I try not to be a prude, and also try not to be judgmental on vices that, if overdone, can cause great personal and financial strife. I believe that adults should be able to take drugs as long as they place no one else in danger. I feel the same about gambling. It is one of the oldest “sins” but I believe that an adult has every right to screw up his/her life, but considering my love of sport, I am glad everyday that I don’t seem to have the gambling DNA. However, the powers that be understood the danger of having people inside the games: players, coaches, even officials either betting or susceptible to being bribed for a certain outcome. The imagined issue was throwing entire games, like the 1919 Black Sox. Or Pete Rose, who as a player and manager could effect the events on the field, seriously jeopardizing the integrity of the sport.
Still, I have long wondered what’s happening when gamblers bet on the smallest things. I remember when Janet Jones, Wayne Gretzky’s wife was reportedly having some gambling problems, including betting on hockey faceoffs. I hear that people bet on the weather, balls and strikes , penalties. These “micro-bets” generate millions of dollars to betters, legal and illegal. I guess that it was inevitable that eventually, players would get wrapped up in this.
Two pitchers for the Cleveland Guardians have been accused of taking bribes to rig pitches they threw at Major League Baseball games. The pitchers, Emmanuel Clase de la Cruz and Luis Leandro Ortiz Ribera, have been charged in connection to the sports betting and money laundering scheme, federal prosecutors and the FBI announced yesterday.
Prosecutors allege that the scheme drew hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal wagers. “The defendants’ alleged greed not only established an unfair advantage for select bettors, but also sullied the reputation of America’s pastime,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher Raia said in a statement. The two players have denied any wrongdoing.
When I first heard this, it was reported that the pitchers had been involved in the scheme of $12,000 per occurrence, certainly not enough to jeopardize large money contracts and risk losing it all, but later, I heard that a pitching bet could generate $500,000 in cheated bets.
We allknew this was going to happen. It was only a matter of time before betters found ways to get people in games to perform an act, bad or good, and someone who knew for example, that the first pitch would be down in the dirt for ball 1. Seemingly random events, no more different from a coin toss (which people also bet on). Some organizations, leagues and conferences have allowed people inside the sport to place bets, just not on their sport.
In college, hopefully NIL has lowered the temptation to want to pick up quick cash. One would certainly think that professional athletes making millions of dollars would able to resist, but again, many athletes have lived sheltered lives. For once, I think that baseball had it right, lifetime suspensions of players, coaches, anyone around the sport involved in gambling, especially trying to generate a certain outcome.
These two Guardian pitchers will have their days in court, and the players should be suspended until ther guilt is assured. Again, I know that I said that I feel for athletes today: social media has made it nearly impossible to have privacy; all of the main temptations – money, sex, drugs. I don’t know how the major sports leagues can guarantee a fair, no cheating environment. Perhaps all they can do is monitor to the best of their abilities and throw the cheaters out immediately.

One of the earliest tirades I went off on inn this space was the weather. Why was I complaining about the weather, there’s nothing that can be done about it? My rant was about the weather reports here in Chicago. Now, I understand how difficult it is to be a meteorologist in Chicago: first, it’s a huge area, extending from Nothest Indiana to Southeast Wisconsin – an area so large that it could be snowing in Indiana and the skies can be clear and bright up north where I live. My problem is the “if it bleeds, it leads” school of journalism. In the case of weather media it is to take the largest snow forecast, or the coldest temperature possible and lead with that as the headline or the lede.
What do I mean? Over the weekend, there were forecasts that the first snow of the winter season would occur over this weekend. Making the meteorologists’ jobs more difficult is the fact that this not a traditional storm, which they can forecast fairly well, except the angle the storm takes in Chicagoland can determine whether we get 1 inch or 10” of snow. No, this was a lafe effect snow, meaning that the storm would pass over Lake Michigan, gather moisture from the lake and drop it as snow. Northern Indiana gets the worst of it usually.
