Film

Ron Howard’s Disappointing Hillbilly Elegy

We are owed better films about Appalachia and the Rust Belt—about the “back row Americans” who are at once incredibly ordinary and incredibly extraordinary. Continue Reading »

1 Dec 2020

Benjamin Watson Tackles Abortion

by John Murdock

A recent documentary on abortion, Divided Hearts of America, invites conversations rather than condemnations. Continue Reading »

16 Nov 2020

The Anti-Romantic

by Matthew Schmitz

What Éric Rohmer said of one of his characters could be said of him as well: He was committed to “redoing all of Rousseau in reverse.” His films are anti-romantic. They reject romantic notions of liberation and autonomy. They critique the cult of romantic love. They warn against a romantic . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Oct 2020

The Rabbi Who Chose Trans Orthodoxy

by Sarah Rindner

For Yaakov Smith, a transgender person who lives and teaches in Jerusalem, Orthodoxy is a bit like the exaggerated femininity of the drag queen. Continue Reading »

24 Jul 2020

The Fallen Men of Film Noir

by Matthew Schmitz

In the mid-1940s, Hollywood began to make a new kind of crime film. Combining sex and violence, lust and greed, the “noir” was distinguished by the darkness of its themes and photography. Double Indemnity (1944) was, as a critic noted in the New York Times, “the first of the . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Jun 2020

Evildoers and Their Art

by Peter Hitchens

Eric Gill and Roman Polanski are both guilty of revolting crimes. But should we be punished by being deprived of the results of their undeniable talent? Continue Reading »

18 Feb 2020

How to Lose a Cold War
(and Why)

by Matthew Schmitz

North by Northwest’s style is so impeccable, its tone so effervescent, that many viewers fail to grasp the film’s seriousness. Ernest Lehman, the screenwriter, did not help when he described the film as an insubstantial caper in the vein of James Bond, “something that has wit, . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Jan 2020

A Hidden Life: The Story of a Marriage

by Nathaniel Peters

Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life tells the story of Austrian martyr Franz Jägerstätter and his wife Fani, who suffer as one body even when they are apart. Continue Reading »

20 Dec 2019