A scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” —“Madeleine” at the Golden Gate Bridge, Fort Point, right before she jumps into San Francisco Bay.

'Vertigo' and the idea of the other

June 4, 2023

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film “Vertigo” has reached what The Washington Post called in its reappraisal ‘Medicare age,’which got me thinking about my favorite movie — one that regularly appears on lists for the greatest, or one of the greatest, films to date. But is it, as The Post suggests, a story for our #MeToo times or rather a more complex tale of the human desire to project onto others our own dreams, fears and desires?

To watch or not to watch the Beijing Games

February 2, 2022

The Beijing Winter Games officially launch Friday, Feb. 4, with the opening ceremonies airing on NBC, and for many of us it will be something of a guilty pleasure.

Climate change. Human rights abuses. Restrictions on freedom of expression. Covid outbreaks. Critics charge that the Chinese do not have a great track record here and that a full boycott, such as the one the U.S. instituted in 1980 against the Moscow Summer Games when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, would’ve hit them in their prestige and their wallet.

Challenging the alphas: The cases of Kyle Rittenhouse, Peng Shuai and Ahmaud Arbery

December 3, 2021

When the history of the early decades of this century is written 100 years from now, it will be recorded as a time when those who had power were challenged by those who did not.

A world lit by fire, part two

May 31, 2020

The great comedian Red Skelton acidly remarked of the well-attended funeral of tyrannical movie boss Harry Cohn, “Well, it just goes to show you: Give the people what they want and they’ll turn out for it.”

President Donald J. Trump has given the people what they didn’t want — American carnage — and they’ve turned out for it anyway. Boy, have they turned out for it. Protesters from sea to shining sea this weekend have made the tiki torches of the white supremacists .who terrorized Charlottesville in 2017 look like candles in the wind. (I wonder if Trumpet is measuring the size of these crowds.)

Baby, it's cold outside for culture warriors

December 19, 2018

At the office holiday party the other night, the newly controversial song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” came up on the playlist. I explained to my publisher that the 1949 Oscar-winning song – which composer Frank Loesser had actually written five years earlier and performed with wife Lynn Garland as a kind of calling card at parties – has come under fresh scrutiny in the #MeToo era for its lyrics and the way they’re performed.

Donald Trump’s female trouble

March 14, 2018

The House Republicans are about to release their findings on Russkiegate and, shock of all shocks, they say there’s no collusion between President Donald J. Trumpet and Russkie Prez Vladimir “Vlad the Lad, Rootin’, Tootin’” Putin.

Given that intelligence committee chair Devin Nunes was basically a lap dog for Trumpet – running over to the White House and hiding in the bushes with fake charges about the Obama administration’s conspiracy against the Trumpet campaign – this was always a foregone conclusion.

Meanwhile, Robert Mueller’s investigation, which apparently has bigger fish to fry than obstruction of justice charges against Donnie Two Scoops, continues to go on its methodical way.

Regardless, I’ve never thought Russkiegate was going to bring The Donald down. Rather, it has always been about the two Ws – Wall Street and women. ...

The emotional minefield of #MeToo

February 4, 2018

The #MeToo movement continues to explode, and we continue to tread gingerly through its landmine-riddled landscape.

The New York Times skewers Alec Baldwin for satirizing P-Grabber in Chief Donald J. Trump while defending filmmakers Woody Allen and James Toback, both accused of sexual abuses. Actress/author Rose McGowan – who’s been fiercely outspoken in her accusations of film producer Harvey Weinstein raping her – cuts off interviewer Christiane Amanpour before she can read a Weinstein response to McGowan’s new book, “Brave.” Museums wonder what their response should be to photographer Chuck Close, who has apologized for sexual harassment.

And yet, a woman friend of mine, a Hillary Clinton supporter whom I consider to be strong on women’s issues, wonders if we’ve gone too far ...