February 13, 2016

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Entertainment February 13, 2016

Great Romantic Movies (Without the Stuff That Make You Hate Romantic Movies)

This Valentine’s Day, you could stick with something traditional. You could check out that rom-com you and your partner have been meaning to check out. You could watch The Notebook and try very hard not to cry. You have your fair share of standard, go-to romantic options and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Or you could try something a little different. How about a romantic movie that finds time for gunfights? Or films that find intimacy and tenderness through perverse comedy? Or even something that will let you and your partner live vicariously through another couple as they solve mysteries as a duo? Yeah, you have additional options for sure.

True Romance

The title of Tony Scott’s True Romance initially reads like it’s going to be ironic. However, the relationship between Christian Slater’s small-time crook Clarence and Patricia Arquette’s former hooker Alabama is about as sweet as they come. Here are two movie characters who are head-over-heels in love with each other and it doesn’t feel fake or forced or even bittersweet.

This is Bonnie and Clyde with a happy ending and less erectile dysfunction, a good-natured romance about the perfect couple that also happens to feature violent executions and gun battles. If you want a little blood ‘n guts in your rom-com, you really cannot do better than this.

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The Thin Man

The high society couple who solve mysteries when they aren’t drinking an astonishing amount of booze and trading loving witticisms has become a cliche, a source of easy comedy. But Nick and Nora Charles invented this template and their relationship anchors The Thin Man and its many sequels, with stars William Powell and Myrna Loy showcasing a chemistry that countless other onscreen couples can’t even come close to touching.

You come for the mystery, but you stay for the couple solving that mystery as they remain as supportive and in love and as accepting of one another across seven movies.

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Punch-Drunk Love

Adam Sandler has never been pushed quite like how Paul Thomas Anderson pushes him in Punch-Drunk Love, which finds him turning his angry man-child persona inside out for a thorough self-examination. But the film is about more than Sandler showcasing some serious chops. It’s about how his Barry Egan finds the woman of his dreams in Emily Watson’s Lena Leonard and how these two eccentric oddballs complete each other in such specific ways.

A scene where they playfully threaten each other with bodily harm while lying in bed feels like it was torn straight from reality, reflecting how real couples cut loose and abandon their good graces when they’re alone and in love. “I have a love in my life. It makes me stronger than anything you can imagine,” Sandler growls at his nemesis during the film’s climax. And it’s true.

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Groundhog Day

Relationships are hard work and the love of a special person can change someone else for the better. While Harold Ramis’ Groundhog Day is about so much more than the love story between Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, the film hits its fair share of emotional truths. Watching Murray’s Phil re-live the same day over and over again as part of an unexplained time loop is funny and then sad and then funny again before ultimately becoming emotionally satisfying on a spiritual level.

Watching him work to better himself, to become a man worthy of Rita’s time and attention, is genuinely romantic, especially since Murray often plays characters who work so hard to sidestep affection at all times.

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Casablanca

Michael Curtiz’ Casablanca doesn’t feature a single cliche because it single-handedly invented all of the cliches. This is one of the most romantic movies of all time, a timeless masterpiece that still feels so fresh and moving over 70 years after it premiered, but history often misremembers why it is so powerful.

This is one of cinema’s great romances because not because Humphrey Bogart’s Rick and Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa get together (because they don’t), but because it showcases how two people recognize their love for one another and willingly choose to set it aside for the sake of a greater cause. There is no love more powerful than that. Sad, yes. Deeply, achingly romantic, hell yes.

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Sports February 13, 2016

This Week In Sports: NBA All-Star Game; What About NHL Concussions?

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The NBA’s All Star Game starts this weekend. NPR’s Linda Wertheimer and Howard Bryant of ESPN talk about the upcoming basketball exhibition, the Golden State Warriors and concussions in the NHL.

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

And now it’s time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

WERTHEIMER: It’s the NBA All-Star Weekend, that wonderful break in the basketball season when we put aside our team loyalties and watch the Eastern and Western Conference dream teams face off. The big game is tomorrow, and here to throw the jump ball for us is Howard Bryant of ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine.

Thank you for being with us, Howard.

HOWARD BRYANT: Hi, Linda. It’s been a while.

WERTHEIMER: Yeah. Howard, the Western Conference has won the All-Star Game 10 out of the last 16 years. Is that going to keep going?

BRYANT: Oh, who knows? It doesn’t really matter anyway. It’s meaningless. The All-Star Game is all about fun. It’s all about watching your favorite players play, you know, with players that they usually play against. It’s going to be nice to see Steph Curry and Kobe Bryant in the backcourt. Let’s not forget it’s Kobe Bryant who is retiring at the end of this season, his final All-Star Game. So there’s going be a lot of pomp and circumstance around him. It’s going to be great to see Klay Thompson and all of these great players out there, playing in a game where it really doesn’t count. And what you’re going to see is a lot of dunks, not a lot of defense, a lot of great showboating and passing.

WERTHEIMER: (Laughter).

BRYANT: And they’re the best athletes in the world. It’s the best All-Star game. And I love what hockey has done with their All-Star game, but the basketball All-Star game is the best because you really get to see how good these guys are.

WERTHEIMER: Now, the Golden State Warriors have had an incredible season so far. They’ve won 48 games, lost only four. When the season resumes, what happens to them?

