Sonny Bunch

Sonny Bunch describes belatedly catching up on Wolfe, Roth, and Bourdain.

It's been a while since we talked; have you caught up yet? The second season of Jessica Jones was bonkers; did you manage to make it through The Punisher and The Defenders? What about the new season of Black Mirror—that one episode where they warned against the dangers of technology outpacing our…

Marvel-ous Creator

Marvel-ous Creator

After Paul Ryan accepted the position of speaker of the House he did a curious thing, one almost unheard of by modern American politicians: He grew a beard. The reactions generally varied from “rowr, sexy" to "gross, beardo," which was to be expected. But there was another reaction, one even…

Richard Schickel—the Time critic who has been writing about movies for a living since 1965—estimates in the opening chapter of Keepers that he has seen roughly “22,590 films, or about 294 of them a year. Which means that two out of every three days, for a long time now, I have been at the movies.”…

After two years of reading and writing about those who live the politicized life—those who suffuse every aspect of their personas with politics and allow ideological considerations to trump all others—I’d finally found what I was looking for: I’d discovered the worst person in the world. 

The multiplex in the age of brands—an era of sequels and prequels, of movies derived from comic books and board games, of repackaged and repurposed “intellectual property” that comes with “high pre-awareness” and appeals to “all four quadrants”—isn’t the friendliest place for movie stars. 

Philosophers, war heroes, a movie star: A wide variety of men with an even wider variety of cultural tastes have inhabited the White House over the centuries. And evolving standards and technologies have combined with evolving political realities to create a culture the White House’s original…

Following the Republican shellacking in the recent election, David Brooks highlighted some voices shaping center-right conversation on the Internet. One of his more surprising choices was that of a Republican Study Committee staffer who had penned a (quickly withdrawn) memo for the caucus of…

Throughout Privacy, Garret Keizer’s extended essay on the topic in an increasingly public world, the author confuses and conflates voluntary sharing with forced governmental action. “Does anything say so much about the times we live in as the fact that the word sharing has almost everything to do…

The common counterfactual as it relates to Hitler is somewhat fantastical: If you could go back in time and kill the Austrian madman before he ascended to Germany’s chancellorship, would you do so? Nay, would you be morally obligated to do so? More interesting, perhaps, is the question that arises…

The pseudonymous author of this memoir, Winston Smith, chose the moniker because of the maddening bureaucracy within which he worked. His blog, “Winston Smith—Working With the Underclass,”  won an Orwell Prize for chronicling the labyrinthine, dysfunctional horror show that had become the British…

Facing thousands of worried members at the annual convention of the National Education Association on July 3, the head of the nation’s largest teachers’ union sounded a little whiny. 

Aim for the Heart

In certain corners of the blogosphere--as well as the mainstream media--there has been some consternation over how to designate the IRS suicide pilot, Joseph Stack. Is he a terrorist or just a criminal? Are there degrees of “terrorism”?

Slate's The Root -- the portion of the website where they cordon off their African-American content -- has compiled a list of "Black folks we'd like to remove from black history." Some of the choices are funny (Dennis Rodman) some are head-scratching (the doctor who prescribed Michael Jackson his…

Via Roger Clegg, it appears that the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act is back on the Congress’s docket; the bill would create a separate government for native Hawaiians along the lines of tribal governance that American-Indian nations now enjoy. THE WEEKLY STANDARD examined why the…

It's kind of shocking how awful teachers unions are and how self-defeating they tend to be. Consider one story about Rhode Island teachers who bit off more than they could chew when they refused to work an extra half hour a day: The entire union was canned from their $70,000 per year jobs for…

For the first time in 30 years, it looks as if the United States will see an increase in its nuclear power output:

How many people die from lack of insurance? That's the question that The Atlantic's Megan McArdle tackled in her column this month. It's a more difficult question to answer than you might think: Though the left is fond of claiming that hundreds of thousands of people will be left to die like dogs…

Michelle Obama recently kicked up a mild fuss by discussing her children while talking about childhood obesity. Per ABC News, Obama said at an event kicking off her childhood obesity awareness campaign: "I didn't see the changes. And that's also part of the problem, or part of the challenge. It's…

The only thing more analyzed than quarterback play after the Super Bowl is the commercials: Were they funny, offensive, pointless? Money well spent, or 30 seconds of confusion? How does the MTV set view the last 25 years of politics?

