Reviews

June 30, 2022

Does The Godfather believe in America?

This month the Tribeca Film Festival celebrated the 50th anniversary of the premiere of The Godfather, an important movie, a movie we at some point got in the habit of calling iconic, and we might remember it made stars of a number of actors, starting with Al Pacino. Continue Reading...

June 23, 2022

Jurassic World: Dominion is transhumanism as entertainment

There’s a new Jurassic World movie out in theaters, to round up the post-Spielberg trilogy that began in 2015 and continued in 2018, a long time for a trilogy these days—the Star Wars sequel trilogy came out in four years, as do many of these blockbusters (for example, three Kong & Godzilla movies 2017–2021). Continue Reading...

June 21, 2022

The Right look at American conservatism deserves your attention

In January of 1992, the libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard published an untimely reflection in the traditionalist journal Chronicles. The conservative and Republican elite had effectively scuttled former Klansman David Duke’s bid to become governor of Louisiana. Continue Reading...

June 16, 2022

Just a Minute: Tracy Letts’ new drama defies logic and plausibility

In the past 90 years, there have been three periods during which the American intelligentsia has been dominated by the most radical leftists. The first was in the Great Depression. This was when it was commonplace to say that capitalism had failed and the great hope of the world was Stalin’s Russia. Continue Reading...

June 15, 2022

Norm Macdonald is gone and there’s nothing funny about that

Norm Macdonald was the funniest comedian in his time among those who stayed out of political controversies. His specialty was pointing out how uncomfortable we are facing the reality of our human limits, moral and intellectual, as opposed to the fantasies we embrace eagerly in our flight from mortality. Continue Reading...

June 01, 2022

Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness reminds us who really is in control: Disney

I want to put before you three facts of importance for storytelling today, and for our self-understanding, which is what we want out of it. First, fantasy stories now dominate entertainment in Hollywood and beyond. Continue Reading...

May 25, 2022

The Awakening of Jennifer Van Arsdale: A novel take on conservative ideas

The year 2016 brought the progressive extreme of American politics into national discussion. Bernie Sanders and Democratic socialism became familiar phrases; Elizabeth Warren promised free daycare and free college; Andrew Yang’s one-issue focus made universal basic income seem plausible. Continue Reading...

May 19, 2022

Disney’s new Moon Knight series mocks both gods and men

My previous essays reviewed two Progressive visions of manliness. Michael Mann’s HBO series Tokyo Vice reduces contemporary Japan to racism, sexism, and homophobia. Michael Bay’s Ambulance relatedly gives us a contemporary America where ethnic minorities, strong, independent women, and gay protagonists vanquish an evil white man. Continue Reading...

May 12, 2022

Michael Bay’s Ambulance is DOA

Film critics recently have been trying to encourage their audiences to return to theaters—cinema, after all, is a lot more impressive on a big screen and in the company of people who share our emotions. Continue Reading...

May 05, 2022

HBO’s Tokyo Vice thinks Japan is really just the worst of America

One of the most stylish of American directors, Michael Mann, who made Heat and The Insider (earning three Oscar nominations), is now producing the HBO series Tokyo Vice and has directed its disappointing first episode. Continue Reading...

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