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Iron Man
(Reviewed May 16, 2008)
Another cartoon hero of the silver screen appeals to adults who no longer feel any shame about enjoying kids’ movies — and so comes closer to making kids’ movies the only kind there are
Full Review
Son of Rambow
(Reviewed May 8, 2008)
A funny and enjoyable movie but also one which loses a great opportunity through taking the movies too much at their own valuation
Full Review
Baby Mama
(Reviewed May 5, 2008)
An occasionally funny chick-flick that tries to do too many things at once
Full Review
Smart People
(Reviewed April 24, 2008)
A charmless, tedious and unfunny movie that cultivates an image of — of all things — intelligence
Full Review
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Diary
ENTRY from May 6, 2008
The night before Deborah Jean Palfrey took a length of nylon rope and stepped into her mother’s garden shed in a trailer park in Florida to hang herself, I went to see a production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Shakespeare Theatre of Washington. Among that play’s memorable lines, you will remember, are those of Cleopatra’s resolution on the death of Antony who, having been defeated in battle by Octavius Caesar, falls on his own sword rather than allow himself to fall into the hands of his enemy. "We’ll bury him," says Cleopatra to her maid-servants,
and then, what's brave, what's noble,
Let's do it after the high Roman fashion,
And make death proud to take us.
The rest of the story is well-known, and the magnificence of the Shakespearean language continues with her to the end, through
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Note to readers: My new book Media Madness, is now published and available for order from Encounter Books. Less a polemic than an attempt to understand the origins of the mass media’s folie de grandeur, the book is a warning even to those who are deserting the big networks, newsweeklies and large-circulation dailies not to carry with them into the more attractive world of niche media the undisciplined habits of thought that the old media culture has given rise to. To order this book, please click here .
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Also available, now in paperback, is Honor, A History, which was first published in 2006.
A study of Western cultural artifacts, from the epics of Homer to the movies and TV shows of today,
it is focused on explaining why Western ideas of honor developed so differently from those elsewhere —
and especially from the savage honor cultures of the Islamic world. The book then goes on to trace the collapse and ultimate
rejection of the old Western honor culture from World War I until the present day and to suggest the conditions that would have
to prevail for its revival. To order this book, please click here .
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Defining Definitions Down.
April 26, 2008.
To posit "constituencies" for the meanings of words is to mark a truly scary politicization of our common language — From The Wall Street Journal of April 26, 2008 ...
Full Article
Rock-Star Status.
March 31, 2008.
Do we really want our politicians to be celebrities or do we only have fits of thinking that we do? The answer will determine who is our next president — From The New Criterion of March, 2008 ...
Full Article
No Room for the Gentleman Amateur.
March 28, 2008.
Heroism is now all-but inconceivable except as slapstick comedy — From The American Spectator of March, 2008 ...
Full Article
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