Farber on Film

Last year director Pierre Morel unleashed Taken, one of the year’s biggest surprises and box office hits, on unsuspecting audiences. Starring a father wreaking havoc in France’s beloved capital in a mad cap search for his beloved daughter before she’s sold into white slavery, the film delighted…

It’s likely that those of you lucky enough to receive a high definition television or Blu-ray player for Christmas – or happened to pick one up in the after-Christmas sales – have spent much of your time viewing modern releases in all their glory. Don’t get me wrong, the Blu-ray versions of Star…

The most striking aspect of Extraordinary Measures is its total lack of an aesthetic: There’s not as much as a spark of visual ingenuity or camera trickery. The average scene consists of a camera focused on two people talking, broken up by the occasional shot-reverse shot. Combined with the…

It’s often said that January is a cinematic wasteland, and for good reason: The awards season art house releases were pumped out the month prior in order to gain eligibility for the Oscars; kids are headed back to school after a holiday break, limiting box office potential and dampening studio…

Viewers of cable television have been inundated with advertisements for the new Michael Cera picture, Youth in Revolt, to the point that my girlfriend literally cries out in disgust when she sees them now. The distributors have gone all out to get promos of this comedy – starring Mr. Cera as a nice…

The Moment of Psycho

THE NEW DOCUMENTARY, American Teen, has been sold to audiences as a real life version of The Breakfast Club. In that John Hughes classic, five high school students gather for Saturday detention. Locked together in a library, the teenagers represent the archetypes seen in every high school hallway:…

THE APATOW COMEDY Factory's special this week is 'Step Brothers,' a delightful, saucy R-rated comedy starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as 40-year-old man-children. Steeped in a spicy complementary role are Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins, adding a dash of straight-man to the onscreen…

The kids gloves were snugly on the Sunday morning talk shows this morning, as Democratic luminaries Barack Obama and Al Gore popped up on Face the Nation and Meet the Press, respectively. Obama was "questioned" on the situation in Afghanistan, leading to this exchange: Sen. OBAMA: Well, mission…

For the second time in a month, a lion of the Washington press corps has died. On Saturday, Tony Snow succumbed to the cancer he had battled for the last three years. Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace spent the entire hour eulogizing the founder of the show he now hosts, and we learned many tidbits…

WHEN IT FIRST HIT theaters in 2004, Hellboy was something of a puzzle for audiences: No one quite knew what to make of the blood-red superhero with the devilish horns. Though not a massive flop, the film failed to equal its modest budget at the domestic box office. Yet here we are, four years…

Barack Obama's policy adjustments (read: flip flops) were the main topics of discussion on Sunday morning's talk shows. On This Week, Joe Lieberman said that "what's significant about what's happened in the last week, frankly in the last month since Sen. Obama clinched the nomination, is how many…

JUDGING BY BOX office hauls alone, Will Smith is the last movie star on the planet. By movie star, I don't mean "able to generate headlines" or "most-recognized," simply that Smith can open any genre of movie and look good doing it. His last seven films have all grossed over $100 million, and have…

Joseph Lieberman was on Face the Nation, and the one-time Democrat explained just why he is so disillusioned with his former party and their presidential nominee. "My problem is with the party overall, for sure. In other words, this is a separation that has occurred mostly on matters of foreign and…

ABOUT A DECADE ago, Matt Groening--the genius behind The Simpsons--pitched a second animated series to the honchos at Fox. It was a no-brainer for the suits--"Another animated show from the guy who basically created this network?"--who quickly got behind the program.

First up on This Week was the issue most pressing for the average American: the skyrocketing price of energy. After some idiotic comments from Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey about Republicans' attempts to stymie energy production, Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson explained just why gas costs $4 a…

A STRING OF BLUE COLLAR comedies have hit the big screen in recent years.

The overarching theme of this week's Sunday morning talk shows was the untimely death of Tim Russert. Each program's host had kind words, and Meet the Press dedicated the entire show to their show's fallen leader. If you have five minutes or so, check out this video celebration of the man's life,…

THE RISE AND FALL of M. Night Shyamalan has been almost Wellesian.

The general election is (finally) upon us! Tim Pawlenty was on Fox News Sunday, making the case for John McCain as a leader for change. "Look at Senator McCain's record on the big issues of our time: changing of the war; being for climate change; cracking down on pork barrel spending; being against…

A COUPLE OF MONTHS ago Ross Douthat, the Atlantic senior editor and occasional WEEKLY STANDARD contributor, wrote an intriguing essay called "The Return of the Paranoid Style," in which he argued that the spate of anti-war, anti-Republican films flooding the multiplexes were a liberal reaction to…

Byron York was on Fox News Sunday's roundtable, and he summed up the hopeless naiveté of former White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "What distinguishes McClellan is that he was amazingly naïve in his belief that George W. Bush could kind of bring us all together, which is why he comes to…

TWO YEARS AGO I wrote a piece in New Atlantis on Japanese horror films, their remakes in America, and the anxieties in the Japanese and American psyches they reflected. The J-Horror genre, I thought, was a critique of technology and tech-connected life, turning everyday devices like televisions and…

THE SECOND INSTALLMENT IN the Chronicles of Narnia series has a problem. Unlike the first film, Prince Caspian is, at heart, in the action-adventure genre. It's stacked with stunning set-pieces: the evil Telmarines on one side, the noble centaurs, fauns, and dwarves on the other. But this is not…

