Essays

A media star, imbued with a love of self even greater than his disdain for everyone else, parlays his on-air popularity into a rapid climb to political power.  It is only when he attains his highest position does the full measure of his antipathy become apparent to his worshipful followers. The year is 1957. Elia...

I don’t think that I am going out on a limb when I say that World War II changed everything.  Among other things, women made it into the workforce, had control over their bodies, and proved they were capable of running their own lives.  Needless to say, society (read “men”) was determined to push them...

Here’s something many of us thought we would never say: “Damn, I miss going to the office.”  Well, there are myriad ways of vicariously rejoining the workforce, not the least of which could include bingeing on Mad Men or The Office yet again.  On the other hand, now might be a good time to remind yourself of why you...

John Frankenheimer was always an enigmatic filmmaker.  Just when you thought you knew what he was about, he would fling a cinematic monkey wrench at your assumption. His whipsaw turns began early.  As a young man, Frankenheimer stumbled into television directing then immediately established himself as a master of small stories about common people moving...

Some movies exist in a magical land beyond useful criticism.  This does not mean that they cannot be examined or that they are even all that good.  It simply means that all the criticism in the world has no impact on the way that we feel about them.  Our reactions are strictly personal, based on...

As we sift through the wreckage of another experiment in democracy, one thing seems very clear to me:  We would never get through all of this without satirists.  In all honesty, I’m not sure that I could have survived the last four years and whatever is to come without the life preservers thrown by John...

I am the product of twelve years of Catholic education.  This means that I do not take guilt lightly.  At the same time, I love guilty pleasures.  This is especially true when that guilt involves movies about religion. The postwar years were filled with these.  Most were massive epics like The Ten Commandments, The Robe and Quo Vadis. ...

What is it about tales of the ancient British royalty that brings out the stiffness in filmmakers?  So many of these stories are filled with “thees” and “thous” more appropriate to biblical epics while other lines hit the ear with a thud when said by actors who can’t even approximate an appropriate accent.  Believe me,...