by John Walters

Starting Five

New York Jest

If you thought the Jets could never get a worse performance out of a USC-drafted quarterback than the Butt Fumble drama of 2012, think again. Last night, against the same New England Patriots that inflicted Mark Sanchez’s infamy on Thanksgiving night seven years earlier, 2nd-year quarterback Sam Darnold tossed four interceptions. He finished 11 of 32 passing.

The Jets lost 33-0 and Darnold’s QBR was 0.7. By comparison Tom Brady’s was 79.1. The Pats move to 7-0, although three of those victories are against tenants of Met-Life Stadium. Still, we think that Belichick and Brady are on a quest to avenge the 2008 season, which finished one victory shy of perfection. Is this the year?

Nothingburger

The State Department statement was released Friday afternoon in hopes that it would be buried and it mostly was. But here it is: in a nine-page unclassified report that was completed last month and was three years in the making/investigating, the State Department has concluded that “while the use of the system for official business increased the risk of compromising classified information, there was no systemic or deliberate mishandling of classified information.”

In other words, Hillary’s private email server and those 33,000 emails that President Trump railed on endlessly about during the 2016 campaign were a big nothing. Now that we’ve put that to res—wait, what? He’s still railing about them? Even last night?

Um, yes. Apparently the State Dept. is now also committing Fake News, at least in the mind of Our Great Leader.

By the way, this is the same woman who sat for an 11-hour Congressional hearing about Benghazi where, again, it was ultimately found that she did no wrong. No matter how many times Congress, the GOP and many of the public try to burn this witch at the stake, the flames never seem to rise. I wonder why.

Pelican Rest

The NBA season kicks off this evening, but it will do so without everyone’s favorite bull-in-a-china-shop, Zion Williamson. The most heralded rookie in years will miss 6 to 8 weeks due to surgery on a torn meniscus.

The season is tipping off with two games this evening, the first being New Orleans at NBA champ Toronto. But Kawhi is now a Clipper and Zion is recuperating. The question every NBA fan is asking is, Does Zion’s go-hard-to-the-rim, Rex Burkhead style of hoops put his longevity at risk. He’s only 19 years old, after all.

Salzburg But Not Williamsburg?

The Lonely Planet has just released its Top 10 Cities to visit in 2020 and no, Brooklyn is not one of them. Here’s the list:

–Salzburg, Austria

–Washington, D.C.

–Cairo, Egypt

–Galway, Ireland

–Bonn, Germany

–La Paz, Bolivia

—Kochi, India

–Vancouver, Canada

–Dubai, UAE

–Denver, Colorado

Then again, what do they know?

At The Movies

We’ve all heard that 1939 was the very best year for films, but then Eddie Mueller (TCM’s Noir Alley host) decided to stir the pot and say 1950 was best. And we’re no experts, but we do like films, so we’ve decided to grade years the way we do college football conferences: not by the totality of a year’s films, but by assessing the best from that year (i.e., the Alabama, LSU, Georgia, Auburn and Florida of a year).

Toward that end, and beginning with 1939 itself, we’re going to do a daily list of our five favorite films from a given year (now don’t go jumping ahead years on us, Susie B.). We won’t claim that these are the five objective best of any year, just the five we’d see (again). Your mileage may vary and you will be welcome to tell us one we’ve missed.

We’ll begin with 1939, the year that many experts believe was the zenith of the studio system in Hollywood. It’s hard to argue with the results (we may go back earlier in the decade later, but not yet):

1. The Wizard Of Oz a true original with an incredible story and perhaps also a subtle political message, given the year, of the joys of isolationism, 2) Gone With The Wind overrated in our mind, as far as story goes, but the cinematography is outstanding, 3) Mr. Smith Goes To Washington a reminder that all the corruption you see now was on hand in D.C. 80 years ago; Jimmy Smith Stewart deserved an Oscar but lost it to George Donat, arguably Oscar’s first major screw-up 4) Ninotchka Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas in a smart and comic love story involving Communists in Paris 5) Stagecoach considered the original Western, with John Wayne in his breakout role under the direction of John Ford.

Most years won’t require this, but these films also deserve mention and were just off the list: Goodbye, Mr. Chips; Dark Victory; The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Charles Boyer also deserved the Oscar for Best Actor, perhaps even more than Stewart).

Music 101

Baby, Let Me Follow You Down

When the American Bard plugged in at the Royal Albert Hall in May of 1966, shouts of “Judas!” emanated from the audience. How dare the king of folk music go electric! But we love this version of Bob Dylan‘s classic (which he did not write, as he acknowledges), the crunchy guitars. And if you want to compare, here’s the acoustic original.

Remote Patrol

Lakers at Clippers (or whatever)

10:30 p.m. TNT

Let the turf war over the freeways of L.A. commence. LeBron and Anthony Davis versus Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are the headliners. Keep your eyes on Laker Kyle Kuzma, a budding superstar entering his third season. These two are the NBA preseason favorites to win it all according to Vegas.