Im a fan of old movies, the black-and-whites from the 1930s and 1940s, in part because of what they reveal about how American culture has changed. The adults in these films carry themselves differently.
There are no scenes of spinning heads, projectile pea-soup vomiting, or levitating beds in The Exorcism of Emily Rose (opening September 9), starring Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, Jennifer Carpenter, and Campbell Scott.
With the release of The Revenge of the Sith (Episode III), George Lucas delivered the final episode in the most commercially successful cinema series ever. The films are notable for dazzling special effects, clunky dialogue and only occasional lapses into good acting. Why then their popularity? I suspect it's because they tell, in a thoroughly contemporary way, the most ancient stories about the human condition.
While tweaking the original Star Wars movie for re-release, director George Lucas decided that he needed to clarify the status of pilot Han Solo's soul.
It is fashionable to denounce the sex and violence that saturates American entertainment. Instead of condemning the supply perhaps we should examine why people demand this commodity.
In A Cry of Stone, the fifth novel in the series Children of the Last Days, Michael O'Brien has done his best work yet. This is a remarkable book.
Colleges and universities used to teach art history to encourage connoisseurship and acquaint students with the riches of our artistic heritage.
The pursuit of happiness. That's what Louis Schwartzberg, a stock cinematographer who took a break from shooting landscape and cityscape footage for Hollywood movies to roam the country collecting the two dozen portraits that make up America's Heart and Soul, has captured.
As a skeptic about the war in Iraq and one with a son quite likely to be sent there I was most disappointed with the quality of the polemic in Fahrenheit 9/11.