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Category Archives: criticism
The Fulsome Mr. Fox
Wes Anderson’s trajectory into animated features is anything if not logical. It’s fitting that his first foray into animation would also see his first explicit invocation of “existentialism” (to my recollection). “What’s it mean to be a fox, or to be an opossum?” George Clooney plaintively asks in the first 15 minutes of his film. [...]
Also posted in film Tagged animation, bill murray, fantastic mr. fox, film, george clooney, review, wes anderson Leave a comment
taken in woodstock
I went to see Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock (2009) with my parents tonight. More out of obligation to my uncle, who is credited as “music supervisor” than any inherent desire to see this film. That said, it’s hard to understand the appeal of such a film outside of my parents demographic group (the baby boom), [...]
Also posted in film Tagged 60s, ang lee, demitri martin, film, music, taking woodstock, woodstock Leave a comment
on David Fincher
I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button last night. David Fincher’s 2008 Best Picture-nominated biopic of the fictional Fitzgerald character leaves a lasting impression, as do most of his other films. Fincher, for all his failings as a mainstream director who attempted to bring the art house to the masses, does seem to be [...]
Also posted in film Tagged benjamin button, brad pitt, cate blanchett, david fincher, film, lincoln center, movies Leave a comment
transformers: revenge of the fallen
Francis Bacon declared that the Egyptian pyramids were the highest achievement of Western art. He was right: no other work of art so successfully conveys a culture’s obsession with death, its desire to be known throughout history. The pyramids evoke man’s epic battle against entropy: against waste, old age and eventual obscurity.
Michael Bay’s Transformers: [...]
Also posted in film Tagged megan fox, michael bay, movies, revenge of the fallen, shia labouef, transformers Leave a comment
the dyspeptic critic
Mark Steyn asks us to imagine the state of our republic if
Miss Bethea gets her way, and the national bureaucracy in Washington becomes responsible for grade- school paint jobs from Maine to Hawaii. What size of government would be required for such a project? And is it compatible with a constitutional republic?
Was Montesquieu right? Once [...]
Also posted in politics Tagged de toqueville, liberalism, montesquieu, new criterion Leave a comment
in desire, sin?
The interminably moralistic Roger Scruton advises the young and crazy to pursue a flight into temperance:
In just such a way we should define sexual temperance, not as the avoidance of desire, but as the habit of feeling the right desire towards the right object and on the right occasion. That is what true chastity consists [...]
solipsism in philosophy
Crooked timber has an interesting little piece on the haughtiness of philosophers. From the article:
Philosophy seems to be an outlier within the humanities, just as Linguistics is; we have less in common with the other humanities in terms of the concepts and methods that we deploy, and even the subject matter, than they have with [...]
Also posted in philosophy Tagged dialectic, english, history, interpretation, method, philosophy, sciences Leave a comment
vulgarity
Theodore Dalrymple (neé Anthony Daniels) has this to say on vulgarity in this month’s New Criterion:
Are there primary qualities so indisputable that all other qualities are ultimately reducible to combinations of them, so that we can know for certain, at least in theory, that we are all talking about precisely the same thing? Personally, I [...]
Also posted in art Tagged anthony daniels, decadence, new criterion, theodore dalrymple, vulgarity Leave a comment
obama, statism and conservatism
This month’s New Criterion has a review of Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto. Andrew McCarthy heralds the book as arriving “at its perfect moment.” He continues:
We are in the high tide of America’s Leftist ascendancy: the Obama evisceration of individual freedom and installation of authoritarian collectivism–at warp speed, driven by an ambition [...]
Also posted in philosophy, politics Tagged conservatism, keynes, levin, liberalism, liberty and tyranny, new criterion, obama, statism Leave a comment
Niall Ferguson and the Descent of Cash