HOT ON THE HEELS of the first blockbuster of the Summer season (Iron Man) we have its first bomb: Speed Racer, the $120 million Wachowski Brothers production, grossed only $18.5 million in its first weekend. Reviewers were no kinder than the audience: It rates only 36 percent "fresh" on the…

THE THREE-ACT STRUCTURE of the first film in a superhero franchise varies little. The first two acts introduce us to our hero, with excruciating detail about how he got his powers and what sort of trauma inspired him to use them for good. In the last act--which is typically rushed, unenjoyable, and…

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton showed up on Meet the Press and This Week, respectively, to talk about the Indiana and North Carolina primaries. More interesting than the normal campaign platitudes, however, were the views espoused by the candidates on Iran. Clinton came off as slightly…

Hollywood's Censor

SUMMER IS FINALLY here, arriving with a bang in the guise of Iron Man. The latest hero from Marvel comics to get the big screen treatment, Iron Man is brought to life with vigor by the newly rehabbed Robert Downey Jr.

David Denby, the lesser half of the New Yorker's critical duo, made a revealing couple of comments in his review of Iron Man. First, he takes issue with the character's origin, deriding the fact that Tony Stark was "captured and enslaved by Wong-Chu--a chubby Commie tyrant. One might blush at this…

As my colleagues noted earlier, Barack Obama made his long-awaited sojourn to Fox News Sunday. Barnett and Goldfarb hit on a couple of important topics, but the boss may have had the most succinct evaluation: An "elegant and attractive performance, but somewhat substance free." About the only thing…

HOW CAN YOU TELL THAT Philip Seymour Hoffman is the best known and most-beloved character actor working today? Well, for starters, people actually know his name. Character actors typically get stuck with the "that guy" appellation. They're recognizable and do a solid job, but not good enough to…

The New York Times featured an intriguing profile of Robert Downey Jr. this Sunday. Star of the upcoming Iron Man, Downey is best known as the most-wasted talent of his generation (both literally and figuratively). His drug problems became so bad that he even spent some time in the clink; since his…

Closing in on the Pennsylvania primary, it's no surprise that the principle topic of conversation on the talk shows this weekend was Hillary vs. Barack. Their surrogates were all over the place, and Ed Rendell made an intriguing point on Face the Nation about Obama's spending. Earlier in the race,…

The most striking news to come out of the Sunday morning talk shows was Stephen Hadley's dismissive response when asked whether or not the United States should boycott the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. On Fox News Sunday, Hadley said the following: "I think this issue is, in some…

THERE ARE ANY NUMBER of ways to classify films. You can label them by genre--what's the best noir, or comedy, or science fiction movie? You can break them down by era--were the pre-Hays code gangster movies better than the watered down (but far cleverer) films that followed? You can identify them…

After a long battle with Alzheimer's Disease, Charlton Heston passed away this weekend at the age of 84. His roles are too numerous to catalog in their entirety here, but highlights include Moses, Thomas Jefferson, and our very own Cardinal Richelieu. Heston's most important work was fighting for…

John McCain appeared on Fox News Sunday this morning to discuss the presidential campaign with Chris Wallace. The Arizona senator called for more honesty from the Obama campaign and its surrogates when they claim that he called for our military to stay in Iraq for a century. "This, quote, ‘100…

MARTIN SCORSESE'S Shine a Light opens with Scorsese and the Rolling Stones negotiating over just how to shoot the film. Scorsese wants a set list well in advance so he can figure out how to position his fleet of cameras and choreograph their movements; the Stones want to ensure that the camerawork…

The Democratic primary drags on, and the debate rages within the commentariat as to what Hillary Clinton should do in the face of overwhelming odds against her success. David Brooks showed up on Meet the Press and described just what Clinton's continued campaign is doing to her party. "Is this what…

WILLING SUSPENSION OF disbelief is an odd phenomenon. It's one thing to put aside common sense for a movie like Transformers--shape-shifting robots have traveled half the universe to duke it out on Earth? Sure, why not. But the key to a great sports movie is the ability to sit in a theater and…

Ed Rendell and Bill Richardson showed up on Fox News Sunday yesterday to shill for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama respectively. The Pennsylvania governor struck at what he sees as the heart of the Obama campaign's hypocrisy. "The Obama campaign tries to have it both ways," he said. "They say the…

IF YOU PAY ATTENTION TO the opening credits of Drillbit Taylor, you might notice something interesting. The film is the latest comedy produced by Judd Apatow and is cowritten by frequent contributor Seth Rogen (along with Kristofor Brown, one of the writers on Apatow's cult television hit…

It was a rough week for Barack Obama thanks to some of his reverend's more hateful comments coming to light. Brit Hume got to the heart of the problem on Fox News Sunday. "It's worth noting also, I think, certainly Obama knew what sort of church this is," Hume said. "Now I have no doubt that the…