BRYANT: Well, the Golden State Warriors (laughter) are doing something that we’ve never seen before. And that includes the Larry Bird Celtics and the Wilt Chamberlain 76ers and the Moses Malone 76ers and, of course, the Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls. They’re 48-4. And they are going for the all-time record of 73 wins, passing Michael Jordan’s 72 wins in 1995-96.

This team is incredible. They’re playing basketball at a level that we haven’t seen in this modern era with their ability to shoot 3-pointers and their ability to just absolutely run through (laughter) the opposition. And I think that their playing with so much motivation because so many people have doubted them, thinking that their style of basketball is – wouldn’t stand up to the greats of all time. And they are proving, every single time, that they have got a challenge that they don’t just win, that they’re blowing teams out. They’re blowing the teams out that they might be playing, whether it’s Cleveland or San Antonio. They beat Cleveland. They were up by 40 in Cleveland. They beat San Antonio by 30. So if you’re watching this team, and you don’t think they’re very good – well, they’re proving – and they’re using that motivation to really do something special.

WERTHEIMER: Now, normally at this point, we might be talking about pitchers and catchers report. But instead, we’ve got Mets pitcher Jerry Mejia (ph) make – Jenrry Mejia making baseball history for being the first player permanently suspended by Major League Baseball. What brought this on?

BRYANT: Well (laughter), he won’t stop using steroids. This is – once again, this goes back to, you know, baseball’s worst nightmare. What is the price of the steroid era? And the price is, once again, you have pitchers and catchers who are reporting. This is supposed be the time when the trucks go down to Florida and to Arizona and we’re celebrating the start of baseball season. And what are talking about? We’re talking about drugs. You’re talking about Jenrry Mejia, who’s a player whose team, the Mets, go to the World Series in one of the great Cinderella stories of last year. He wasn’t on the team last year because he had been suspended for steroids.

And now – this year, same thing. This team, the Mets, are going out to defend their National League Championships. And he’s being welcomed back with open arms? Well, not so fast. He’s suspended for steroids again, and now it’s a lifetime ban. He can reapply for reinstatement in two years, but for the most part, it looks like his career is over.

WERTHEIMER: Howard Bryant of ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine, thank you so much for being with us, and happy Presidents’ Day, Howard.

BRYANT: Oh, yes. My pleasure. Thank you.

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Business February 13, 2016

The Carpet Weaver Of Shiraz

Zarafshan, shown here with her 10-year-old son, earns money by weaving carpets. But it's not enough to support her family of five children.
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Zarafshan, shown here with her 10-year-old son, earns money by weaving carpets. But it’s not enough to support her family of five children. Steve Inskeep/NPR hide caption

toggle caption Steve Inskeep/NPR

What does the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran, as part of a nuclear deal, mean for one Iranian?

We met a carpet weaver in the ancient city of Shiraz. She spends her days on the floor of a little room. Working swiftly by hand, she ties knots with little bits of wool — orange, green, white and two shades of red. Wool threads stretch across a steel frame like strings on a harp.

Her clothes — loose, and flowing, and colorful — identify her as part of a traditional nomadic family. She might be in her 40s, though she said she didn’t know her age. She was born back when her family was still living in tents.

It wasn’t bad in tents, she said. They used to move south toward the Persian Gulf in the winter.

The name her family gave her, Zarafshan, means “spreader of gold.” And they made carpets: Her mother did, and her grandmother, and her grandmother before that. It’s a family tradition that Zarafshan has also passed down, saying her oldest daughter makes better carpets than she does.

Even today, Zarafshan’s loom is of a kind that’s simple and easy to carry — though the family long ago settled outside Shiraz.

We’d found her by following one street to a narrower street to a still narrower dead end, and finally to a little house, where her daughter-in-law was reading a book beside the gas stove.

Zarafshan is divorced with five kids, not all of them grown. She said what she earns from making carpets isn’t enough to support her family.

Zarafshan comes from a family of carpet weavers, dating back to her great-grandmother.

Zarafshan comes from a family of carpet weavers, dating back to her great-grandmother. Steve Inskeep/NPR hide caption

toggle caption Steve Inskeep/NPR

Still, “What do I need a husband for?” she says with a laugh. But now that he’s gone, she is forced to supplement her income with help from her son-in law.

This is true even though she employs her local craft as part of the global economy. Zarafshan works for a local businessman, who says he employs a total of 40 women to make carpets in their homes.

He told us the carpets are sold in Germany. They were sold overseas even during economic sanctions, passing through third-party sellers. Iran is said to sell about two-thirds of its carpets abroad, exports worth about $330 million in 2014 alone.

They can be sold more easily now, though it’s not clear what difference that will make to Zarafshan. I asked if she’d ever seen one of her carpets in someone else’s home.

This is such an outlandish idea that she doesn’t understand the question at first.

She finally says no. She hasn’t. She’s never even kept one of her carpets for her own home. She can’t afford her own handiwork. So she keeps a machine-made, red-and-yellow carpet, the kind you might see in any modest home in Iran.

“Rich people can buy the carpets,” she says.

And she goes on making them, working in this room whose only window opens to another room.

She’s part of a very big world, though her world remains very, very small.

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