An assault on the character of a progressive intellectual invites an assessment of the attacker’s character—not to mention his client list.
Movies
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Robin Williams and the Weight of Being Famous
It’s a wonder more celebrities aren’t driven to despair by it.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Here’s Why One Day You Will Probably Fall In Love With a Robot
It’s not that you won’t realize you’ve fallen head over heels for a piece of software; it’s that you won’t care.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
A Hard Days Night and Beatlemania: The West’s Last Outbreak of Optimism Disease
How much the Beatles helped create the ’60s and how much the ’60s helped create the Beatles is one of the great chicken-and-egg questions.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
New Film About Liberal Gadfly Gore Vidal Totally Misses the Point
Gore Vidal rejoiced in making his readers’ lives more complicated by baring the power drives underneath our political pieties. The United States of Amnesia does him, and its audience, no justice.
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Is ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ Author John Green His Generation’s Pop Philosopher?
The author and phenom, with a bajillion Internet viewers, has built an avid Internet following with pep talks on how to be good. What does it mean to live like one of Green’s “Nerdfighters”?
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Hipster Vampires in the Ruins of Motor City
While the latest offering from director Jim Jarmusch may be about blood-sucking bohemians, it’s really a lament for the vanishing culture of the Beat Generation and mid-century rock and roll.
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Cannes Looks a Lot Like Hollywood: The Power Belongs to Men
At the glamorous French film festival, as at the Oscars, women directors are hard to find.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
In Defense of Star Wars
There’s a growing backlash against the sci-fi flick, and the critiques aren’t necessarily wrong. But you have to understand it in the context of its time.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Two Roads Diverged
The fates of the stars of 1964’s The World of Henry Orient say much about the decade in which they came of age.