There is a moment in “Casablanca” in which Resistance leader Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) – having escaped from a Nazi concentration camp – confronts a group of German officers in Rick’s Café Américain through music. The Germans are loudly, arrogantly singing “Die Wacht am Rhein,” an anthem that has its roots in French-German antagonism, when Victor orders the house band to strike up “La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem, to which club owner Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) acquiesces. One by one the club patrons rise and join in, all but Victor’s wife – and Rick’s former lover – Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman). As the others sing lustily, she sits thinking and marveling at all that has been lost and yet still remains.
It is one of the most moving moments in the history of cinema, one I couldn’t help but flashing on as the City of Light was plunged into the heart of darkness. The fans leaving the Stade de France – where one in a series of coordinated ISIS attacks took place on Friday the 13th – burst into “La Marseillaise.” The exchange students in Manhattan’s Union Square held hands as they sang it that night. And Placido Domingo led The Metropolitan Opera Chorus in it at Lincoln Center Saturday afternoon. It, too, is a symbol of all that has been lost and yet still remains. ...
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Read MoreThe racing world is a-flutter – and so am I: American Pharoah is up for Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year. As is Novak Djokovic once again.
OK, Nole – who hasn’t lost a tournament since the Ice Age – is never going to win. I’m assuming that when posters say they haven’t heard of some of the nominees, they mean him. And when they point out the year fellow nominee Serena Williams had, I know they don’t know what they’re talking about. No disrespect to Serena, but she won three Slams, lost in the semifinals of the fourth and then basically retired for the rest of the season. ...
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Read MoreNothing like the BNP Paribas Masters final in Paris between Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray to bring out the haters and the opinionaters – as well as a few wits – on the Internet.
Nole won 6-2, 6-4, which left plenty of people unhappy about oh, gee, just about everything – Nole dominating tennis, Andy’s service problems, Nole’s supposedly “robotic” play, Andy’s seemingly fatal attraction to the net, Nole’s shouting, Andy’s cursing, their “boring” baseline rivalry, even the winner’s trophy, which looked like a small metal tree that could take out a few eyeballs. (More on that in a bit.)
For the haters, Andy is British and not Fred Perry. Nole is, well, Nole and not Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. The Net’s cloak of anonymity allows posters to voice opinions that in another era would’ve been defamatory and libelous, to say nothing of vicious. Wishing Nole would break an ankle or implying that he owes his success to steroids without any proof is stupid, mean and downright unbalanced. ...
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Read MoreWell, things are heating up on the CW’s “Reign” now that Catherine de’ Medici, the mother-in-law from hell, is back in her son Francis II’s somewhat good graces. Meanwhile, the plot thickens across the Channel as Elizabeth I entertains Don Carlo, heir to Philip II of Spain, as a possible husband – throwing the tortured triangle of herself, her soul mate Robert Dudley and Dudley’s scheming wife Amy into sharp relief along with Elizabeth’s ambivalence toward marriage. Good stuff.
In reality, Don Carlo – the subject of an equally fanciful opera by Verdi, “Don Carlos” – was not the dashing, romantic figure of Verdi or the TV series but a deranged hunchback who may have been killed by his own father, who was in tur once Elizabeth’s brother-in-law, the husband of her sister and predecessor “Bloody Mary” Tudor. And to make things even cozier, Philip ended up marrying Elizabeth Valois, daughter of Catherine de’ Medici and BFF of her sister-in-law, and Francis’ wife, Mary, Queen of Scots. ...
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Read MoreThe San Francisco 49ers benched starting quarterback Colin Kaepernick for Sunday’s game against the Atlanta Falcons in favor of Blaine Gabbert, who played better but was promptly hit in the head, necessitating the return of Colin, who was booed by the fans. The 49ers beat the Falcons 17-16.
Needless to say, Kaepernick – who just turned 28 – was not happy about being told to take a breather.
"I'm not out of breath, so I don't understand that reference,” he told reporters. “I don't believe in pressure. Pressure is not being prepared for what you want to do. To me, I've played full seasons and had success. Mentally, I've been through it before. I'm not incapable of going through this." ...
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Read MoreNo sooner had The New York Times announced in a brief that Roger Federer had moved into the third round of the Paris Masters with a dazzling attacking display than, oops, he lost in the third round to John Isner and his 27 aces.
Ah, those Federinas. They always live in the hope that each Fed win will spell the return of the king – until, of course, the moment when he’s tripped up by someone who’s a one-trick pony. The truth is Isner is a big guy (6 feet, 10 inches) with a big serve. Period. When he’s on, though, he’s tough to beat, as Feddy Bear himself acknowledged in his delightfully solipsistic manner. ...
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Read MoreWell, I guess everything really is up-to-date in Kansas City.
The Kansas City Royals thrashed the New York Mets four games to one in the World Series. Really, the games were never as close as they sometimes seemed. The Royals, who were on a quest for Series glory ever since losing to the San Francisco Giants in a heartbreaker last year, reminded me a lot of the late-1990s New York Yankees – down by five runs in the seventh, up by six in the eighth. Not to mix sports metaphors here, but it’s like playing Novak Djokovic: When your opponent does everything solidly, you have no margin for error. And the Mets made plenty of errors, mentally and physically. The Royals had their oopses, but they were able to transcend in a way the Mets couldn’t. ...
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