The initial forecast were for up to four inches, then it was being reported that we could get 8-10 inches Last night, I received an email from Patch, a network of community newspapers for many Chicago suburbs. The email said that “some areas could get up to 18” of snow. The snow-pocalypsa generated around 1 inch of snow at my house.
Why do I have an issue? Shouldn’t people be given the worst-case scenario, even if the odds are so small? Back in the day, I had two friends who owned retail stores and on those days, even if the prediction was wildly inaccurate, they got no business. This was the “scare the crap out of the audience” school of overhyping things for ratings. For storeowners whose livelihoods depend on sales, a day of lost sales cannot be made up.
Then, I got into a minor online squabble with the now retired Tom Skilling. I argued that shouldn’t the media do its best to reporta likelihood of a snow event happening instead of scaring everyone – also known as the “Fox News business model.” We disagreed on the point and ever since, when I tell this story, people who have met Mr. Skilling have treated me as though I had kicked a baby puppy. He may be nice, but can we hold him accountable for being disingenuous? I think I was being generous by not asking how I could trust him when his brother was the jailed former CEO of Enron.
Just call me Don Quixote…

You may have seen/heard that TIFF is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year, and I do have to reflect that this is my 24th festival after the now ex-wife got me hooked on it while we were dating When I started going, if you had told me I would come back so many times, I would have thought you were insane. Many great films (and a few that sucked); seeing celebrities, even meeting a few, hanging with old friends. Good days and 2025 was no different.
My first day was, completely, by accident, documentary day: I chose 3 films, 2 ½ documentaries (I’ll explain below.) . It wasn’t until I got there that I realized what I’d done; but I love documentaries, so I was good with it. The first film was Cancelled: The Paula Deen Story. I barely followed the story – all I knew that Ms. Deen was an omnipresent force on the Food Network and many other shows in the 2000s. She was cooking what was often African-American cuisine like my Grandmother and Mother made. Generally, I was oblivious. Back in 2011, a worker sued a restaurant owned by Ms. Deen, but run by her little brother for racial discrimination, sexual harassment and other charges. Her biggest error (other than not putting her brother om charge of a restaurant)was not hiring big time lawyers – you may remember that she was asked whether she had ever used the n-word and she said that in her life, she had. Let’s be honest, most of us have used the word at some point in their lives especially people from the South in their 50s and 60s. I thought it was just a story of a racist white woman who got caught, but the story is not as straightforward as that. The film is still looking for distribution, and I hope it finds a home – the truth should come out before Ms. Deen dies.
My next film was Nuns vs. The Vatican. Of course, the entire world knows about Roman Catholic priests abusing minors all over the world, but as one would expect, sexual abuse was not limited to just the young. Nuns were also abused and swept under the rug. However, in 2019, a case finally hit the courts in Europe, but this wasn’t just any priest – it is prominent Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik, know as Pope John Paul II’s Michelangelo – his works were all over the world. Accusing Rupnik is Gloria, a former nun who Rupnik raped many times when she was a young nun until she left the order. She was far from the only one – other nuns . Emmy-winning filmmakers Lorena Luciano and Filippo Piscopo joined forces with executive producers Trish Adlesic and Mariska Hargitay (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) to chronicle the story as it stands now. Already Rupnik’s works are being removed or covered up. It was a pleasant surprise to have Ms. Marigay attend the world premiere – her role on television has turned her into an outspoken supporter of abused women. Sometimes, when art imitates life, ift is a very good thing.
My final film of the day was something that intrigued me: BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions. Artist and filmmaker Kahil Joseph’s ambitious mix of documentary and a plotted story centering on the life of W.E.B. DuBois, was different but disjointed. The project began s a two channel “fugitive newscast’ at the 2019 Venice Film Festival. Backers gave the artist money to turn it into a feature. Unfortunately this didn’t really didn’t work as a feature. As snippets and brief hits, it was quite good, but in this case, I felt that this needed to remain short films about various topics of the Black experience around the world, For those who knew the story,it was restating things in a new and interesting way, but still a repeat. For those that don’t know a lot of this material, I think it was too disjointed to maintain a point. It looked nice and it had interesting views but not in a long form project.

