Copyright 2013 Thomas Hibbs Tue, 21 May 2013 05:40:02 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Thomas Hibbs :: Writings http://www.thomashibbs.org tshibbs@aol.com (Thomas Hibbs) webmaster@pundicity.com en-us http://www.thomashibbs.org/13217/education-nourishes-the-soul Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:00:00 EST "The true college," writes the African-American author W.E.B. DuBois (in words etched in stone in the walkway at Brooks Residential College), "will ever have one goal – not to earn meat, but to know the end and aim of that life which meat nourishes." In... http://www.thomashibbs.org/13193/to-the-wonder Thu, 18 Apr 2013 09:00:00 EST In a wedding scene in Terrence Malick's new film, To the Wonder, an elderly woman tells the priest (Javier Bardem) that she offers a specific prayer on his behalf, namely, that he might experience the gift of joy. I felt myself offering a similar prayer... http://www.thomashibbs.org/13060/pope-francis-jesuits Thu, 14 Mar 2013 09:00:00 EST Amid the many firsts represented in the election of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Catholic pontiff—the first pope from South America and the first to take the name Francis—he is also the first Jesuit. From its founding in the 16th century to... http://www.thomashibbs.org/12998/oscar-crop Fri, 22 Feb 2013 09:00:00 EST "People need dramatic examples. . . . As a man I'm flesh and blood. I can be ignored. I can be destroyed. But as a symbol, I can be incorruptible. I can be everlasting." That's a line spoken by Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, the first... http://www.thomashibbs.org/12677/the-hobbit Fri, 14 Dec 2012 09:00:00 EST For viewers who were enthralled by Peter Jackson's majestic films of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, watching the first installment (of three) of Jackson's version of The Hobbit is likely to be equal parts pleasure and frustration. It is a pleasure to have... http://www.thomashibbs.org/12602/satchmo-at-the-waldorf Wed, 21 Nov 2012 09:00:00 EST At one point during Terry Teachout's play Satchmo at the Waldorf, the character of Louis Armstrong, performed by the accomplished stage and screen actor John Douglas Thompson, talks about his astonishing ability to string together a series of high Cs on... http://www.thomashibbs.org/12014/the-dark-knight-rises Fri, 20 Jul 2012 09:00:00 EST Christopher Nolan's final entry in his trilogy of Batman movies, The Dark Knight Rises, contains less humor, fewer moments of awe-inspiring action, and a much less captivating villain than either of the previous entries. It's also longer than even the... http://www.thomashibbs.org/11959/religious-comedy Thu, 21 Jun 2012 09:00:00 EST Can the end of the world be funny? What about divine punishment? Judging by the recent spate of movies by Steve Carell, Jim Carrey and others, Hollywood certainly seems to think so. And Friday brings us another—Mr. Carell's new apocalyptic comedy,... http://www.thomashibbs.org/11744/blue-like-jazz Fri, 18 May 2012 09:00:00 EST Despite the fact that nearly the entire plot of Blue Like Jazz is preoccupied with its main character's loss and eventual recovery of his Christian faith, its director, Steve Taylor, insists that it is not a Christian movie. In distinguishing Blue Like... http://www.thomashibbs.org/11619/freud-last-session Tue, 24 Apr 2012 09:00:00 EST Toward the end of the play Freud's Last Session, a fictional conversation about the meaning of human life between Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis concludes, "How mad, to think we could untangle the world's greatest mystery in one hour." Freud responds, "The... http://www.thomashibbs.org/11574/damsels-in-distress Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:00:00 EST Damsels in Distress, Whit Stillman's first film since 1998's The Last Days of Disco, focuses on the lives of a group of co-eds at a fictional East Coast college that is dominated by a boorish and vulgar male mentality. The young women (Greta Gerwig as... http://www.thomashibbs.org/11253/oscar-surprises Fri, 24 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST What an unusual list of Oscar nominees for Best Picture — sentimental and populist. Among the nominated films, there are no movies making big social or political statements, nor are there the usual films with dark themes. There is nothing to rival... http://www.thomashibbs.org/11132/young-adult Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST The new film Young Adult, the latest from the writer/director team of Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody of Juno fame, features Charlize Theron as Mavis Gary, a writer of young adult fiction living in the Twin Cities who returns to the small town of Mercury,... http://www.thomashibbs.org/11131/oscar-nominations-sentimental-populism Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST What an unusual list of Oscar nominees for Best Picture — sentimental and populist. Among the nominated films, there are no movies with big social or political statements, nor are there the usual films with dark themes. There is nothing to rival... http://www.thomashibbs.org/9935/harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-part-2 Fri, 15 Jul 2011 09:00:00 EST There has never been anything quite like J. K Rowling's Harry Potter, the hero of a hugely popular series of seven books followed by a successful set of eight movies. The decision to split the last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, into two...