Fire From the Gods: Oppenheimer as a Greek Tragic Hero

By |2024-03-11T21:33:02-05:00March 11th, 2024|Categories: Death, Film, Greek Epic Poetry, Science|

Like the Greek tragic heroes of Oedipus and Prometheus, J. Robert Oppenheimer used his almost superhuman intellect and ability to achieve something that led not only to his own suffering, but also to the suffering of others. Americans today would do well to heed the lessons passed down from the Greek tragedians about the reckless [...]

The Profoundly Humane Vision of “Groundhog Day”

By |2024-02-01T19:34:01-06:00February 1st, 2024|Categories: Christianity, Classical Education, Culture, Film, Great Books, Liberal Learning, Timeless Essays|

The protagonist of the film “Groundhog Day” discovers that what makes life worth living is not immediate gratification, or moral autonomy, or flippant cynicism, or self-deification, but rather encountering those things that give meaning and purpose to our lives. Today, we are experiencing nothing less than a renaissance of classical education throughout the United States, [...]

“Napoleon,” the Movie: A Reflection

By |2024-01-29T19:22:35-06:00January 29th, 2024|Categories: Film, History, Mark Malvasi, Senior Contributors|

Ridley Scott’s film is a vast oversimplification of a complex historical reality. Therein lies the danger. Like a mind-altering drug, the film provides a convenient shortcut that saves the audience the time and trouble of thinking for themselves. Filmgoers, of course, need not become experts in Napoleonic history. But Scott might have done more to [...]

“Maestro” and the Misuse of Culture

By |2024-01-02T15:14:28-06:00January 1st, 2024|Categories: Film, Michael De Sapio, Music, Senior Contributors|

The film "Maestro" is certainly well-made and well-acted, with Bradley Cooper (who also directed) carrying off a spot-on impersonation of Leonard Bernstein. But at its core is an emptiness that no mere artifice can fill. Writers for the movies, I have found, don’t seem to know how to deal with the arts as a dramatic [...]

How to Break Bad? “The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes”

By |2023-12-29T14:54:16-06:00December 29th, 2023|Categories: David Deavel, Film, Senior Contributors|

Perhaps the new "Hunger Games" film's success is due as much to its realism about human nature as it is to the fact that it’s a familiar product whose origins lie in the time before the full conquering of Hollywood by wokeness. The movie critic John Podhoretz once recalled a woman coming out of a [...]

The Art of Darkness

By |2023-12-28T17:20:02-06:00December 28th, 2023|Categories: Evil, Film, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

There is a world of difference between the dark arts and the art of darkness. Truth be told, there is more than a world of difference; there is a hell of a difference and a hell of a distance. It is the difference and the distance between heaven and hell. The dark arts are evil [...]

“The Miracle of the Bells”: A Forgotten Novel & Film

By |2023-12-28T16:48:50-06:00December 28th, 2023|Categories: Books, Catholicism, Christmas, Film, Timeless Essays|

The Miracle of the Bells doesn’t claim to be great literature, but it is a richly-drawn story about faith and Hollywood, a time capsule of a bygone era that retains its inspirational charm. The Miracle of the Bells by Russell Janney (510 pages, Forgotten Books, 1946) Back in 1947 it was possible for a Catholic novel to [...]

England’s “Red Rose Revolution”

By |2023-11-20T23:17:04-06:00November 20th, 2023|Categories: England, Film, Monarchy|

The Red Rose Revolution brought about by Princess Diana's tragic death was a triumph of sentimentality over reality. In the intervening twenty-five years, that sentimentality has prevailed in England, sweeping away the sterling values that had been the hallmark of English character. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I have watched the most recent [...]

Killing Indiana Jones

By |2023-07-13T09:02:19-05:00July 9th, 2023|Categories: Film, Stephen M. Klugewicz|

"Those days have come and gone," says Indiana Jones at one point in the newly-released film, "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." And they sure have, for our hero has been emasculated on the altar of political correctness in this film, with an immoral, money-grubbing, narcissistic, feminist character usurping his place. "Those days have [...]

Democracy Is Beautiful: Conservatism as if the People Matter

By |2023-07-02T20:55:56-05:00July 2nd, 2023|Categories: American Republic, Community, Conservatism, Democracy, Film, Populism, Willmoore Kendall|

To rebuild their movement and society, and to rebuild a viable culture, conservatives must embrace the conservative populism championed by two men: filmmaker Frank Capra and scholar Willmoore Kendall. Pursuing this path will be challenging, for populism has become a bogeyman for the powers that be. Last December, my wife and I motored a couple [...]

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