Kid With a Bike, The
A moving but ultimately unsatisfying study of a child’s sense of loss and abandonment
Undefeated
An inspiring account of a coach’s dedication and a high school football team’s success which rather underplays its chief insight into the importance of character
Entry from March 15, 2012
Daniel Henninger is at it again. Faithful readers of his “Wonder Land” column in The Wall Street Journal have learned to expect regular installments on Thursdays of his latest aperçus into our President’s own Wonder Land or, to be more precise, Fantasy Land. Today marks a kind of culmination, as Mr Henninger remarks on Mr…
Coriolanus
An interestingly innovative and very watchable updating of Shakespeare’s late study of military honor
Entry from March 5, 2012
In this morning’s Daily Telegraph there’s a report about an Oxford undergraduate named Madeline Grant, age 19, who is campaigning for election as librarian of the Oxford Union. Her campaign slogan is: “I don’t hack, I just have a great rack.” She also says she is “committed to helping members pull” — that is, find partners…
The Left-wing Fantasy
On the myth of the Republican “theocracy” — From The New Criterion of February, 2012
Progressive Derangements
On the political agenda behind the movies’ presentation of historical events — From The American Spectator of February, 2012
Entry from February 27, 2012
What have the Oscars and the Republican primary campaign in common? Frank Bruni in yesterday’s New York Times offered up a labored parallel between the two which, as that paper’s chatty, gossip-gal columnists Gail Collins and Maureen Dowd regularly do, managed to be flippant without being funny. “What we have here are two hoary institutions flailing…
Albert Nobbs
A star vehicle for Glenn Close that also scores progressivist points for importing today’s gender-bending ideas into Victorian times
Entry from February 24, 2012
Returning to the theme of an earlier post on the supposed stupidity of the electorate in the eyes of the media, I notice that today’s Washington Post has President Obama telling us that there are “no quick fixes” for high gas prices. Likewise “no silver bullet.” It is now ten years since the Senate rejected the request…
Why 3-time Oscar nominee Malick is grossly overrated
The ponderous filmmaker has parlayed inactivity, incoherence into reputation as a genius — adapted from The Washington Times of February 23, 2012
Entry from February 21, 2012
A propos of New York Knicks phenom and professing Christian Jeremy Lin, David Brooks in The New York Times writes that “the moral ethos of sport is in tension with the moral ethos of faith, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim.” This is because, he says, the moral universe of modern sport is oriented around victory and…