A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

(C) 2008 Reprise Records On May 13, 2008, Reprise Records released Frank Sinatra: Nothing But the Best, a compilation album of songs recorded by Frank Sinatra for Reprise (the label he founded in 1960) in the 1960s and '70s. Its release was timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Sinatra's death (May 14, 1998), although at least one edition of the album - the British - was issued on May 9, 2008. Nothing But the Best is not an overview of Francis Albert Sinatra's entire career - a period that began in 1935 when he sang with Harry James and His Orchestra and officially ended in 1994. Most of the 22 songs in the album are from the 1960s, although at least one (Frank's cover of 1977's  New York, New York ) was originally recorded for 1980's three-record set Trilogy: Past Present Future.  The album (which was released in three different versions: the one-CD edition, the Christmas 2-CD set with Nothing But the Best and a Sinatra "Christmas song...

(C) 2007 Sony BMG Music Entertainment/Sony Legacy Records and Florentine Films On September 26, 2007, 300 or so Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member stations in the United States aired A Necessary War, the first episode of Ken Burns’ seven-part   documentary series about the American experience in World War II. A bottom-up story told mainly by the residents – civilians and military veterans – of four quintessentially American towns (Waterbury, CT, Mobile, AL, Luverne, MN, and Sacramento, CA), The War: A Ken Burns Film – unlike British ITV’s The World at War – focuses primarily on personal experiences, with more intimate reminisces about the human experience of war instead of discussions about tactics, grand strategy, and Big Power politics. The War was originally scheduled to air on September 15, 2007, but protests by Latino and Native American advocates about Burns’ emphasis on stories told by white and African American interviewees at the expense of their narrative c...