Another beautiful day in Toronto, pleasant temperatures, but a bit humid. I had only two films this day, which was fine. Those of you who know me well, would not be at all surprised that my TIFF schedules have regularly been filled with Shakespeare adaptations and World War II movies. Well, day 2 had both. Of all of the plays, I love the story of the melancholy Dane, and Riz Ahmet takes his turn in the most famous part in English Literature, Hamlet. I like when a filmmaker brings a different viewpoint to the Bard like Sir Ian McKellan’s Richard III set in a Nazi-like England. In this case, director Aniel Karia and Mr. Ahmet take their turn in adapting the classic. It was an interesting vision – contemporary and modern, where everyone is Eastern Asian, and it would be ignorant and racist to say that this is Bollywood Bard, but it had another level to it. The director mentioned that a lot of the play is something happens/Hamlet does something, and then you get characters talking about what Hamlet did. This film sticks with Hamlet – in fact, I noticed that Horatio, Hamlet’s loyal friend and often the audience’s eyewitness and stand-in does not appear in the film at all. There are no actions outside of Hamlet’s view, all actions and reactions occur in Hamlet’s presence. It was an interesting approach, and I found that it worked.
The film that grabbed my attention first and was the second “most wanted” film for me when I first saw the schedule. That film was Nuremburg, a star-studded production even though I did not recognize the director. Every year I always seem to have a World War II/Nazi movie. Over the years, I have seen Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary, from which was in part made into Downfall, which I also saw. I have seen so many dramas and documentaries over my 24 visits. Of course, I thought immediately of 1960’s Judgement at Nuremberg, a fine film from a time much closer to the actual time period, but subject to the censorship rules of the day. The director, James Vanderbilt, has very few credits as a director, but I was willing to give him a break since he was the screenwriter of the excellent David Fincher film Zodiac. It could have been just a courtroom drama, but it was more than that – mixing the story of a psychiatrist who was sent in to try and analyze the captured Nazi High Command with creating a groundwork for international war crimes law and international tribunals. The showy roles are excellently acted by Russell Crowe as Hermann Gehring (for which he should be Oscar nominated); Remy Malik at the psychiatrist, and the great Michael Shannon and Richard E. Grant as the American and British prosecutors
Ca;; me a cynic, but the one issue I have is that films like this all seem to come out in the Fall . Yes, the Fall is supposed to be the time for serious films as the kids go back to school and the adults go to the show, but this always seems to me a naked play for Oscar nominations. I think there is a little bit of this here, but the production and the actors lift it above the average (and Crowe is outstanding).

Again, only another two films today (I had to make time for the Bears’ game Monday night, even though I ended up sad with the result). When I arrived in Canada, I had no films selected for this day.. I wanted to see Nuremberg that morning, but I couldn’t even get 1 ticket, so I paid extra to see the actual Gala the night before. One of the best things about TIFF is that there are times when you have the time, but no films that leap out at you, so you get to take chances. You throw a figurative dart at what’s available and see what happens. Occasionally, you get a gem like 8 Mile in 2002, and other times, not so much (I won’t mention any of them here). The first film I saw was called Eternal Return, which got my attention from star Kit Harrington (Game of Thrones). It is a fantasy romantic comedy in that centers around Naomi Scott (live action Aladdin) as an American woman who has premonitions about her future and she has a big one about a man she meets in college, romanes and is about to marry but for a terrible tragedy. Living and working for a probability company since her own personal clairvoyance has left her, and she has not moved on in life until she stumbles on two eccentric characters : Harrington’s Virgil and Simon Callow playing Malcolm. These two put forth a theory that everything is happening – past, present, and future at the same time (which is a real theory)and you can plug into that time if you find the Locus by following points on a map. The three go searching England finding points on a map that should take them to their individual Locus – where Cass can go back and find her love before the accident. Harrington plays a mild-mannered cartographer leading the search; Callow’s character is Virgil’s surrogate father trying to go back to the 1960s where he may or may not have been a lover of poet Allan Ginsberg. Harrington is melancholy, much as he was as Jon Snow except Show had fighting skills. Romantic entanglements ensue as my mind kept conjuring up the iconic Time Bandits. It was cute, not especially deep.
