The Batman is more than just another reboot of the now-all-too-familiar tale of crime and punishment. The film asks deep questions that linger long after you leave the theater. Read More… The Batman plunges us straight into the middle of a crisis of faith. Gone is Bale’s confident and charismatic playboy. Robert Pattinson’s Batman hasn’t slept for a week. He journals, sulks, and obsesses over details. A Goth in Gotham—a concept that sounds like it shouldn’t work, but does. The...

Eric Lander, director of the Office of Science and Technology, resigned after it was disclosed he had disparaged and humiliated subordinates. To add insult to injury, he abused taxpayers, too. Read More… Allegations of abuse appear to be only the tip of the iceberg in the case of disgraced Biden administration official Eric Lander. According to Politico, the Office of Science and Technology Policy director faces scrutiny for failing to disclose financial interests in a major COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer while...

It’s time to state the obvious: The State of the Union address is doing more harm than good, making promises it can’t keep and further eroding citizens’ opinion of government. Who’ll be the first brave POTUS to end the SOTU? Read More… In the fable of “The Bell and the Cat,” a group of mice discuss how best to protect themselves from a rapacious, predatory cat who has been hunting them down. One mouse suggests they put a bell on...

Russia and individual Russians have been hard hit by sanctions imposed by nations around the world, all intended to deter Vladimir Putin from pursuing his illegal war in Ukraine. But what moral principles should guide our decisions about whether to impose sanctions and the form they take? Read More… Are economic sanctions morally permissible? That question has been asked by many people since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the imposition of a range of economic sanctions on Russian entities and...

The history of black Americans abounds with extraordinary characters worthy of emulation—even during Black History Month. Read More… Another Black History Month e and gone, and the country has heard, once again, a great deal about the likes of Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, and Martin Luther King Jr. These American heroes are rightfully celebrated, but there are many stories that have gone un- or under-told, stories of courageous Americans of color who overcame tremendous barriers to plish extraordinary things. Three...

A new book argues that the artist must be free from “relevance” while also adhering to some kind of authority. The question is, Whose authority? Read More… Among the rarest qualities of the late American filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich, who died in January at age 82, was his conviction, repeatedly stated and consistently in evidence in his work, that the art of film had its own set of rules and precedents. Close-ups, camera movements, and cuts weren’t meant to be used...

On this St. Patrick’s Day, pick up a copy of O’Neill, Synge, or Joyce and retreat to a self-contained world marked by human self-deception and tragic loss, and maybe a laugh or two. Read More… We may live in benighted times, but consider the world of just over a hundred years ago. Recurrent cultural or political shock, and often premature or violent death, was quite familiar to the generation emerging in the early years of the 20th century. It sometimes...

The history of Russia in Ukraine is an old and terrible one. The 2019 film Mr. Jones tells the story of the Holodomor: “death by hunger.” Why would Stalin starve millions in a man-made famine? Why else? He needed the money. Read More… It’s 1934 and Gareth Jones (James Norton), journalist and foreign adviser to British prime minister Lloyd George, is trying to convince a room full of stuffed shirts with fancy government titles that Adolf Hitler is looking to...

A new book on a “just economy” from a Catholic perspective has more to say about injustices wrought by neoliberalism than it does about crony capitalism and the fraught history of the statist solutions it mends. Read More… Anyone looking for an engaging overview of what modern Catholic social teaching (CST) has to say about economic matters will find it in Anthony Annett’s book Cathonomics: How Catholic Tradition Can Create a More Just Economy. Yet Cathonomics is much more than...

Potential appointments to the Supreme Court have taken on an outsized role in determining the fitness of presidential candidates in recent years. The scrutiny potential justices undergo has also e part inquisition, part circus. Nevertheless, their politics matter. Blame Marbury v. Madison. Read More… There is almost no institution in the past 100 years that has more profoundly shaped American public life than the Supreme Court. As a result, position of the Supreme Court has e one of the most...