No Country for Old Men is a film that lends itself to over-analysis and pretentious film snobbery. This is not necessarily a bad thing--it's simply a fact. Consider, for example, Jim Emerson's (excellent) take on the movie's opening scene, which begins thusly: "The land is black, swallowed in the…

When the Oscar nominations were announced back in January, few were surprised that There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men led the way with eight nods. Searing visions of life in the American West, both struck a chord with critics from coast to coast. Each picture also marked a powerful…

Howard Dean made the rounds this weekend to discuss the increasing likelihood of the nasty fight inside his party continuing all the way up until the convention. "There's two things they can do," he said on Face the Nation. "One is to have this kind of an alternative process, which we're talking…

EVERYONE LOVES A good heist movie. There's something about a gang of villains coming together and crafting a brilliant plan--which, if pulled off, promises riches beyond their wildest dreams--that really gets the juices flowing. Examples in the last decade alone abound: there's the Ocean's series,…

ss-080224-oscarawards-08.widec.jpg Crackpot.

On Fox News Sunday, Karl Rove explained why John McCain had to distance himself from the conservative radio host who tried to use Barack Obama's name against him. "Using his middle name helps Obama, it doesn't hurt him," he noted, adding "I think people look at it and say ‘hey look, that's one…

BY HAPPENSTANCE, I bought a paperback copy of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point the day before picking up the DVD of Wes Anderson's latest film, The Darjeeling Limited. The idea behind Gladwell's book is that cultural phenomena--books that turn into bestsellers, fashions that sweep across the…

The biggest news of the week was undoubtedly John McCain's smearing by the New York Times. While the senator may have gotten the best of it so far--even the Times's public editor, Clark Hoyt, felt the newspaper shouldn't have published the piece's most scintillating passages--E.J. Dionne pointed…

A SENSE OF JOY infects Michel Gondry's work. Getting his start in the spiritual abattoir that is the music video industry, Gondry elevated the medium, joining Spike Jonze as one of the few auteurs on MTV. His videos for the White Stripes (the Lego-themed "Fell in Love with a Girl") and the Foo…

Hillary Clinton's continued troubles, and what she might do to right the ship, dominated the Sunday morning talk shows. George Will pointed out that Wisconsin could be rough sailing for the New York senator on This Week: "The way you stop losing is you start winning. And she has to start in…

CRITICS WHO REFER to George Romero's zombie films as great social commentary are like first year college students with a semester of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn under their belts. Having found someone who is willing to stick a finger in the eye of the establishment--however nonsensical the…

Yesterday President Bush sat down for an exclusive interview with Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace, talking about everything from the war on terror to his legacy. His philosophy on the 2008 election: "What really matters in a campaign is, what are the basic beliefs? What does one view as the role of…

In Bruges

AFTER SEEING Persepolis in November at the Virginia Film Festival, I described the film as "the highlight of the festival" and wrote that "if there is justice in the world, Persepolis should have a decent shot at an Oscar either for animated feature or foreign language film. With any luck, both."…

Barack Obama's shellacking of Hillary Clinton was obviously the big news of the weekend, and Obama showed up on This Week to discuss his victory, and Bill Clinton's race baiting. In one of the Clinton campaign's most naked references to Obama's race, the former president tried to downplay an Obama…

CASUAL MOVIE FANS will be forgiven for not remembering the name Lindsay Anderson. His body of work has largely been forgotten in the four and a half decades since he first burst onto the scene, and he was never terribly prolific anyway, leaving only six features to his name. Overshadowed by his…

Republicans obviously have a vested interest in the Democratic presidential primaries, and nothing warms their hearts more than the brewing identity politics battle on that side of the aisle. As David Brooks pointed out last week, the first viable female candidate for president and the first viable…

IN HIS REVIEW of 1998's Godzilla, the New Yorker's Anthony Lane mocked the media blitz preceding the film's premiere: "The marketing machine has been chugging away for months, its strategy being to seduce us with details--the wink of an eye, a cheeky tremor of foot. The true, overwhelming…

I've been arguing with friends for the last couple of weeks that Clinton's campaign is cooked once John Edwards drops out of the race and stops splitting the "change" vote with Barack Obama. Jay Carney made a point on This Week that is worth considering, however, noting of Edwards's supporters that…

Sunshine

The primaries are (finally) underway, and the Sunday talk shows were chock full of interviews, analysis, and inter-campaign squabbles. Mitt Romney showed up on Fox News Sunday, making a last-minute pitch to the voters of New Hampshire as to why he should be nominee instead of John McCain: "He's…

Mitt Romney showed up on Meet the Press for the full hour, and the blogosphere focused on the former Massachusetts governor's mistaken claim that he was endorsed by the NRA in 2002. What was more interesting to me, however, was the fact that the following quote contains the entirety of the…

The Sunday morning talk shows were dominated by two intelligence-based stories this weekend: the CIA tapes and their destruction, and the NIE's take on Iran's nuclear capabilities. On Fox News Sunday, Bill Kristol gave one theory of the CIA's reasoning for destroying the tapes, and the mainstream…

