The floodgates have now officially opened. The success of Divergent, a Hunger Games knock-off that grossed $54 million in its opening weekend, ensures that we’ll see many more of its kind in the coming years. In fact, we won’t have to wait that long. Later in 2014, The Maze Runner and The Giver will follow…
When The Hunger Games was released into theaters in 2012, critics spent as much time debating its politics as they did reviewing the film. Almost everyone felt that the film had a partisan message, but few agreed as to which side it was actually on. Writers from Forbes and Fox News saw the film, with…
A lot of new followers this week, so I thought I would take this opportunity to welcome you all and share some of my latest work. Most of my work is now published elsewhere – this blog has become a place for the occasional post that doesn’t quite fit on other sites – but I…
One of my favorite movies about American democracy in action is “Election,” Alexander Payne’s 1999 dark comedy on the making of a high school president. Tom Perrotta, the author of the novel on which the movie is based, has cited the 1992 presidential election as inspiration, and it makes sense. The movie follows the same…
There is a certain kind of comedian – the best kind, really – who is more truth-teller than entertainer. We laugh with them because they so perfectly capture with words what the constraints of polite society keep us from saying and sometimes even thinking. A short, incomplete list of these comedians would include Will Rogers,…
If someone in the future wanted to know what political and cultural issues Americans were grappling with in 2012, they would only need to go to the movies. Films as diverse as “The Hunger Games,” “Cabin in the Woods,” and “The Dark Knight Rises” have all been set in one specific social, cultural, and political…
Last weekend, I was in New York to see the Broadway revival of “Death of a Salesman,” directed by Mike Nichols (“The Graduate,” “Catch-22”) and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as Willie Loman. I was blown away by his performance, became even more enamored of another actor in the show, and walked out of the theater…
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