Truth Gets Screwed in Larry Flynt Documentary
Larry Flynt: The Right to Be Left Alone ignores or mocks the porn tycoon's critics.
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Larry Flynt: The Right to Be Left Alone is the ideal companion piece to the 1996 film The People vs. Larry Flynt. That Oscar-nominated movie airbrushed much of Flynt’s unsavory life to show him as a First Amendment warrior of the highest order.
Sure, he peddled smut. But free speech laws were made for people like him.
The Right to Be Left Alone goes a few steps further. You might want to add Flynt’s mug to Mount Rushmore if you believe everything being spun here.
The new documentary, which airs August 7 at 9 p.m. on IFC, casts Flynt as much more than just a First Amendment warrior. He’s a one-man truth squad, saving America from the lies told by the mainstream press.
The documentary eschews traditional narration, a risky move but one which can work under the proper supervision. But director Joan Brooker-Marks shows no ability to shape her film in anything resembling a coherent fashion. It’s so unfocused that even Flynt’s genuine accomplishments get lost in the shuffling.
Still, it’s hard to imagine anyone else compiling a feature as accommodating to its source as The Right to Be Left Alone.
The man himself is the only connective material here. He speaks at length on a variety of subjects as if his fame and misfortune qualify him to be a pundit extraordinaire. He can be eloquent on some issues, and his mea culpa over the famous “meat grinder” cover of Hustler is a rare moment of candor. But more often he’s a self-promoter first and foremost, one who’s been able to change with the times to suit his PR needs.
Christian Toto is a freelance writer and film critic for The Washington Times. His work has appeared in People magazine, MovieMaker Magazine, The Denver Post, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Scripps Howard News Service. He also contributes movie radio commentary to three stations as well as the nationally syndicated Dennis Miller Show and runs the blog What Would Toto Watch?
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7 Comments
ursa major:Why anyone would watch a program on this scummiest of scumbags is beyond comprehension.
Aug 7, 2008 - 3:40 am RE:I too have wonder about anyone with any interest in a scumbag like Larry Flynt.
Aug 7, 2008 - 6:52 am kabud:there is something on Larry Flynt of a VERY BIG importance:
in 1983 KREMLIN shot down Korean passenger plane KAL 007
On board of that plane was US Congressman McDonald
Later in 1983 or 1984 Larry Flynt published phonographs of McDonald in bed with prostitute or something like that- very bad taste act, a devious act aimed to discredit diseased politician
Larry Flynt magazine Hustler also publish an article, A UNIQUE occasion when Hustler EVER published political analytics AND IT WAS A CONSPIRACY EXPLANATION HOW CIA SHOT DOWN KAL 007 to kill Congressman McDonald
article was written by Mae Brussell. Here is who she is:
Anyways, in the early ’80s publisher Larry Flynt’s Hustler magazine began sporting hard hitting and serious investigative anti-conspiracy journalism in its pages. Larry Flynt came into orbit with researcher Mae Brussell after she contacted him and explained who the personnel involved in the failed assassination attempt against him were which put Flynt permanently in a wheelchair. He was so impressed that this widowed housewife living in Carmel, California could know all this when his own security team were apparently stumped. Brussell and Flynt thus became closely associated and Mae began writing articles that Larry Flynt published in Hustler. (See http://www.maebrussell.com.)
As time progressed well into 1983, Flynt offered Brussell her own magazine so she could get exposure outside of Hustler. Flynt said, “Your stuff is so important and so great, Mae, I can give you a serious magazine with no nude pictures that’ll go up against Time and Newsweek and you can be at the helm as editor and we’ll pursue these gangsters ruining our country relentlessly. You pick who you want to write for it, I’ll put up whatever money needed.” Mae said: “Thanks, Larry, I’ll write for your new magazine, but I don’t want to be the editor.”
http://www.wavelengthtoronto.com/regulars/matrix/02_01.html
It is still a mistery:
who made pictures of Congressman McDonald?
who blackmailed him?
who delivered pictures to Hustler?
who is Mae Brussels and what is her REAL relationship to those who shot Larry Flynt?
Why all the above so closely Interveined?
There is one more character that i remember from 80s publications on KAL007:
John Rees, an aid to Congressman McDonald, a shady person, well rumor has that John Birch Society has thrown him out.
google it- you ‘ll find lots of interesting details mixed with desinformation
Aug 7, 2008 - 9:52 am newton:Who wants to watch a documentary film on Jabba the Hut? Really!
I don’t.
Aug 7, 2008 - 1:04 pm Zhombre:I will never forgive Milos Forman for directing The People v. Larry Flynt presenting this First Amendment liability as a First Amendment hero. If you can’t discern a pimp from a martyr then Western liberalism is blinkered and decadent.
Aug 7, 2008 - 4:24 pm