“Concussion” – starring Will Smith as Dr. Bennet Omalu, the forensic pathologist who blew the whistle on NFL head injuries and their relationship to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a form of dementia – opens on Christmas Day and is already stirring the pot.
Some say it’s too easy on the NFL.
Others that the movie plays fast and loose with the events and exaggerates the relationship between football and poor health.
“Are we actually watching players kill themselves before our eyes?” Daniel Engber writes for Slate. ...
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Read MoreWell, now we have the backlash to the fallout from Serena Williams being named Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsperson of the Year.”
How dare she be picked over fan fave American Pharoah, went the fallout.
How dare anyone compare her to a horse or pick an animal over an African-American female athlete, went the backlash.
Let me try to make a nuanced argument here, not the Internet’s forte. Williams was chosen as much for what she symbolizes – African-American female athleticism in a racially troubled country – as for what she has accomplished. ...
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Read MoreThe acclaimed new movie “The Danish Girl” – about the artist Einar Wegener, who became the first person to have male-to-female sex reassignment surgery – raises intriguing questions about the nature of art.
Specifically, should a transgender role be played by a transgender actor? (The film stars Eddie Redmayne, who won an Oscar for his performance as Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything” and has been nominated once again for a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for “Girl.”) More broadly, should creative and interpretive artists stick to their own experiences? The latter is a question that I have a vested interest in as the author of the debut novel “Water Music,” about four gay athletes and how their professional rivalries color their personal relationships with one another, and the forthcoming “The Penalty for Holding,” about a gay, biracial quarterback’s search for identity, success, acceptance and love in the NFL. (They’re both part of my series “The Games Men Play.”)
What, I’m often asked, would a woman – and a straight one at that – know about gay sex? ...
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Read MoreSerena Williams has been named Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsperson of the Year,” and, predictably, all Hades has broken loose.
Let’s forget those who voted successfully for American Pharoah in the fans’ poll. I voted for AP, though I knew SI staffers would never give the award to a four-legged athlete. (No word from the Pharoah on any residual disappointment. Given his lovely demeanor, my guess is he’s already tweeted Serena his congrats on his big new iPhone. So much easier to type on with hooves.)
Would that his two-legged counterparts were as gracious. That SI picked a tennis player other than Novak Djokovic sent up red flags among those who saw reverse prejudice. ...
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Read MoreAll hail the Pharoah.
American Pharoah has been named Sports Illustrated readers’ “Sportsman of the Year.” The SI staff’s choice will be announced tomorrow on SI.com and NBC’s “Today” show.
AP received 47 percent of the vote. The World Series’ winning Kansas City Royals garnered 29 percent, while soccer star Lionel Messi earned 6 percent. Tennis No. 1 Novak Djokovic finished ninth. ...
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Read MoreWith virtually everyone weighing in on Ol’ Blue Eyes 100th birthday Saturday, Dec. 12, I thought I’d put in my two cents since I covered him live and from a distance for Gannett.
Any discussion of Frank Sinatra begins and ends with talent. His was deep, varied and wrapped in a complex personality. Begin with the Voice – distinctive, limpid and punctuated by the impeccable phrasing and superb breath control he learned from bandleader Tommy Dorsey’s trombone playing. Throw in his dancing – a talent people don’t generally associate with Sinatra. But his was fluid and fleet. (See “Anchors Aweigh” or “On the Town.”) ...
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Read MoreI wasn’t planning to see the movie “Trumbo,” but I’m glad I did as it truly is a movie for our time.
It’s the story of Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) – a brilliant Oscar-winning screenwriter, born 110 years ago on Dec. 9 – who as one of the Hollywood Ten was blacklisted for refusing to testify in 1947 before the House Un-American Activities Committee investigating communism in the motion picture industry. (Trumbo was a member of the Communist Party from 1943 to ’48.) The film’s real subject, however, is fear and how it divides us – from others and from our better natures. ...
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