Stupid Christians

Last updated on: January 4, 2013 at 6:41 am By Paul D. Miller

Review of The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Noll By PAUL D. MILLER Have you ever noticed the prominence of Catholics among American public intellectuals? George Weigel, Peggy Noonan, Robert P. George, Richard John Neuhaus, Ramesh Ponnuru, William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, Hadley Arkes, Michael Novak, and others make up a growing body of conservative American Catholic thought on social, cultural, and political affairs in the 20th and 21st centuries. A majority of Justices on the Supreme Court—the... Read more

Pride and Prejudice and Blitzkrieg: Tolstoy’s War and Peace

Last updated on: January 3, 2013 at 6:57 am By Paul D. Miller

Review of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy By PAUL D. MILLER War and Peace is five hundred and sixty thousand words long. It is more than twice as long as Moby Dick, almost triple the length of Jane Eyre, more than quadruple Augustine’s Confessions. It is one great pulsating mass of text, a grey rising tide of narrative. Enter War and Peace at your peril: it may swallow you whole. If you dare the crossing and, unlike Napoleon’s Army, make... Read more

Christian Hamaker’s Top 20 Films of 2012

Last updated on: January 2, 2013 at 6:56 am By Christian Hamaker

By CHRISTIAN HAMAKER The year started slowly at the cinema, but it delivered so strongly in the final few months that the dreary first two-thirds of the year are easily forgivable in retrospect. Here’s a list of the 20 best films I saw this year, tilted decidedly toward the latter months of 2012. 20. Flight: Robert Zemeckis steps away from the motion-capture animation that has earned him brickbats (A Christmas Carol (2009), Beowulf (2007), The Polar Express (2004)) from critics... Read more

Gonna Fly Now; Or, the American (Non)Gospel

Last updated on: December 31, 2012 at 6:37 am By Alexis Neal

Review of Rocky, Directed by John D. Avildsen By ALEXIS NEAL I feel a little silly describing the plot of Rocky (1976). Still, I know there may be a few young whippersnappers out there who never sat around on Saturday afternoons watching old action movies on TNT and who thus don’t know who this Sylvester Stallone guy is or why people get so excited when he pops up on their movie screens in otherwise unremarkable films like The Expendables (2010)... Read more

Alexis’s Top Reads of 2012

Last updated on: December 28, 2012 at 6:03 am By Alexis Neal

By ALEXIS NEAL This would be me jumping on Ye Olde Bandwagon (Bookwagon?), if you will. As Coyle and Kendrick have done before me, I include only books I read this year, not books that were necessarily published this year—and no re-reads, either. Only books with which I had my very first encounter in 2012. With that in mind, here’s my book award list: Best Western: True Grit, by Charles Portis I read quite a few Westerns this year, which... Read more

Coyle’s Best of 2012

Last updated on: December 27, 2012 at 6:50 am By Coyle Neal

By COYLE NEAL I can’t claim that these are the best books of 2012, but they are the ones that I read that stand out the most from my Goodreads list. Fiction The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak: This young adult novel explores the power of words through a compelling plot narrated by Death himself. And, well, you should read this book. Period. (Full review here) The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky: This was my first trek into 19th century... Read more

Kendrick’s Best of 2012

Last updated on: December 26, 2012 at 6:40 am By Kendrick Kuo

By KENDRICK KUO Since it is the thing to do on blogs such as ours, I’ve compiled a list of my favorite books that I read in 2012. This does not mean these are books were published this year, but that I read them sometime over the past 12 months. How do I decide what’s a “favorite” book? I use non-precise criteria of either 1) the quality of the prose, that is, the sheer joy of reading the book, or... Read more

Django Discusses Race

Last updated on: December 25, 2012 at 6:56 am By Kendrick Kuo

Review of Django Unchained, Directed by Quentin Tarantino By KENDRICK KUO Django Unchained is everything you would expect from a Tarantino film. Much in the same vein as Inglorious Basterds, this story is a historical one. Instead of Nazi Germany, it is set in the antebellum South. If you liked Inglorious Basterds, I would reckon you will enjoy Django Unchained—if you can stomach the gore that underlines the brutal world of slavery. Naturally, any film depicting race relations in the... Read more

Why I Hate Christmas

Last updated on: December 24, 2012 at 6:59 am By Paul D. Miller

Review of The Polar Express, Directed by Robert Zemeckis By PAUL D. MILLER The Polar Express (2004) is the perfect expression of what I hate about Christmas. And by “Christmas,” I mean, of course, the simpering, saccharine celebration of objectless “faith” in nothing in particular—a collection of groundless and ephemeral good feelings we artificially and briefly conjure up before returning to our cynical lives for the other eleven months of the year. The Polar Express is, according to its official... Read more

Cirque du Soleil: A James Cameron Filmmaking Dictionary

Last updated on: December 21, 2012 at 6:52 am By Coyle Neal

Review of Cirque du Soleil, Directed by James Cameron By COYLE NEAL James Cameron’s Cirque du Soleil is a regular Pandora’s box of titanic proportions. It is a masterpiece of cinematic excellence and a film course all rolled into one. Merely watching this movie will teach you all about what makes a great film. As I walk through the plot (spoilers galore), I’ll share with you free of charge all the movie terms and definitions I picked up along the way.... Read more