Lovely and Amazing
A funny and well-observed chick-flick that, nevertheless, never quite gets us beyond the recognition that it’s hell being a woman.
Entry from June 27, 2002
It’s easy to dismiss Marxism as a “failed theory” because of its economic failures, but Marx lives on in a way that makes him arguably more influential than he was when his discredited economic ideas served as an excuse for the immiseratation of a quarter of mankind. For he and his followers have provided us…
Minority Report
Maybe Steven Spielberg has “found his dark side” but, typically, he doesn’t really know what to do with it.
Entry from June 25, 2002
In answering a question by Daphne Eviatar of the New York Times, Morris Dickstein, distinguished professor of English at the City University of New York and author of Leopards in the Temple: The Transformation of American Fiction, 1945-1970 (Harvard University Press), described how the various rebellions and “liberation” struggles of the 1960s had their antecedents…
Sunshine State
Another exercise in politically progressive moral earnestness by John Sayles sinks under its own weight of good intentions.
Emperor’s New Clothes, The
A charming statement of the rationalist case against honor and glory and big men and big ideas. If only it were true!
Entry from June 20, 2002
That President Bush watches “The Ozzy Osbourne Show” is no more surprising than that Al Gore should pretend to dance the Macarena or Bob Dylan be given a Kennedy Center Honor, but there is still a slight jolt in the news of Mick Jagger’s knighthood. Yet this is still only the latest and most striking…
Entry from June 17, 2002
Mr. John Hayward writes:I read on your web site that you are considering seeing Star Wars: Episode II as a concession to pressure from your readers. As a longtime admirer of your work, I would like to spare you this unpleasant ordeal. I have seen the film myself, and, speaking with great pain as one…
Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, The
“Tyger, Tyger burning bright.” See the connection with comic-book superheroes? No, I didn’t either.
Entry from June 13, 2002
Roy Koczela writes, by way of the American Prowler: Oh come on..it’s been over a month since Attack of the Clones came out. Why hasn’t James Bowman ripped the movie to shreds and predicted the imminent collapse of civilization on the grounds that people went to see it anyway? I know he went to see…
Whatever Happened to Honor?
Western honor culture, when it existed, was quite different from that which survives in the Arab world. Is it gone for good?
— Bradley Lecture, American Enterprise Institute