Charlton Heston’s Moses parts the Red Sea in “The Ten Commandments” (1956).

COVID and America's 'pharaoh'

April 15, 2020

“The Ten Commandments” (1956), a hokey Cecil B. DeMille film that used to be shown every year as a Passover-Easter observance, nonetheless contains a smart exchange between Prince Moses (Charlton Heston, all lock-jawed macho posturing) and the Pharaoh Sethi (Cedric Hardwick), whose son Rameses (Yul Brynner, all legs-planted macho posturing) is trying to drive a wedge between the two. Instigated by Rameses, Sethi wonders why Moses is wasting grain on the Hebrew slaves building his city of Goshen. Moses points out that well-fed slaves make many bricks; the poorly fed, few; and the dead, none.

I thought about this exchange as our American Pharaoh — no, not the racehorse but El Presidente Donald J. Trump — contemplates the reopening of America post-COVID-19.

In defense of Streep, the humanities – and humanity

January 11, 2017

The latest salvo in the culture war that is surely to deepen under President Donald Trump was fired by Meryl Streep in a graceful and grace-filled speech at the Golden Globes.

I’m not a fan of people using award shows as a bully pulpit, coming of age as I did in the 1970s when such Oscar speeches (think Vanessa Redgrave and an absent Marlon Brando) were a kind of cliché. I’m not a fan of gesture politics like refusing to stand for the National Anthem. I’m not even a fan of Meryl Streep, a sometimes mannered actress (“Sophie’s Choice,” “The Hours”) who’s nevertheless capable of great work (“Marvin’s Room,” “The Manchurian Candidate”).

But Streep – a hard-working craftswoman who has paid her dues – offered a master class in a performer giving a political speech by turning the concept of the politician as performer inside out. ...

Men – the fairer sex?

October 11, 2014

Boy, nothing gets women piqued faster than telling them that men are the better-looking sex.

I had this conversation with two female friends recently, one of whom skeptically said to me, “Do you really believe that?”

Yes, I do, though perhaps not in the way they might think. Of course, the average woman – with her makeup and her Spanx – might be more gussied up than the average guy. But what I mean is that aesthetically, the best-looking man is better-looking than the best-looking woman, that I would take the Apollo Belvedere over the Venus de Milo any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Blame it on hormones. Male hormones give them bigger, hotter, lusher, more dangerous looks that read easily across a crowded room. Consider Colin Kaepernick, photographed by Bruce Weber on the cover of the new V Man magazine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he has a nose like a toucan, closely cropped hair and lots of tattoos, which displease some of the fashion police.

And yet – wow – those eyes, like Cognac in firelight; those long, thick lashes; that cut jawline (to go with that cut body). Ladies, ladies, do you think a woman could carry those off? ...