Bully
An affecting exploration into a social problem which can only be made worse by being regarded as a social problem
Entry from April 12, 2012
One of the lasting effects of feminist efforts to raise the status of “independent,” working women over the last forty years has been the thinly veiled contempt of the likes of Hilary Rosen of the Democratic National Committee for stay-at-home mothers like Ann Romney who, said Ms Rosen (you may have heard about it if…
Damsels in Distress
A parable or fairy tale of social renewal from the master cinematic chronicler of the Urban Haute Bourgeoisie
Entry from April 6, 2012
Long ago, when I was a teacher in England, I used to have to teach something called General Studies. It would be a General Studies essay in itself to explain what General Studies is, or was, as the thing was bound up with the history of British postwar education and the curious sort of shame…
Hunger Games, The
This might have been a striking parable of the plight of young people today, if only the film-makers could have seen a little further beyond its absurdities
Jeff, Who Lives at Home
A slacker comedy with some tentative and swiftly-disregarded pretensions to seriousness
The Morality of Normality
On the new religion of progressivism’s idolatry — From The New Criterion of March, 2012
Entry from March 29, 2012
Saw last night and didn’t much enjoy The Hunger Games, but the worst thing about it was the thought of how many little girls ten years from now — and how many grown women twenty years from now — we are going to have to address as “Katniss,” the made-up name of the heroine, played…
Friends With Kids
A self-satisfied yuppie romance that founders on its inability to distinguish between love and sex
Pseuds and Artists
This year’s Oscars were dominated by what almost seemed an obsession with the past — From The American Spectator of March, 2012
Entry from March 20, 2012
Here’s something that Newt Gingrich said the other day. Apologies to those who have already read it, since it has been widely reported. “The thing I find most disheartening about this campaign is the difficulty of talking about positive ideas on a large scale, because the news media can’t cover it and, candidly, my opponents…