years of delivering hit suspense novels

Clark’s latest: I’ve Got My Eyes on You (Simon & Schuster, $26.99). What can we tell you about the page-turner? Just a bit to lure you into the mystery as we were . . .

After a party when her parents are away, 18-year-old Kerry Dowling is found fully dressed at the bottom of the family pool. The immediate suspect is her boyfriend who had a bitter argument with her at the party. Then there is a 22-year-old intellectually impaired neighbor who was angry because she didn’t invite him to the party.  Or is there someone else who is not yet on the radar screen?

Kerry’s older sister Aline, a 28-year-old guidance counselor, is determined to help the detective assigned to the case find the truth. She does not realize that now she is putting her own life in danger . . .

DVDs, Movies, TV

“Secrets of the Dead: Scanning the Pyramids” solves a 4,500-year-old mystery

The secrets the dead reveal!

Following the publication of Nature‘s article acknowledging the greatest discovery in Egypt’s Khufu pyramid for more than 1,000 years, Secrets of the Dead: Scanning the Pyramids (PBS Distribution) unveils the adventure behind this revelation in this new documentary. The only one of the Seven Wonders of the World still standing, the Great Pyramid of Khufu has fascinated people for centuries. Tracing the origin of the legends of secret chambers hidden in the heart of the pyramid, the program shows what lies within, solving a 4,500-year-old mystery, by following the first scientific mission in 30 years to be authorized by the Egyptian government to examine the pyramids of Egypt.

Passionate about ancient history, the global team of Scan Pyramids consists of particle physicists, experts in innovation and 3D technologies, and engineers in thermal imaging from Egypt, France, Japan and Canada. For more than two years, they explored every corner of the pyramid, using non-invasive technologies including infrared cameras, 3D scanners and cosmological particle detectors located inside and outside the monument. Their search detected unknown cavities in the Great Pyramid of Khufu for the first time since the Middle Ages. Viewers are able to witness Scan Pyramid’s adventures and successes in this extraordinary scientific and historical journey through time and space that led to this historic discovery.

DVDs, Movies, TV

The harrowing journey of Sudan, the last male of his sub-species, the Northern White Rhinoceros, is told in “The Last Rhino”

Meet Sudan, the last male of his sub-species, the Northern White Rhinoceros. NATURE: The Last Rhino (PBS Distribution) tells his harrowing journey through the international cast of characters who have been involved in Sudan’s life, from when he was snatched as a calf from his mother’s side in war-torn Central Africa, to his captivity as a prized exhibit in a cold, concrete zoo behind the Iron Curtain while poaching devastated his kind to extinction back home.

Now at 43 years old and half-blind, Sudan is living out his days under 24-hour armed guard, on a protective sanctuary in Kenya. As his kind nears its last hour, scientists and animal experts turn to technology in a race to save the Northern White Rhino before it dies out forever.

Books

The main reason we love Ruth Bader Ginsburg: She hates Adolph Frump as much as we do. Smart lady. And what quotes!

The main reason we love Ruth Bader Ginsburg:  She hates Adolph Frump as much as we do. Smart lady.

While she’s been a Supreme Court Justice for the past 25 years, Ginsburg is in the forefront of American politics and culture now more than ever before.

She is continually in the news for her opposition to the Frump administration. She is an icon to the modern feminist movement. On May 4 the documentary RBG, focusing on Justice Ginsburg’s life and career, will be released in selected theaters, and it has already been selected for the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

Need more Justice Ginsburg? Have her handy . . . and in your pocket. With nearly 150 quotes from RBG herself, You Can’t Spell Truth Without Ruth (St. Martin’s Press, $16.99) is the perfect handy-sized dose of motivation and inspiration for change-makers in the world today. Let RBG’s words on law and life from her past 25 years on the bench of the Supreme Court  give you courage to stand up and say, “I dissent.”

You Can't Spell Truth Without Ruth: An Unauthorized Collection of Witty & Wise Quotes from the Queen of Supreme, Ruth Bader GinsburgHer quotes are witty and wise. Think:

  • “If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.”

  • “As long as I can do the job full steam, I will do it.”

  • “Yes, there are miles in front, but what a distance we have travelled.”