Arts & Culture
Arts & Culture
Clockwork Angels Showcases Rush’s Pride
Ari Armstrong June 13, 2012
Rush’s raw 1974 self-titled album, written before lyricist and drummer Neil Peart joined the band, features anything but subtle lyrics, yet one of the lines from the very first song in some ways summarizes Rush’s body of work: “I’m finding my way back home.” Rush—a “progressive rock” trio featuring Peart,…
Arts & Culture, Reviews
Review: Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric
Daniel Wahl May 20, 2012
Daniel Wahl reviews Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric, by Ward Farnsworth.
Arts & Culture, Reviews
Review: Act of Valor
Andrew Bernstein May 20, 2012
Andrew Bernstein reviews Act of Valor, directed by Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh.
Arts & Culture, Reviews
Review: The Avengers
C. A. Wolski May 20, 2012
C. A. Wolski reviews The Avengers, directed by Joss Whedon.
Arts & Culture
Painter Bryan Larsen on His Artwork and Ideas
Craig Biddle May 20, 2012
Mr. Larsen discusses his work, how he became a painter, who and what inspires him, and why his subjects always look so purposeful. Includes ten high-resolution images of his paintings.
Arts & Culture
Penn & Teller Merge Entertainment with Big Ideas
Ari Armstrong April 6, 2012
After attending a conference in Las Vegas earlier this week, I had the chance to see Penn & Teller’s magic show at the Rio. A big part of why their show is so entertaining is that they present interesting ideas in novel and provocative ways. Their show is something of…
Arts & Culture
Hunger Games a Worthy Addition to Dystopian Corpus
Ari Armstrong March 25, 2012
In The Hunger Games, tyrannical rulers of a future dystopia force children to fight to the death in an annual tournament as a means to suppress and control the population. Given the story’s gruesome subject matter, what explains the popularity of Suzanne Collins’s book and the new film based on…
Arts & Culture, Science & Technology
Anticapitalist Lorax Succeeds . . . Thanks to Capitalism
Ari Armstrong March 13, 2012
After two weekends in theaters, the film Lorax earned more than $120 million, reports Bloomberg Businessweek. That’s an impressive haul for a film condemning capitalism. But the irony is apparently lost on the filmmakers. In the original Dr. Seuss story on which the film is based, a manufacturer chops down…
Arts & Culture
Write Us a Song, and That’s Lucky Too
Ari Armstrong March 7, 2012
The charming 1964 Disney film Mary Poppins is among the best children’s movies ever produced, in large part because it features some of the best children’s songs ever written. Who can forget “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?” Robert B. Sherman, who cowrote memorable songs for the magical nanny and for numerous other Disney films,…
Arts & Culture
Oscar-Winning Hugo Celebrates Creative Genius of Méliès
Ari Armstrong March 4, 2012
I enjoyed the story of the Oscar-winning film Hugo in its own right, but to me the most interesting aspect of the film is its exploration of the life and work of French film pioneer Georges Méliès. A fictionalized version of Méliès plays a central role in Hugo, and director…