Latest Articles

Notre Dame's burning should awaken us to a more eternal culture

April 18, 2019  •  Dallas News

In his book Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art, and Culture, the contemporary Japanese-American painter Makoto Fujimura describes an experience of attending a Fra Angelico exhibit at the Met. Staggered by art from the 15th century, he posed to himself the "500 year question": What makes it possible for art to continue to have an impact five centuries after it was created. The related question for a contemporary artist is this — who is making art today with the ambition that it will last for 50 or 100 years, let alone 500? The response to the devastating fire at Notre Dame Cathedral, whose beginnings go back to the 12th century, sharpens that question for us.

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What two new Hollywood films can teach us about education today

April 4, 2019  •  Catholic World Report

Although neither film drew the attention of Oscar voters, the films Eighth Grade and Leave No Trace were among the best-reviewed films of the last year. (Rotten Tomatoes has them at 99-100% fresh.) They make for an interesting and instructive pairing. With solid scripts and captivating performances by their female leads, the films feature teen girls, existing at opposite poles of contemporary civilized life, one in a mainstream high school and the other living in a public park with her father, an Iraq War veteran who suffers from PTSD.

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review of Glass

January 23, 2019  •  Catholic World Report

A scene toward the end of M. Night Shyamalan's new film, Glass, occurs in a comic book shop in which an episode of the old Adam West Batman TV series is playing. The campy tone of the TV series makes for an illuminating commentary track on Shyamalan's film. The famed director's most anticipated film in well over a decade, Glass is a disappointing film, which comes off as unintentional camp masquerading as a profound reflection on the capacity for human greatness.

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"The Princess Bride" at 30

October 14, 2017  •  Catholic World Report

It is hard to believe that the film The Princess Bride is now 30 years old. For its anniversary, it will have a return to the big screen, with show-times across the country in mid-October. After numerous failed attempts to secure a movie deal, William Goldman's story—he wrote the screenplay as well as the original story—finally made the transition to film, in 1987, directed by Rob Reiner (This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Sure Thing), who masterfully identified a perfect cast. Not a huge box office success in its initial release, the film has become a cult hit. With a combination terrific characters (and performances by actors well suited to their roles), memorable, witty dialogue (few films are as quotable), and a credible romance at its core, The Princess Bride holds up remarkably well.

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review of The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America

August 31, 2017  •  National Review Online

In the literature that helps explain the shocking results of the presidential election of 2016, Rick Wartzman's new book, The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America, merits a place alongside J. D. Vance's well-known memoir of white working class alienation and despair, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis and the less well-known sociological study of American mores just before the election, The Vanishing Center of American Democracy, by James Davison Hunter and Carl Desportes Bowman, both of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Culture. The last two focus on the mores of citizens, but they reveal a growing skepticism in our major institutions: government, churches, the media, etc. We are, as Hunter is fond of saying, in the midst of a "legitimation crisis" for our institutions.

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Books by Thomas Hibbs