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 ...

The State of the Union – the Trumps’ and ours

February 4, 2018

President Donald J. Trumpet went all “Kumbaya” in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, proclaiming the pablum platitude that every president proclaims – that the state of the union is strong, because the American people are strong and together they’ll continue to be strong, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Look, it’s too little, too late. The mean-spirited, divisive damage is already done, with more always just an unscripted tweet away. And in case you didn’t get that message ...

The Met’s #MeToo moment – ‘Tosca’

January 30, 2018

The Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca” – an opera about sexual harassment – was rocked by that now seemingly ubiquitous phenomenon. Already reeling from the loss of the original stars and conductor, the production took a giant step back when the second conductor, former music director James Levine, was hit with sexual abuse allegations and suspended a little less than a month before the New Year’s Eve premiere. Ten days after Levine’s suspension, Bryn Terfel, scheduled to play the villain, withdrew, citing vocal fatigue.

Sometimes, however, you get not what you want but what was meant – or who was meant. That The Met pulled off this ‘Tosca’ is a relief. That it’s as wonderful as it is, is nothing short of a miracle. ...

Melania Trump, an appreciation

January 26, 2018

It’s official: Melania Trump has Princess Diana-ed the Donald.

One of the ways that the late, loved, lamented Diana, Princess of Wales, checkmated her philandering hubby, Prince Charles, was with a carefully timed photo op – looking beautifully forlorn alone in front of the Taj Mahal, that monument to love, in Catherine Walker red and purple; or drop-dead gorgeous in that black, silk, off-the-shoulder Stambolian cocktail number at the Serpentine Gallery in London after Chuck-chop revealed his infidelity on TV; or purposeful in the charity work she did, supporting AIDS sufferers and landmine victims. ...

A timely ‘Post’ about an underestimated woman

January 23, 2018

We get, it is often said, the art we deserve – that is, the art we need, the art that the times demand.

That certainly could be said of the new Steven Spielberg thriller, “The Post.” The story of a First Amendment showdown between a rising newspaper, The Washington Post, and the Nixon White House, “The Post” works on several different planes – politically, professionally and personally, as Edie Demas, executive director of the Jacob Burns Film Center, noted at the screening I attended. As such the movie speaks to an era in which “fake news” and #MeToo have become buzzwords. ...

The setting of a sun god

January 2, 2018

There were no less than three sexual harassment stories in Tuesday’s New York Times.

A story headlined “300 Strong: Hollywood Women Unite to Fight Harassment” detailed the agenda of the new Time’s Up initiative, which includes a legal defense fund, already backed by $13 million in donations, to protect underprivileged women “from sexual misconduct and the fallout from reporting it.” The initiative is also calling for women to turn the Golden Globes’ red carpet Sunday into a bully pulpit as they don basic black to talk about the sexual harassment issue instead of what they’re wearing. ...

‘Darkest Hour’: a timely tale of courage

December 31, 2017

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 ...