Thomas Matich

  It's been said that Tightrope is Clint Eastwood's Cruising. 

I heard about OJ Simpson's death with a push notification from the NY Times. I turned on CNN to see the breaking news coverage, with talking heads discussing his life and the infamous murder trial. It was 30 years earlier, when I was 9 years old and watching the NBA Finals on a Friday night in June, when suddenly a White Bronco appeared on the screen and nothing was ever the same.

During the outro to his new album, Set the Tone, Ghostface Killah is already advertising his next project, the long-awaited Part 2 sequel to his Y2K masterpiece Supreme Clientele. Perhaps he senses that fans might feel a little letdown by Set the Tone, as it nosedives into a middling mess from the start.

A good tennis volley has a rhythm. As the yellow felt bounces back and forth over the net, a beat forms. In the crowd, heads oscillate with each swing. There's grunting and sweat, drama and action, until the ball breaks free from the tension,  releasing an eruption of cheers and howls under the bright sun. That infectious passion of competition is on intense display in Luca Guadagnino 's new film, Challengers, about a tennis rivalry spiked with a love triangle.

  After the success of his 1974 film, The Gambler, director Karel Reisz's next project was Who'll Stop The Rain, a Nam-Noir starring Nick Nolte as Ray Hicks, a sailor who is talked into smuggling a supply of heroin from Vietnam to San Francisco by war torn correspondent John Converse (Michael Moriarty).

The Academy Awards are this Sunday and 'Oppenheimer' appears a lock for Best Picture.