2012-10-26T06:00:18-06:00

Last updated on: October 26, 2012 at 6:00 am   By

Review of Cloud Atlas Directed by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis By COYLE NEAL Don’t let the title fool you—there is neither cartography nor meteorology in the latest entry in the “I read a philosophy book once” series of films by the Wachowski brothers siblings starship. As with their previous movies, Cloud Atlas contains a goodly mix of action, humor, fantastically imaginative settings, pseudo-philosophical one-liners, and Elrond. Weighing in at just under three hours, this lengthy tale is well worth... Read more

2012-10-25T06:00:23-06:00

Last updated on: October 25, 2012 at 6:00 am   By

 A Review of Cloud Atlas, directed by Tom Tykwer and Wachowski Starship By ALEXIS NEAL Every once in a while, you see movies advertised as offering ‘something for everyone,’ and it’s usually just so much marketing malarkey. Cloud Atlas is an exception. This deeply strange film includes: a period adventure on the high seas (complete with abolitionist sub-plot); a tragic Gothic love story full of secrecy and betrayal; a 1970’s conspiracy thriller; a screwball madcap comedy caper; a dystopian sci-fi... Read more

2012-10-24T06:00:38-06:00

Last updated on: October 24, 2012 at 6:00 am   By

Review of Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter Miller By COYLE NEAL The unthinkable has happened. Civilization has been eliminated by nuclear war. Following the war, the survivors blamed the disaster on intellectuals, and in the “great simplification,” books were burned and the well-educated were lynched. Only in the monasteries did reading and writing live on—and there only in the greatest of secrecy. Canticle for Leibowitz, Miller’s classic work of science fiction, deals with the aftermath of these events in three... Read more

2012-10-23T06:00:42-06:00

Last updated on: October 23, 2012 at 6:00 am   By

Review of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris By KENDRICK KUO Teddy Roosevelt has been in the news recently. Last week, the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed discussing the persistent failure of Teddy to win the Nationals’ presidents race that occurs every baseball game. There was a public outcry. Even Edmund Morris contributed to that article. And to the joy of all Nats fans, Teddy finally won on October 3rd! The definitive biography of Theodore Roosevelt is a... Read more

2012-10-22T06:00:39-06:00

Last updated on: October 22, 2012 at 6:00 am   By

Review of We the Underpeople by Cordwainer Smith By COYLE NEAL The year is 15,000 A.D, and humanity is perfect. People live for four hundred years in perfect health, and die a perfectly peaceful and perfectly happy death when their time is up. All hard work is done by devoted robots and loving “underpeople”—human-like versions of man’s best animal friends to do the dirty labor that had oppressed people for so long. Despite being spread out across hundreds of worlds,... Read more

2012-10-19T06:09:51-06:00

Last updated on: October 19, 2012 at 6:09 am   By

Review of Evangellyfish by Douglas Wilson By JUSTIN HAWKINS Commenting in his youth on his own pastorate, Reinhold Niebuhr remarked that “I make no apology for being critical of what I love. No one wants a love which is based upon illusions, and there is no reason why we should not love a profession and yet be critical of it.” By this metric, Pastor Doug Wilson loves the ministry.  If Mark Noll’s Scandal of the Evangelical Mind was “an epistle from a wounded... Read more

2012-10-18T06:05:38-06:00

Last updated on: October 18, 2012 at 6:05 am   By

Review of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Directed by John Ford By PAUL D. MILLER Here is a movie that just begs to be a Jeopardy question. The category is “Classic Film.” The answers are: “The only movie in which Jimmy Stewart punches John Wayne in the face,” “The second movie in which Jimmy Stewart plays a U.S. Senator,” and “The best John Ford movie never to be nominated for anything.” The question: “What is The Man Who Shot... Read more

2012-10-17T06:02:54-06:00

Last updated on: October 17, 2012 at 6:02 am   By

Review of The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett By ALEXIS NEAL Mistress Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells And marigolds all in a row! So goes the nursery rhyme taunt sung to the central character in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s novel, The Secret Garden. And the shoe certainly fits: Mary Lennox is quite contrary. And little wonder: Born in India to wealthy British parents, she’s always been given her way... Read more

2012-10-16T06:59:01-06:00

Last updated on: October 16, 2012 at 6:59 am   By

Review of Crossing the Line, Directed by Daniel Gordon and Nicholas Bonner By KENDRICK KUO Crossing the Line is a British documentary about American defectors to North Korea. In 1962, James J. Dresnok, a U.S. Army soldier, defected to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. To my surprise, although the documentary focuses on Dresnok, it also discusses three other U.S. military defectors. Who knew that this kind of stuff happened? Before you know it, you’re introduced to a cast of... Read more

2012-10-15T06:55:29-06:00

Last updated on: October 15, 2012 at 6:55 am   By

Review of Senna, Directed by Asif Kapadia By CHRISTIAN HAMAKER As a member of the Washington Area Film Critics Association, I’m honored to take part in the group’s year-end awards vote. Between my regular assignments as a film critic for Crosswalk.com, I try to squeeze in as many films as I can in order to be well informed come award voting time. Even then, films can fall through the cracks. Senna, the story of Brazilian Formula One racer Ayrton Senna,... Read more

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