Politics
AMERICA IS IN DECLINE: SIGNS, CAUSES, AND IMPLICATIONS FOR GLOBAL POLITICS
Fiction Reviews
Book Review: Other Lives by Peter Bagge
September 15, 2026Overall, there’s a universality to the dilemma that Bagge’s characters face: Who are we? We each...
Movies
The Weekly Listicle: The Worst Endings Ever EVER.
September 15, 2026Six seasons have come and passed, but now this Sunday, May 23rd, ‘Lost’ finally comes to...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Book Review: Where the Dark and the Light Folks Meet: Race and the Mythology, Politics, and Business of Jazz by Randall Sandke
September 14, 2026Sandke offers no critical commentary about this piece of advice that was given Armstrong after he...
After Image
Recycling Meets Recreation
September 14, 2026Last year Macro-Sea conceived of the Dumpster Pool. The designers constructed what they call a "lo-fi...
Movies
What summer should have been: Camp in Movies and TV
September 14, 2026It’s already mid-May, guys. Summer’s nearly upon us. “Summer” means something different to everyone, but universally...
Movies
miniBLOGS: Why “Lost” Sucked This Week, Why 3-D is Doomed, and Three Trailers You HAVE to See
September 14, 2026The problem is that “Lost: The Science Fiction Series” was just okay, while “Lost: The Fantasy...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Book Review: The Songs of Hollywood by Philip Furia and Laurie Patterson
September 13, 2026For the next few years, Hollywood musicals, climaxing in 42nd Street (1933), would be "backstage" pictures....
Movies
The Weekly Listicle: Action Heroines!
September 13, 2026For some reason Ridley Scott decided another retelling of Robin Hood was a good idea, and...
Art
The Life and Work of Eadweard Muybridge
September 13, 2026Muybridge had married his young assistant, in 1871. After a while, he began to suspect that...
Movies
The Final Word: Is horror better left off-screen?
September 13, 2026Welcome back to The Final Word, a running feature from me (Julia Rhodes) and William Bibbiani,...
Movies
Movie Review: Iron Man 2
September 12, 2026Jon Favreau’s first Iron Man was a snazzy little number, cherry red and rocket-fueled and brimming...
Fiction Reviews
Book Review: Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes
September 12, 2026The story is set in the spring of 1969 in the northwest corner of the country...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Book Review: Cleopatra: A Biography by Duane W. Roller
September 12, 2026Pity Duane W. Roller, author of Cleopatra: A Biography. I can just imagine the initial conversation...
Biography
Book Review: Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? by James Shapiro
September 12, 2026Beginning around 1800, the hunt started to find the “real” Shakespeare, the noble visionary who had...
Television
Discussion: The Best TV of the Last Fifteen Years
September 11, 2026TV: Is it making us dumber, and how is it changing? (Aside from the fact that...
Movies
Movie Review: Nightmare on Elm Street
September 11, 2026The new Springwood is a land of green lawns, money, and white-trimmed colonial houses where teenagers...
Movies
The Final Word: Is 3-D better than 2-D?
September 11, 2026Oh sure, we’re probably going to be stuck with 3-D forever now that everyone flocked to...
Art
Artist’s Blacklist Fights Speculation
September 11, 2026Although the market has been good to Ms. Dumas, the artist’s distaste for speculative art buyers...
Movies
The Weekly Listicle: The Finest Costumes in Film History
September 10, 2026Excellent costume design is flattering, practical, thematically appropriate and iconic, and our choices for the Best...
Movies
The Weekly Listicle: Best Horror Movie Villains EVER.
September 10, 2026This week marks the opening of yet another horror remake: the new Nightmare on Elm Street...
Movies & TV
100 Greatest Gangster Films: The Godfather, #1
December 20, 2025The Godfather made careers, most notably those of Francis Ford Coppola and Al Pacino, despite the...
Television
In Defense of The Social Network: Movie demonizes sexism, doesn’t glamorize it.
October 16, 2026Fiction vs. reality: Eisenberg and Zuckerberg. First things first: I’m in the business of paying close...
Historical Fiction
Book Review: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
October 18, 2026Pasternak ranges the individualism of Zhivago against the heartless society that is being erected by the...
The Fourth Wall
Catching Up With 2010: Marmaduke
October 9, 2026A scant few minutes into Marmaduke there’s a fart joke. Right after this fart joke Marmaduke...
Movies
All Of This Will Happen Again: Step Up 2 The Streets Revisited!
October 5, 2026Earlier this week we took a look at the first Step Up, the hit machine that...
After Image
Larry Rivers, NYU, and Child Pornography
September 27, 2026How should we respond, however, when sexual abuse is the subject of a piece and a...
Art
Art Review: Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy and Germany, 1918-1936
October 14, 2026Chaos and Classicism tells the story of good intentions that went terribly wrong. After the carnage...
Movies
Movie Review: Step Up 3D
October 3, 2026Step Up 3D is a good movie. Not an instant classic, but a genuine celebration of...
Video Games
Video Game Review: Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
October 22, 2026Oddly enough, it’s this great multiplayer mode that most throws the rest of the game into...
Literary Themes
The Weekly Listicle: Misleading Movie Titles
June 29, 2025Sometimes a movie's title appears to be a secret known only to the writer. Sometimes it...
The Fourth Wall
Mad (wo)Men: The Complexity of Womanhood in “Mad Men”
October 11, 2026The cast of AMC’s “Mad Men:” Vincent Kartheiser, Elisabeth Moss, John Slattery, Jon Hamm, January Jones,...
Top Posts & Pages
Trending
Contributors