Mike Huckabee found out what it's like to lose the goodwill of the media this weekend. Up to this point, the Arkansas governor has enjoyed the image of the wily underdog, surmounting overwhelming odds and a lack of cash to mount an insurgent presidential campaign. But now polling reveals he's the…

Charlottesville, Virginia

The presidential contenders were making the rounds on the Sunday morning talk shows this week. John Edwards popped up on Face the Nation, repeating his ridiculous threat to take away Congress's health care if the body doesn't pass universal health care coverage in the opening days of his…

The big story in the world this weekend remained the crisis in Pakistan. Responding to reports that Musharraf is making a number of concessions in the face of international pressure, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was on This Week to discuss what remained to be done. "President Musharraf still…

While reporting on the emergence of conspiracy theories related to 9/11, I've noticed that there is a ton of support for Ron Paul within the 9/11 Truth Movement. To be fair to Rep. Paul, he has disavowed any association with the Truthers and, unlike his former colleague Cynthia McKinney, does not…

While reporting on the emergence of conspiracy theories related to 9/11, I've noticed that there is a ton of support for Ron Paul within the 9/11 Truth Movement. To be fair to Rep. Paul, he has disavowed any association with the Truthers and, unlike his former colleague Cynthia McKinney, does not…

Fred Thompson showed upon Meet the Press this Sunday, sharing, among other things, his thoughts on the problem posed by Iran: "Well, sometimes you're faced with two very bad decisions, and those are two very bad decisions. But what happens if, if a country like this, who talks in terms of the 12th…

Iran was the topic of the day on the Sunday Morning talk shows. Republican presidential hopeful John McCain laid out the basic problem to George Stephanopoulos on This Week, saying "This is the most unstable part of the world right now. The Iranians have dedicated themselves to a certain…

John McCain made an appearance on Face the Nation this Sunday, laying out just how he would deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions: I would say that the Iranians can't have a nuclear weapon, in my view. But I also believe that we've got a lot of things to do--that we could do, including getting other…

It's hard to know exactly what to expect from a film festival that caters to conservatives. Will the program consist of films made by conservative filmmakers? What even makes a movie conservative?

The demise of Newt Gingrich's campaign before it even began was probably the biggest story of the week, and the former speaker of the House took to This Week to explain his reasoning: "The McCain-Feingold Act criminalizes politics. … well, we learned yesterday morning, this was the decisive…

Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton made the rounds this weekend, appearing on several of the Sunday morning talk shows from her home in Chappaqua, New York. Sporting a brown blazer on top of a green shirt, Senator Clinton was bubbly and boisterous, and at times confusing. Clinton made one…

New York City

On Meet the Press this weekend, Chuck Todd used this analogy to describe the "complicated" relationship between MoveOn.org and the Democratic party: MoveOn is sort of like this old friend of the Democratic Party. It's as if it's, you know, your, your teen - your - a friend of yours from high…

Over at Meet the Press, Michael Gordon talked about the progress that has been made since the beginning of the surge. The Cobra II author was somewhat optimistic about conditions as they stand now, telling Tim Russert MR. GORDON: Well, I spent most of the summer in Iraq in Diyala province and then…

During the fourth season of HBO's hit comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm, one of the subplots centered on the bumbling attempts of the show's star, Larry David, to take advantage of a rather unusual anniversary gift given to him by his wife: He can have an affair with any woman he wants, as long as…

This Sunday ABC's This Week featured the first debate in Iowa among all of the Republican candidates. As with every other similar event so far in the presidential campaign, this was less a debate than parallel press conferences; very few moments of interaction occurred between the candidates, and…

The main talking point for Democrats this week was that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales needs to go. After admitting he doesn't care what David Petraeus has to say about Iraq this September ,Wisconsin senator Russ Feingold had this to say on Fox News Sunday about Gonzales: "If the attorney…

Between Meet the Press and Face the Nation, viewers of the Sunday morning talk shows were given a glimpse of the deep divisions in the Senate's Democratic caucus. On Meet the Press, Sen. Russ Feingold announced he "will be shortly introducing a censure resolution of the president and the…

As senators shuffle in for the final quorum call at a little after 5 in the morning, a thought occurs to me: Isn't this entire operation an exercise in child abuse? Every time the Senate reassembles, pages are forced to man the doors, get glasses of water, and do other pagely duties. These minors…

Stuck in the Capitol at this ungodly hour, I can't help but feel pity for the staffers who drew the short straw and got stuck with the late shift. From the police officers trying to figure out why the metal detectors continue to pick up my belt to the ushers forced to rouse slumbering members of…

Grim Reaper.JPG Protesting the Dems?

capt.d3c0e8cf802d423abd85abe108a289fb.senate_iraq_dcsw109.jpg McCain and Martinez listen as Pete Hegseth spoke today on Capitol Hill.

