This overlong film’s best moments are the simple and the universally understandable. Too bad they were few and far between. Read More… Director Andrew Dominik’s Blonde, now available on Netflix and starring Ana de Armas as “blonde bombshell” Marilyn Monroe, is a long film. Not merely because of its almost three-hour run time but also because it feels long when you’re watching it. The latest attempt to explore plex life of stardom, abuse, and mental illness attempts to do a...

Trying to anticipate all the ways life-transforming decisions can go wrong is stress we’ve all experienced. A new book by economist and podcaster Russ Roberts helps us look at those forks in the road with better eyes. Read More… The most thought-provoking scene in John Boorman’s 1981 lavish epic fantasy film, Excalibur, is one of its most understated. It’s a conversation about love. King Arthur stares enchanted by the Lady Guinevere as she dances across the great hall. After confessing...

An obscure maritime law hit the news recently because of catastrophic weather and its consequences. Let’s hope we never have to hear about it again. Read More… Just a few years ago, very few people knew or discussed the Jones Act. Now everyone is talking about it. In a colossal but somewhat predictable fiasco, while Puerto Rico was being pummeled by Hurricane Fiona, the Jones Act prevented a cargo ship from docking off its coast to deliver some 300,000 barrels...

Disney continues its decline by offering a revisionist version of its 1940 classic, with Tom Hanks as a Geppetto swallowed up by postmodernity and a puppet who’s just fine never ing a real boy. Read More… American parents used to trust Disney to charm their kids with beautiful fairy tales. Most such tales were European in origin, but Disney Americanized them, made them more democratic, less bloody minded, and ultimately hopeful. It started with animations, then added amusement parks, then...

Social justice warriors of the 21st century have nothing on this aristocratic evangelical. Read More… “I want nothing but usefulness to God and my country” (Diaries, February 22, 1827) When the funeral procession of Lord Shaftesbury progressed through the streets of London toward Westminster Abbey on October 8, 1885, thousands of people lined the streets, bands gathered to play Christian hymns, and hundreds of banners were held high with Bible verses. The representatives of more than 200 voluntary societies linked...

The latest installation in the Star Wars saga is finally a reason to celebrate, as it models self-sacrifice and leadership, especially for young men. Read More… If there’s anything close to national mythology in America nowadays, it’s Marvel. This may be depressing, but we should nevertheless face the fact and make the best of it. Before that, it was Star Wars, which is still an incredibly profitable business, even as it is failing. They’re both Disney properties, which now make...

A new book paints a dismal picture of the modern Academy and its failure to truly educate and not just indoctrinate. But are the authors’ solutions any better? Read More… Is college worth it? This has been the question for the past few years, especially in the wake of dropping enrollment. This drop has largely been a response to many college campuses going fully online and imposing a wide slew of mandates and prohibitions in response to the COVID pandemic....

The latest from Samuel Gregg lays out a broad vision for what made the American economy the wonder of the world, and can again. And it isn’t to be found in populisms and nationalisms of the right or left. Read More… Let me start with my summary judgement of The Next American Economy: Nation, State, and Markets in an Uncertain World: Samuel Gregg has written an outstanding contribution to the theory and practice of political economy for our times. Gregg’s...

As the Yankee outfielder enters the record books, it’s time to reflect on how we judge the best in baseball. Read More… So Aaron Judge sits atop the American League record books for most home runs hit in a single season—62, breaking fellow Yankee Roger Maris’ 60-plus-year record. And by all accounts, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Michael Conforto, a former outfielder for the New York Mets, had this to say about Judge: “He’s huge but he’s one...

Does technology have its own moral code? And if so, does it influence ours? Why agency and action are essential to remaining fully human. Read More… Truck drivers are cowboys. I work at a food warehouse. Truckers show up with 40,000 pounds of primal-cut beef, equivalent to maybe 50 head of cattle, driven from Nebraska, by a team of horses, bit, bridled, and reined by bustion. I don’t actually spend a lot of time around these guys, but it’s pretty...