The average citizen of the West now lives nearly twice as long as he did a thousand years ago. An extension of the sunset years has proven disorienting to us, a fact chiefly observable in the growing legality and popularity of physician assisted suicide. This week, give five films which deal lucidly with old age…Read On
No one is perfect, neither living people nor fictional people. We must forgive our friends much, and we must forgive our favorite characters much, as well. We forgive our friends for sins they do not confess, because we want God to forgive the sins we do not confess, and we forgive the sins of our…Read On
The first episode of Lost premiered September 22, 2004 and ushered in what more than a few critics have called “the new golden age of television,” which lasts up until today. What are the five greatest individual episodes of television to have aired in this era? Jon Paul Pope “The Wheel,” Mad Men Episode 1.13…Read On
“Utopia – The Place That Cannot Be”: How Mad Men Incorporates the Divine Comedy Into the American Dream “They taught us at Barnard about that word, ‘utopia,’” says Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff) in “Babylon,” the sixth episode of Mad Men’s first season. “The Greeks had two meanings for it: ‘eu-topos,’ meaning ‘the good place,’ and ‘u-topos,’…Read On
The epic of the wasteland, at worst, beats you over the head with a cricket bat. At best, the epic of the wasteland is the greatest analysis of the absolute depravity humans can sink to and the heights to which they can soar. It is the ultimate nightmare of a world obsessed with its own survival…Read On
This week, the five greatest animated movies of all time. Thomas Banks: The Jungle Book Robin Hood 101 Dalmations The Sword in the Stone The Looney Toons spoof on Casablanca Brian Murnion: Toy Story (USA – 1995) Sleeping Beauty (USA – 1959) Spirited Away (Japan – 2001) The Secret of Nimh (USA – 1982) The…Read On
“He who saves one life saves the world entire” claims the Talmud. How can this be true? Judaism, Islam and Christianity all have long philosophical and theological traditions which uphold the notion that man is a microcosm, a little cosmos, and that God has written the entirety of creation, in miniature, within the person of…Read On