Iraq was once again the main topic on the Sunday shows. Over at Fox News Sunday, WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Frederick Kagan took on Democratic notions that no political progress is being made in the troubled country.

On Face the Nation two senators argued over the commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence (among other topics). Utah's Orrin Hatch laid out the Republican case for the president's intervention, arguing that George W. Bush's actions were not nearly as egregious as Bill Clinton's pardons. "I think both…

There was an interesting debate on Fox News Sunday over the fairness doctrine (the FCC regulation that required broadcasters to give equal time to opposing views and that met its demise 20 years ago). Mike Gallagher, a conservative radio talk show host, offered one possible explanation for renewed…

The good folks over at the New York Times finally got around to taking a look at Indoctrinate U in the education section yesterday. As we might have expected, the Times's take on the film was less than flattering--indeed, the author seems to use Evan Coyne Maloney's film as little more than an…

The big news on the Sunday circuit this week was Joe Lieberman's declaration on Face the Nation that "we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq.'' You can watch the video here, and here's an excerpt of Lieberman's…

SPEAKING TO NATAN SHARANSKY last month about the Conference on Democracy and Security currently wrapping up in Prague, one could almost hear the desperation in his voice. With progress in Iraq stalling and the American public turning against the war, Sharansky felt he had to show the world just…

This Week featured interviews with Iraqi president Jalal Talabani and Democratic congressman Jack Murtha. The two offered strikingly different views of America's role in world affairs. First, Talabani: We are thankful to the great and glorious American people who liberated us. We think that…

Fox News Sunday and This Week both took a long look at second tier Republican candidates claiming to be the only choice for real conservatives this primary season. Mike Huckabee, taking a break from celebrating his wedding anniversary, talked to Chris Wallace about his plan to eliminate the IRS, a…

The immigration compromise was the top issue on the Sunday morning show this week. On This Week, Fareed Zakaria gave his interpretation of the events: Both sides have compromised significantly on principles, so it is what legislation in a large, diverse country should be. When people hearken back…

IRONICALLY ENOUGH, aspiring conservative documentarian Evan Coyne Maloney received his inspiration from Michael Moore, the left-wing firebrand responsible for the anti-gun polemic Bowling for Columbine and the anti-Bush screed Fahrenheit 9/11. This isn't to say that Moore inspired him figuratively:…

28_070510043542787_wideweb__300x375.jpg Rose Byrne and Jeremy Renner in 28 Weeks Later.

Natan Sharansky first came to the world's attention as a renowned Soviet dissident. The day he was released from prison in 1986, he was put on a plane to East Berlin; then he emigrated to Israel, where he entered politics and spent a tumultuous decade in the Knesset. Now, he has left government and…

Chris Wallace spent 30 minutes with Rudy Giuliani this morning on Fox News Sunday, leading off the interview with the issue that will present "America's Mayor" with his biggest challenge in the Republican primary: abortion. I oppose it, that's a principle I've held for forever and I'll hold it…

Meet the Press featured a hour long interview with former CIA director George Tenet. He continued to perform CYA/damage control on Russert's program, but he also defended the president and his advisers from critics who claimed the executive branch was ginning up intelligence out of thin air to…

Fox News Sunday: John McCain was the featured guest on Fox News Sunday, and the Arizona senator laid out his vision for a McCain presidency in one quick sentence: "Reform government, fight this Islamic extremist element that challenges the world, and restore integrity to government." While the…

Author's Note: After a brief hiatus, the Sunday Show Wrap-Up returns for one last appearance on THE DAILY STANDARD. In the future, look for this feature to appear exclusively on THE WORLDWIDE STANDARD in the new, slightly truncated form debuting this week. If you see something interesting, click on…

Thermopylae

WHEN IT WAS REVEALED last week that Frank Gaffney Jr.'s contribution to PBS's "America at a Crossroads" series was not going to be aired, conservatives around the country knowingly shook their heads and clucked their tongues. Gaffney, a hawkish conservative who founded the Center for Security…

Running for Congress last fall in North Carolina, Heath Shuler staked out ground as a conservative Democrat. In a district held comfortably by Republican Charles Taylor since 1990, the former all-American quarterback distanced himself from Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi. The day after…

LAST WEEK the House of Representatives seemed to be on the verge of granting the District of Columbia a full vote in the chamber. Currently, Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District's delegate, has a vote in committee but no power on the floor; she cannot influence final passage of legislation. For the…

Face the Nation had the best show of the weekend, managing to squeeze into one tight half hour interviews with one of the fired assistant United States attorneys, two of the senators leading the investigation into the Justice Department, the New York Times's best columnist, and the head of the…

Face the Nation had the best show of the weekend, managing to squeeze into one tight half hour interviews with one of the fired assistant United States attorneys, two of the senators leading the investigation into the Justice Department, the New York Times's best columnist, and the head of the…

