Blog

He’s Henry VIII, he is

Tuesday, Thirteen-WNET, PBS’ New York flagship, offered a fascinating juxtaposition – “Inside the Court of Henry VIII” and, on “Frontline,” “Trump’s Takeover,” – about the president’s takeover of the Republican Party, a documentary that looks chillingly prescient airing as it did a day before House Speaker Paul “Paulie PowerPoint” Ryan announced that he would not seek reelection and instead intended to spend more time with his family. (I love the poster on The New York Times who wrote, “What makes him think his family wants to spend more time with him?” ...

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‘Darkest Hour’:  a timely tale of courage

Hindsight, they say, is 20/20. If it is, it must be with prescriptive rose-colored glasses. Because the past has been completed – successfully or otherwise – we tend to think of it as having been lived with a foregone conclusion. We forget that at the time, the past was the present, the outcome never assured.

“Darkest Hour” – an inspirational new film directed with subtle tension by Joe Wright (“Pride & Prejudice”) – recounts several weeks in May 1940 when England stood alone in a world on the brink of totalitarianism. It stars a soaring Gary Oldman, virtually unrecognizable ...

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‘A world elsewhere’: A Bard’s-eye view of Brexit

It’s a story worthy of the Bard and, like all great narratives, it has many juicy plotlines to unravel.

Shall we begin with the rudderless winners or the heartsick losers, the aggrieved Continent looking for payback or the partner nations forced into a choice not of their making?

Or should we consider how the land of Shakespeare and Shelley, Charles Dickens and  Winston Churchill could be so shortsighted?

Why not begin with England’s leaders – Labour and Conservative Party members alike – who showed an appalling lack of Alexandrian leadership, by which I mean leadership from the frigging front, including a definite plan B (the need for which Alexander the Great learned from his teacher Aristotle). The Brexit brigade not only didn’t have plan B. It didn’t have plan A.1. It’s like the hapless title characters in “The Producers,” who never actually anticipated the outcome they strove for. Indeed, neither the Leave nor the Remain leaders thought a leave-taking was really in the offing. Each side was just hoping to use the referendum on whether or not the United Kingdom should exit the European Union to its political advantage. And that never works. ...

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Shadow in the sun: The real Elizabeth I

Goodness, I don’t know how much longer I, an Elizabeth I fan, can hang with “Reign.”

This season, The CW series about Mary, Queen of Scots has introduced another nemesis apart from her ever-hating mother-in-law, Catherind de’ Medici – Elizabeth I of England.

But portraying Elizabeth as a mean girl is so limiting – particularly when the truth is more delicious than the fiction. ...

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