Culture
October 4, 2024 — Scott Johnson
At the moment TCM is playing Akira Kurosawa’s film High and Low (1963). You may want to seek it out online. It is a drama starring Toshiro Mifune as a wealthy executive who is told that his son has been kidnapped and being held for ransom. The executive faces a moral dilemma after he realizes that his chauffeur’s son was taken by mistake. Kurosawa’s films are entertaining in a profound
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September 24, 2024 — Scott Johnson
TCM is running a series based on the New Republic’s list of “The 100 most significant political films of all time.” Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Lives of Others (2006) came in at number 19 on the New Republic list: “Set in the 1980s, this German drama tells the story of a morally conflicted Stasi agent spying on two East German residents, a playwright and an actress.” The film made
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August 30, 2024 — John Hinderaker
Last night, American Experiment held a pre-release screening of the Daily Wire’s new movie, Am I Racist? for an invited audience of 230. Justin Folk, who produced and directed the film, attended the showing and answered questions from the audience afterward. Am I Racist? stars Matt Walsh, who appears in nearly every frame. It was produced by the same team, Matt Walsh and Justin Folk, that created What Is a
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July 28, 2024 — John Hinderaker
The opening ceremonies of the Olympics have stirred a lot of controversy as a result of their tastelessness and offensiveness. Most notorious has been an apparent drag satire on the Last Supper, which by now everyone has seen: French Olympic authorities have not been able to keep their story straight on this one. Some have claimed that the tableaux had nothing to do with DaVinci’s painting or the Last Supper
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July 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
I am sad to note the death of comedian Bob Newhart at the age of 94. The New York Times has posted an obituary, a 2019 interview, six performances to stream, and a 2014 profile — “Master of the one sided conversation.” Newhart was a laughter is the best medicine kind of guy. He will be remembered and he will be missed. RIP. I saw Newhart perform live in Minneapolis
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April 7, 2024 — John Hinderaker
This is from Britain’s Telegraph, but I think we would see similar numbers in other countries, and worse in some: Only one in four British Muslims believe that Hamas committed murder and rape in Israel on Oct 7, a major report has found. The numbers are even worse for “educated” Muslims: Younger and well-educated Muslims were the most likely to think Hamas did not commit atrocities on Oct 7, with
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April 3, 2024 — John Hinderaker
When I was growing up, most families I knew had four children. More, if they were Catholics. That is one of the fundamental ways in which our society has changed: today, people generally have fewer children. And now, if you show me a family with four children, I will lay heavy odds that they are Republicans. In the New York Post, Glenn Reynolds writes about the fact that the world
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March 19, 2024 — John Hinderaker
From the London Times: Margaret Thatcher has been listed as a “contemporary villain” alongside Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden in a display at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The former Conservative prime minister is named as one of several “unpopular public figures” in the exhibition on British humour through the ages. Thatcher served as Prime Minister for nearly 12 years, the longest such tenure in British history. A casual
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February 28, 2024 — John Hinderaker
The Venice Biennale is one of the world’s biggest art shows. The show has a national focus: Held since 1895 and considered the world’s top art event, the Venice Biennale, which starts in April, gives nations the chance to show off their best artists at national pavilions. That is the hook for pro-mass muder artists to try to boot Israel out: A petition to kick Israel out of the Venice
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February 27, 2024 — John Hinderaker
This picture of kids on a playground in 1912 popped up on my Instagram feed: It got me thinking: if you encouraged that sort of activity today, someone would call the police. No one would consider it safe for kids to play that way, and when it comes to children, safety–or “safety”–is the supreme value. I have been working, on and off, on a memoir about what it was like
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January 11, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Last week I declared Edward Jay Esptein’s Assume Nothing: Encounters With Assassins, Spies, Presidents, and Would-Be Masters of the Universe my book of the year. I followed up with Ed by email, asking him how he was doing and telling him I wanted to visit him in New York. Ed responded that he was “just recovering from [his] first bout of covid” and asked how I was doing. I am
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January 3, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Senator Tom Cotton was the guest of honor at Commentary’s annual roast this past November 12. That means he was the roastee. In the January issue editor John Podhoretz turns over the space reserved for his monthly editorial on the issue’s first page (and in this case a few more) to Senator Cotton’s Guest Commentary (“Now More Than Ever”) — his remarkable speech paying tribute to Commentary at the roast.
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January 1, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Before Eddie Muller took over the Saturday night/Sunday morning niche on TCM with his Noir Alley, I was only familiar with a few classics of film noir such as Double Indemnity (directed by Billy Wilder, starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (directed by Tay Garnett, starring John Garfield and Lana Turner). Whoever loves well-made movies with a kick must love those films. Following Muller’s
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December 28, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Commenting on the “apology” tendered by the rapper formerly known as Kanye West for causing “unintended outbursts,” I quoted the text verbatim. I also drew on Christopher Kuo’s New York Times story reporting on the denial of anti-Semitism reflected in the title track of his forthcoming compact disc Vultures. On the album’s title track, the Times reports, “Ye raps that he cannot be antisemitic because he had sex with a
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December 27, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I first tuned in to the anti-Semitic ravings of Kanye West or Ye in his October 2022 interview with Tucker Carlson. In the part of the interview Tucker chose to air, Jared Kushner’s promotion of peace between Israel and Arabs in the Abraham Accords was disparaged as self-interested in an evocative fashion. “I just think it was to make money,” Ye said. “Is that too heavy-handed to put on this
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December 23, 2023 — John Hinderaker
I am not sure how many Taylor Swift concerts my three daughters, combined, have gone to. At least six or seven, I think, and my wife has chaperoned them at most if not all, since these were when the girls were quite a bit younger. So I have been aware of Taylor Swift for a long time. Swift is now the number one figure in global popular culture. Long an
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December 14, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The mental health crisis among America’s young people is well documented and frequently commented upon. The New York Post reports on a recent psychological study: Gen Z perceives the world to be more dangerous than any previous generation in modern history, according to a new study. *** “Despite risk analysis research demonstrating that we live in one of the safest times ever, Gen Z experiences a disparity in risk assessment
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