The firing of several United States Attorneys was the big story of the week. Meet the Press featured an interview with Sen. Chuck Schumer, who laid out the Democrats' case, and took a guess on Alberto Gonzales's prospects. "I think it's highly unlikely he survives," Schumer said, adding "I wouldn't…

The firing of several United States Attorneys was the big story of the week. Meet the Press featured an interview with Sen. Chuck Schumer, who laid out the Democrats' case, and took a guess on Alberto Gonzales's prospects. "I think it's highly unlikely he survives," Schumer said, adding "I wouldn't…

Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace got the week started by interviewing former Tennessee senator, and current film and television actor, Fred Thompson about his intentions with regard to the 2008 presidential race. He came off as a true conservative, positioning himself against gay marriage,…

Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace got the week started by interviewing former Tennessee senator, and current film and television actor, Fred Thompson about his intentions with regard to the 2008 presidential race. He came off as a true conservative, positioning himself against gay marriage,…

THE BIG NEWS of the weekend was the condition of Walter Reed Army Medical Center's outpatient facilities, and the care that wounded veterans were receiving there. Face the Nation featured interviews with Senators Carl Levin and Joe Lieberman, as well as one of the coauthors of the Washington Post…

This Week featured an interview with former President Jimmy Carter. First, the good: Carter talked about his foundation's efforts to eradicate the Guinea Worm from villages in Africa. Carter said that with proper care (and enough money), the parasite could be wiped out in three years. For more…

IT WAS A PRETTY slow week on the Sunday talks show circuit. Meet the Press featured an interview with Tony Snow--the White House press secretary set about defending the president's proposals as best he could. Trying to combat the notion that the troops would be best served by a hasty withdrawal,…

Fox News Sunday featured an interview with former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, who has taken a beating in the press recently for the way intelligence was handled in the lead up to the Iraq war. He stressed to Chris Wallace that intelligence is very rarely a slam dunk, noting "there was…

Fox News Sunday featured interviews with two senators who should be considered strong contenders for the vice presidential nomination (if not this cycle, then certainly the next). Democrat Jim Webb was interviewed by Chris Wallace first, and he spoke of the need to involve the nations surrounding…

Meet the Press featured an interview with Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. As a southern governor, Huckabee deserves special attention. Though not terribly well known at this point, Huckabee scored a prime spot: leading off Meet the Press and getting a half hour of face time with the public.

What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?

IT WAS KIND of a slow news week for the Sunday morning talk shows. The biggest news was also the least surprising announcement of all time: Hillary Clinton is running for president in 2008. The biggest impact of this announcement so far is that it forced a number of Democratic senators (some of…

Fox News Sunday scored the big interview of the weekend: Chris Wallace spent a half hour with Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney used his time to remind the American people of exactly what's at stake in Iraq, and that this is not solely a sectarian civil war we are now involved in: "Remember what…

The second season of HBO's sword-and-sandal series Rome picks up right where the first season left off: drenched in blood, Julius Caesar lays dead on the floor of the Senate. With the death of the tyrant, the Republic teeters on the edge of chaos. Marc Antony and Octavian, the newly adopted heir of…

NANCY PELOSI WAS the featured guest on Face the Nation; all 30 minutes of the show were dedicated to the new speaker of the House. As might be expected, there were some real gems from the California Democrat. She said that President Bush will no longer have a blank check in Iraq, but offered…

COLLEGE FOOTBALL is inherently flawed and inferior to its professional relative. Any sport where the national champion is decided by the votes of coaches and journalists isn't a real sport. It's no better than figure skating, rhythmic gymnastics, or any other activity where "style points" are…

WHILE THE MAIN focus of the Sunday morning talk shows was, of course, Iraq, a variety of other issues were discussed as well. This Week featured an interview with incoming Senate majority leader Harry Reid. He passed on good news about Senator Tim Johnson; the South Dakota Democrat is recovering…

MEL GIBSON'S Apocalypto is one of the few films that can rightly be described as a journey. The viewer is snatched from the confines (and comforts) of a Hollywood movie and thrown deep into the jungles of Central America. The film itself is a visual masterpiece; shot entirely in a Mayan dialect,…

IRAQ STUDY GROUP co-chairmen Lee Hamilton and James Baker were the weekend's most popular guests, but we're going to start with the one show on which they did not appear. This Week featured an interview with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. On Iraq, and the consequences of a premature withdrawal,…

NATIONAL SECURITY adviser Stephen Hadley was all over your television set this weekend, with appearances on Meet the Press, Face the Nation, and This Week. (What, too busy to swing by and check in with the guys at Fox?)

ON A SLOW post-Thanksgiving Sunday, Rep. Charles Rangel wins the award for stupidest comment of the day while appearing on Fox News Sunday. Expounding on his drive to reinstate the draft, Rangel said that "no young, bright individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of…

This Week scored the big interviews of the week--the first Sunday interview with John McCain since he announced his bid for the presidency, and the first Sunday interview with Steny Hoyer since his selection as the new House majority leader. McCain led off the show, and faced a series of questions…

THE ELECTIONS ARE OVER, but the analysis has just begun. In case you didn't get your fill last week, the Sunday morning talk shows were full of folks filling us in on why the elections turned out the way they did, and what the next two years have in store.

