Perhaps you caught this week's telecast of the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony for actor-director-producer Warren Beatty.

Beatty's body of work is quite exceptional on a number of levels.

One of my favorite films is "Reds", controversial in its depiction of Communist John Reed, the only American entombed in the Kremlin, and an epic by any cimematic measurement, regardless of your political point of view.

I saw "Reds" in 1981 at the old Mayfair Theater in the town of Ulster, and several times since on TV, but not recently. Which is why one of the clips they showed at AFI's Beatty tribute jumped out at me. It was of Beatty, as Reed, encountering Islamic extremists calling for a jihad against America.

Remember, the film was set in the first part of the last century, long before most of us knew enough to pay attention to the threat, and the film was released in 1981, 20 years before 9/11.

Beatty the visionary? It fits.