Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'film'

September 28, 2022

Godard Is Dead. Is Cinema?

Jean-Luc Godard died on September 13, 2022, and the news in the world of cinema and culture was received as confirmation that cinema itself was dead. Godard had a remarkable influence on cinema in the ’60s, but his fame went beyond that. Continue Reading...
August 17, 2022

The two lives of Steve McQueen

Someone once said of Steve McQueen (1930–80) that his range as an actor was deep but not very broad. All right, I admit it—I said it in my 2001 biography of the all-American star who still looms over Hollywood like a sort of male equivalent of the Statue of Liberty, more than 40 years after his untimely death. Continue Reading...
May 03, 2022

Hollywood’s craven surrender to the Chinese Communist government

Who’s in charge in Hollywood? Surely studio bosses, well-compensated executives, A-list actors, and celebrated writers and directors set the agenda in the American entertainment industry, don’t they? Not so fast, says Wall Street Jour­­nal reporter Erich Schwartzel in a rigorously researched, admirably hard-hitting new book that looks at the pernicious influence of China on Hollywood. Continue Reading...
April 28, 2022

Waiting for a miracle in the noir classic Laura

I will close this series on film noir with Laura, because it’s altogether more beautiful and it has something of a happy ending. In being the most beautiful noir, it also involves the most sophisticated reflection on beauty in its relation to American society and to tragedy. Continue Reading...
March 30, 2022

Film noir and the movie-made American male

Recently I spoke at Hillsdale College on film noir as part of a program that introduced audiences to four of the most impressive movies in the genre that defined the tough detective in America and the less popular type of doomed romantic. Continue Reading...
September 06, 2018

Alejandro Chafuen on Real Nazis in Argentina

Acton’s Alejandro Chafuen weighed-in at Forbes on the new Hollywood movie about the arrest and eventual trial of Nazi Adolph Eichman, Operation Finale. The movie is more than a historical reenactment for Chafuen, who recounts in his essay that a notorious Nazi once inhabited the Argentine neighborhood where Chafuen lived for 30 years. Continue Reading...
June 18, 2018

Incredibles 2: Making superheroes great again

I saw Incredibles 2 over the Father’s Day weekend, and just like its predecessor, there’s a lot to ponder beneath the surface of this animated film. In the real world we’ve had to wait 14 years, but the sequel picks up basically where the original left off. Continue Reading...
May 23, 2018

The economics and morality of infinity

In this week’s Acton Commentary I take on Thanos’ zero-sum economic worldview as manifest in Avengers: Infinity War. In the classic debate over positivity and normativity in economics, Thanos is definitely not a value-free figure. Continue Reading...