2,283 words

Withnail & I (1987) is a masterpiece of British dark-comic satire written and directed by actor, novelist, and screenwriter Bruce Robinson, who went on to write and direct How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989), another strong film in a similar vein. His career seems to have petered out, though, after a couple of flops, Jennifer 8 (1992) and The Rum Diary (2011).

Richard E. Grant made his film debut playing Withnail. (He was also the lead in How to Get Ahead in Advertising.) Paul McGann played Marwood, the “I” in the title. (more…)

1,692 words

Choke (2008)
Written & directed by Clark Gregg
Starring Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly Macdonald, & Brad William Henke

Chuck Palahniuk, most recently the author of the ethnostate satire Adjustment Day and known mainly for Fight Club, inspired another feature film with his 2001 novel, Choke. The 2008 film of the same name focuses on sex addiction, a timely subject in the current era of spiritual emptiness, which is one of Palahniuk’s recurrent themes. Intentionally or not, this dark comedy serves to repel the viewer from sexual deviance more effectively than any Christian sermon about sin. (more…)

1,469 words

Matthew Crawford
The World Beyond Your Head
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016

Matthew Crawford is a new but powerful intellectual. His debut in the public sphere began in 2009 with his book Shop Class as Soulcraft, which was affectionately dubbed “Heidegger and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Slate, and positively reviewed by Francis Fukuyama. Crawford’s second polemic, however, is more far-reaching, and stands to supplant his first work as his philosophical masterpiece. (more…)

3,534 words

The wise F. Roger Devlin once commented that since “Cosmopolitan is the top-selling magazine in American college bookstores, it is not too much to call it an important part of an American woman’s education.” (more…)