Bowie, Maryland

Upper Marlboro, Maryland

IF DEMOCRATS HOPE to retake the House of Representatives next week, they're going to have to win seats like New Mexico's 1st district. With an increasingly Hispanic population, and mounting woes for the national Republican party, the Albuquerque district is a prime pickup opportunity for the…

Bucks County, Pennsylvania

AMERICAN TROOPS in Iraq and Afghanistan face any number of difficulties every day. From dodging IEDs to rebuilding war-torn nations, our GIs are bombarded from sunup to sundown with problems we civilians can only dimly conceive. Imagine, on top of that, losing your house or having your family…

Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts

AFTER A ONE YEAR HIATUS, HBO's other gripping crime drama, The Wire, finally returns for a new season. While The Sopranos gets all the accolades and takes home all the trophies, The Wire has evolved into the network's most interesting show. Uncompromising and hard hitting, the series is the…

"When the Levees Broke"

V for Vendetta was a disappointment upon its initial theatrical release. Having had five months to reconsider that diagnosis, viewing the film again on DVD has led me to realize that it's not just disappointing: It's downright terrible.

WHILE HANK JOHNSON and Cynthia McKinney's joust last night was no replay of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, it was certainly entertaining in its own right. Neither candidate delivered a knockout blow, so it's down to the scorecards. Here's a round-by-round analysis.

In 2002, Rep. Cynthia McKinney looked untouchable; the Georgia Democrat had held her seat in Congress for a decade and her majority-minority district had shown no desire to kick the liberal, female, African-American out of office. While she was long known for being outspoken (McKinney accused Al…

There's a scene early in The Godfather when Don Corleone meets with popular singer Johnny Fontaine. The young man is in something of a bind--he desperately needs to land a part in a movie to further his career, but a stubborn producer refuses to give him the role. Overcome with frustration,…

THE NEW REMAKE of The Omen serves no discernible purpose. It is not a "re-imagining," a la Tim Burton's awful (but, at least, original) remake of Planet of the Apes. It is not an homage, as Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho purported to be. It's not even the studio's intent to bring a…

Charlottesville

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This review makes frequent use of The Film Snob*s Dictionary. The footnotes below are just a small sample of definitions taken from this deliciously mean book. Buy it today and you'll wonder how you ever watched a Sharon Stone movie without it. -SB

ON SATURDAY, the day before the first games of the 2006 season--and somehow two days before Opening Day--the Baltimore Orioles hosted the Washington Nationals for an exhibition game at Camden Yards. Sitting seven rows off the field, midway between home plate and the visiting team's dugout, I…

IF I WERE TO MENTION the new movie, Inside Man, what would you think of first? Its impressive list of stars, which includes Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, and Clive Owen? Its powerhouse producer, Brian Grazer? Some vague notion that it's yet another slick heist movie being foisted upon the public?

THE WASHINGTON POST EXPRESS began its review of CBS's new drama, The Unit, with the following: "Just when you thought that mindless flag-waving, fear-mongering and Arab-stereotyping were starting to fade, here comes 'The Unit' . . . which ignores the realities of the 'war on terror' mire while…

BOOKS IN BRIEF

BOOKS IN BRIEF

AT THE 1972 OLYMPICS, 11 Israeli athletes were murdered in cold blood by Palestinian terrorists. As the rest of the world continued playing their games, Israel mourned. In the coming years Israel would set out to kill those responsible for the attacks and individuals who would plan, supply, and…

THIRTY YEARS AGO--before the arena rock of Born in the USA, before the look at a recession-torn America in The River--Bruce Springsteen released what would be his greatest work, Born to Run. The album' release was splashed simultaneously across the covers of both Time and Newsweek and it remains…

THE DAILY STANDARD welcomes letters to the editor. Letters will be edited for length and clarity and must include the writer's name, city, and state.

HAVE YOU NOTICED how terrible the columns in the sports section of your local paper have gotten? It's not that the quality sports writing in general is falling. As Glenn Stout, the editor of the Best American Sports Writing series says, the great sports writing of today is at least as good, if not…

THE TERMS "BRAIN TRUST" and "Cynthia McKinney" do not roll off the tongue like "peanut butter and jelly." But that's how the press release advertised a series of "Brain Trust" panels moderated by Rep. McKinney this past weekend at the Congressional Black Caucus's annual legislative conference. The…

REP. CONNIE MORELLA of Maryland is the least typical Republican in the House of Representatives. She's pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro-campaign finance reform, anti-missile defense, and that's just for starters. She voted against seven of the ten planks of Newt Gingrich's Contract With America.…