Dubai Ports Deal: The Sheik Speaks

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - Sheik Mohammed bin Laden, the brains behind the White House's controversial deal to hand six US ports over to a major financer of the 9/11 attacks, expressed surprise at the US reaction to the now-embattled deal. "We had no idea we'd get this kind of response," said the magnetic international playboy and hotel magnate. "We only submitted our bid as a joke. If you'd told me two weeks ago the White House would sign off on this, I literally would have thought you were on crack." The raven-haired sheik's legendary entrepreneurial skills are front and center these days: when the deal hit the headlines, he took advantage of the unexpected publicity to launch development talks for a reality show tentatively titled "The Apprentice: Corporate Jihadis." With a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, the mustachioed sheik confided, "I really admire Donald Trump: his hair, his ability to take over New York City... he's everything I want to be." But when this reporter, perhaps imprudently, joked that maybe if his show works out people will start calling him 'The Mohammed,' sheik bin Laden shouted "infidel!" and immediately set fire to the Starbucks in which we were sitting.

Match Point

We got home from the new Woody Allen movie half an hour ago and I'm still jittery. Match Point may be the best suspense movie I've ever seen, and I'm speaking as someone who started watching Hitchcock when I was six years old. This movie has nothing to do with cheesy Hollywood suspense, no cheap thrills, no gore. Instead it's excruciating: a quiet, relentless build-up of evil slithering beneath a surface of perfect calm. There were moments whose unfolding was so stressful to watch that all three of us were actually talking out loud to the characters ("Oh no! God! Don't!") as we sat there in the theater. It's based on Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, and part of the reason it's so good is that you realize quite early that no morally satisfying ending is possible: the only question you can have is whose lives are going to be destroyed, and the great discomfort of the movie is that quite often you find yourself completely understanding, even rooting for, the evil character.

I'm not going to say anything more specific because I don't want to spoil it for anyone. But if you enjoy movies so emotionally intense that your stomach hurts for ten minutes after the credits roll--and hurts enough to make you double over and swear a couple of times, laughing in amazement as you do so--then go see this immediately. Who knew Woody Allen could pull off this kind of movie? My hat's off to the man. It's off because it fell off when I doubled over in pain.

Highly recommended, except for those with ulcers or heart problems. I would advise seeing it with someone and having dinner afterwards, so that you don't spend the rest of the evening being spooked out all by yourself.