James Herrick's "Scientific Mythologies'

How many sci-fi writers can dance on the head of a pin?

James Herrick, a Christian apologist at a fundamentalist college, sees pop culture and science fiction supplanting traditional religious myths as the cutting force of spirituality today. Not to worry, professor: Steven Spielberg, Carl Sagan and the makers of Star Wars and Star Trek are mostly pouring old wine into new bottles.

Mitchell Gordon

Aug 04, 2009 · Articles · 3 minute read

"Bruno' and male neuroses

Who's that squirming in the audience?

Bruno, the latest comic vehicle for the entrapment artist Sacha Baron Cohen, seems at first glance a tasteless porridge of adolescent humor— a second serving of Cohen's parody of former Soviet republics, Borat. But look again: Bruno might be ripping off the scabs covering many of our cultural hang-ups, especially male ones.

Anne R. Fabbri

Aug 04, 2009 · Articles · 3 minute read

Majidi's "Song of Sparrows'

Neo-realism from Iran

To a film buff who's unfamiliar with Iranian neo-realist cinema, Majid Majidi's Song of Sparrows is a revelation: a film so believable that I thought I was watching a documentary.

Brett S. Harrison

Aug 02, 2009 · Articles · 2 minute read

Martin Provost's 'Séraphine' at the Ritz Five

A few words about art

Martin Provost's Séraphine is a beautiful film based on the real-life relationship of an art critic and a self-taught artist on the eve of World War I. Provost intriguingly focuses not on the financial and artistic success that this partnership generated but on failures of communication between the artist and the wordsmith.

Judy Weightman

Aug 02, 2009 · Articles · 3 minute read

My personal Bad Cop Film Festival

L.A. Detrimental, or: My personal Bad Cop Film Festival

Movies about good cops gone bad are so fascinating that I've often wished some cable channel would assemble a Bad Cop Film Festival. They haven't, so I'm doing it here. Is it a coincidence that most of my choices are set in Los Angeles?

Bob Ingram

Jul 21, 2009 · Articles · 7 minute read

What Hollywood could learn from 1939

It was a very good year in Hollywood: What today's movies could learn from 1939

The Academy Awards committee recently increased the number of Oscar nominees for “Best Film” from five to ten. But today's ten best films would be hard-pressed to make the top 100 of 1939. What did Hollywood do right in that year when everything else in the world went wrong?

Armen Pandola

Jul 21, 2009 · Articles · 5 minute read

Michael Mann's "Public Enemies'

Dillinger the doomed

In Michael Mann's crime films, the lines between good and bad are never clear. In his ambiguously titled Public Enemies, Mann suggests that the exuberant if bloody bank robber John Dillinger and the straitlaced G-men who pursued him were in many respects brothers under the skin.

Mark Wolverton

Jul 14, 2009 · Articles · 5 minute read

James Toback's "Tyson'

The dark prince of boxing

Tyson, James Toback's celebrated documentary, explores a life that the boxer himself called “a Greek tragedy.” The former “baddest man on the planet” obviously trusted Toback to the point that he acquiesced in Toback's brilliant cinematic strategy of using Tyson himself as the sole interviewee and narrator of the film.

Bob Ingram

Jun 15, 2009 · Articles · 5 minute read

"Frost/Nixon' on DVD

Frost/Nixon on DVD: The play vs. the movie vs. the real thing

Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon, now available on DVD, works as a tale about two ambitious men confronting each other in search of redemption, absolution, worldly success and ultimate closure.

Mark Wolverton

Jun 14, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read

Roberto Bolaño's '2666'

A Tolstoy for our century

Roberto Bolaño's novel 2666 ranges across time and space to present a stately, soaring series of tales that plumb the human heart in all its grandeur and darkness. It's a lesson for this new and aching century.

Bob Ingram

May 10, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read