My next film was called Tuner, directed by Canadian documentarian Daniel Roher who made the excellent films Once Were Brothers – The Story of The Band, and Navalny, making his narrative film debut. Leo Woodall (The White Lotus, and was also in Nuremberg) plays Niki, a piano tuner who suffers from a disease that makes him hyper sensitive to sound. He works for his grandfather played by Dustin Hoffman as a loud, bit stereotypical New York old Jewish man. (Life crosses itself – this was not the first time I’d been a TIFF film with Mr. Hoffamn – I was there at his directorial film Quartet in 2012.) However, he meets some criminals who find that the tuner’s hearing is so sensitive, he can crack safes. The film bounces back and firth between the burglaries and his tuner job, family illness and love affair with piano student Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu). It kind of reminded me of Emelia Perez from last year in that both films featured a human story that has a criminal sub-plot and violent resolution (not that this film will be controversial like Perez was). It was fun and suspenseful as you wanted to know how all this worked out.

As mentioned in my Day 2 piece, Nuremberg was the film I wanted to see most at TIFF, but there was another film I wanted to see as well: Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. del Toro took that story that we know all too well and tweaked it – the Creature (Jacob Elordi, HBO’s Euphoria) has no stitches, a pattern of healed cuts are in its place. Oscar Isaac plays Victor Frankenstein as an emotionally abused son of a talented surgeon (the tremendous Charles Dance) who endeavors to defeat death itself. A rich benefactor played by the iconic Christoph Walt who has his own reason for support the experiment. He turns out to be the uncle of z Victor’s brother’s fiancée who get caught up in Victor’s madness including an almost relationship between the Doctor and the young woman. It is beautifully shot, and as I said, I know the story so well, but it takes a couple of small detours that turn the subtext into the main thrust of the story. It is a Netflix film, but if you have the opportunity to see the film on a large screen, do so – it is atmospheric.
As I’ve mentioned, All Quiet on the Western Front, Academy Award Winner for Best Foreign Film and three other Oscars in 2022 made quite an impact on me, especially the director Edward Berger. There are certain filmmakers who I try to follow, to see what they’re doing afterwards. Well, you probably heard of a film called Conclave, which I managed to get a ticket for at TIFF last year. It did fairly well financially and during Awards season (winner of Best Adapted Screenplay and nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor [Ralph Fiennes], and Best Supporting Actress [Isabella Rosellini] along with five more). This year, Berger returns to Netflix with a film that doesn’t need to be seen in theaters to be enjoyed (although there are some lovely wide shots). Ballad of a Small Player stars the consistently good Colin Farrell who seems to be really coming into his own as Doyle, an international high roller, living the lush life at a luxury hotel in Macao. But that’s a façade -he’s behind on his room payments, can’t find a casino that will give him credit, and he’s deep in debt to a dubious local character. He came to Maco to be a “foreign ghost” who no one knows, so he can reinvent himself. But Cynthia Blithe (the great but always strange Tilda Swinton) knows who he really is — and what he’s running from. A sympathetic casino hostess played by Fala Chen, Is at first his banker, then something more, then something else perhaps. The story here is interesting, and Farrell plays this corrupt little man to the hilt. Again, it’s a Netflix film, so stream it when available.
