Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Reviews

May 03, 2024

3 Body Problem Has Always Been Our Problem

My bad. When I was asked to write a review of Netflix’s 3 Body Problem, I assumed we had entered a new stage in the gender wars. Having successfully worked around my undergraduate physical science requirement by taking a January-term class on Einstein and writing a paper on his philosophical ideas, I trust I’m forgiven for not knowing that the “three-body problem” refers to an unsolvable problem in physics. Continue Reading...
April 25, 2024

Ripley and the Art of the Cruel

Patricia Highsmith’s novels have a long history in Hollywood. Her debut, Strangers on a Train, was adapted in 1951 by Hitchcock into a remarkable thriller about corruption among the wealthy and the weaknesses of aspiring to success, with D.C. Continue Reading...
April 18, 2024

Civil War: A Shallow and Dangerous Fantasy

The new film Civil War may want to be edgy, timely, even thoughtful, but it has nothing to offer beyond surface-level thrills, which makes its grisly portrayal of war feel more like a romanticization of the worst in humans than a warning against it. Continue Reading...
April 16, 2024

The Religious Ransom of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

I’ve watched hundreds of westerns over the years, and 48 years ago even wrote my doctoral dissertation on the politics of the genre from 1948 to 1962. I wasn’t surprised when movie watcher Hannah Long early this year called The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) the best western ever made: John Ford’s film makes the top 10 on just about everyone’s list. Continue Reading...
April 12, 2024

“Saint Christopher”: Hitch at 75

He would, of course, have blanched—or barfed—if you had ever addressed him that way (probably the only blasphemy he’d refuse to utter). Yet is it really any more outlandish than the conversations we had about another adamantly avowed atheist? Continue Reading...
April 10, 2024

Beyoncé and the Neglected Downtrodden

Given that contemporary pop music is stagnant, Beyoncé’s country-inspired album Cowboy Carter was bound to be something of a sensation. Its chief significance is not aesthetic—the recordings are simultaneously too slick and underdeveloped. Continue Reading...
April 09, 2024

Man and Machine in World War II

Tom Hanks was the moral conscience of America in the ’90s, so far as Hollywood was concerned, and audiences largely concurred, because he’s like a new Jimmy Stewart: he exudes moral integrity and childlike innocence. Continue Reading...
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