Film/TV
687 results
Page 61
Herbert Gans imagines America in 2033
An academic envisions a future he won't see
As its title suggests, my old colleague Herbert Gans's latest book is a hopeful and engaging imagined “history” of the first third of the 21st Century. It begins like a novel and ends as a series of clearly stated position papers on the issues that made George W. Bush's presidency such a tragic American aberration.
Articles
5 minute read
Clint Eastwood's 'Hereafter'
In the realm of the absurd: Clint Eastwood confronts eternity
Clint Eastwood's Hereafter speculates about what may— or may not— lie in the Great Beyond. A brilliant opening sequence is worth the price of admission, but Eastwood, himself a professed skeptic, loads his dice too easily, and brings his plot lines together too patly at the end.
Articles
6 minute read
Peter Conn's "The American 1930s'
America's 1930s, in detail
Penn professor Peter Conn's The American 1930s is a scholarly wonder about a painful period. His perspective is more sociological than literary, and he misses little.
Articles
3 minute read
Mumia again: "Justice On Trial'
The case that won't (and shouldn't) go away
Justice on Trial, one of two documentaries about Mumia Abu-Jamal, puts Philadelphia's criminal justice system in the dock, showing how the dubious circumstances that made Abu-Jamal's trial and conviction in the 1981 slaying of Officer Daniel Faulkner were typical rather than exceptional— then and now.
Articles
7 minute read
Clint Eastwood's "Invictus' (2nd review)
Mandela's world-class try
The blurbs for Invictus give you the impression that South Africa's victory in the rugby World Cup merely boosted the country's morale during a difficult time. The movie actually concerns something more complicated.
Invictus. A film directed by Clint Eastwood. With Morgan Freeman (as Nelson Mandela), Matt Damon (as Francois Pienaar). Available on DVD.
Articles
4 minute read
"Saturday Night Fever,' revisited
Should you be dancin'? Saturday Night Fever, revisited
Saturday Night Fever evokes a brief moment in pop culture history: the sexual freedom between the dawn of the Pill and the advent of AIDS. To those of us born to that particular slice of the Baby Boom, this gritty 1977 movie and its buoyant songs often strike a contradictory note.
Articles
8 minute read
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Julia Roberts and "Eat, Pray, Love'
Julia Roberts confronts mature womanhood
Eat Pray Love is a forgettable work of escapist fantasy. But its star, Julia Roberts, is evolving in the opposite direction: from bimbo to mature woman with real brains and real-life problems.
Articles
4 minute read
Dennis Tafoya's "Wolves of Fairmount Park'
Crime and redemption, Philadelphia-style
Philadelphian Dennis Tafoya's second crime novel is a twisting journey into the gray, gritty urban demimonde of dope.
Articles
4 minute read
"Matterhorn,' a Vietnam novel by Karl Marlantes
A not-so-distant mirror
For those of us who lived through the Vietnam War, this powerful and compelling novel triggers haunting memories.
Articles
1 minute read
Electronic books vs. ink on paper
New adventures in reading: My first e-book experiment
Can a plastic rectangle produce the same habit-forming bliss as several hundred pages bound between two hard covers? My first experiment with e-books suggests that what really matters is The Word, not how it's conveyed.
Articles
5 minute read