Finlly, I say a documentary on the Basketball Africa League. Usually, I avoid television episodes at TIFF because you only get a portion of the whole series and that leaves you wanting more and there’s no guarantee that you will ever get the chance to see the whole series. TIFF screened two episodes of the series Origin: The Story of The Basketball Africa League. The documentary shows the beginning of the league in 2011, under COVID-19 pandemic restrictions forcing the introductory tournament to be held in a bubble like the NBA and NHL had to do. Instead of some ramshackle building it was held in a -brand new stadium in Kigali, Rwanda , showing ow different the country is from the attempted ethnic cleansing of the 1990s. The film showed all of the teams, their home countries, showing the state of Africa in the 21st Century. It followed a few of the players, all with their hopes bright for a spot in the NBA following all of the great African players around the league. The documentary showed very well the differences between teams from some countries compared to others. Whatever way, the intent was and is upon economic development for the continent. At the middle of the story is Amadou Gallo Fall, the President and visionary behind the creation of the league. Showing the ups and downs of those early days. Having watched two episodes, the story became redundant. It needs to be trimmed to show how the games went, but with more brevity.
Mr. Gallo was at the showing and I introduced myself afterwards and told him that like in the US, I am always nervous when young men place all of their hopes and future on the NBA. While there were a few times when the coaches and administrators told players of the BAL that they should be looking to achieve excellence in whatever walk of life they end up in, I wonder if the message does what it often does with American young men – going in one ear and out the other ear. There are only -450 players in the league, spaces sought after by 4000 college players in the United States, and the African and European players annually. Still the numbers show that the odds are long at best. Mr. Gallo said that there is one major difference – the BAL players get paid pretty well in their home countries and with 55 countries on the continent, the possibilities of more teams is ever present. With the need for sports product, media opportunities may be the way for the BAL to thrive. It was quite an opportunity to speak with the League President and the filmmakers.
Ranking of TIFF Films 2025
I know it isn’t fair, but I have ranked all of my films in years past, but for the first time, I have finished my reviews before the Festival has ended and the People’s Choice and before other TIFF awards have been selected and announced. I don’t think any of my films this year were bad, just some didn’t grip me as strongly as the filmmakers wish the films would have liked:
10. BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions
9. Eternal Return
8. Origin: The Story of the Basketball Africa League
7. Tuner
6. Cancelled: The Paula Deen Story
5. Hamlet
4. Nuns vs. The Vatican
3. Ballad of A Small Player
2. Frankenstein
1. Nuremberg

I know I haven’t posted in some time, but family and work keep me plenty busy. I’m back now and it is satisfying to see two of my long time predictions are coming true. Let me toot my own horn…
1) For years now, I said that there would be ownership changes with the Chicago Bears as soon as matriarch Virginia McCaskey died. I thought that it would be because the grandkids and great grandkids would want to invest their money themselves instead of being tied to the fortunes of the Bears. Well, ownership change is in the air, and it does involve the distant relatives of Mrs. McCaskey, but I didn’t think it would happen so fast. I forgot taxes, the estate taxes on the Bear share holding are going to be substantial, and the McCaskey/Halas’ have no other source of revenue other than the Bears. It’s valuable and they are rich, but this is not a liquid asset. The shares would have to be sold to get the cash to pay the taxes.
2) For the past several years, I have said that Major League Baseball would reinstate Pete Rose after his death, permitting him to be eligible for the Baseball Writers of America vote for the Hall of Fame. There was no way that MLB would allow Rose to make money. And even though he is eligible, Tony Kornheider made a good point on Pardon The Interruption today – Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens and the other Juice Gang have been eligible all this time, and they haven’t come close to being voted in. There’s no guarantee thatthey will vote Rose in any time soon.
I was surprised that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred also reinstated another 16 deceased players including Shoeless Joe Jackson. There has never been clear evidence that Jackson took money in the Black Sox scandal. It is said he took $5,000 and was angry that he didn’t get $20,000, He had 12 hits in the 1919 Series – a record that wasn’t broken until 1964, he hit .375, had no errors and threw out a guy at the plate. It is said however that the Reds hit an unusual number of triples to left field where Jackson played. In 1921, a Chicago jury acquitted Jackson and his seven teammates or wrongdoing, but Commissioner Kinnesaw Mountain Landis suspended them all for life. Jackson’s descendants and others have proclaimed his innocence for decades. Perhaps it is time to get to the bottom of this if possible.