Copyright 2010 Thomas Hibbs Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:40:02 -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/7212/avatar Thu, 22 Apr 2010 09:00:00 EST James Cameron's record-shattering film Avatar is being released on DVD today. Today is not a Tuesday, the day DVDs normally hit the stores, but a Thursday, to coincide with the 40th annual Earth Day: Avatar highlights the threats posed by an advanced,... http://www.thomashibbs.org/7188/between-athens-and-jerusalem Thu, 8 Apr 2010 09:00:00 EST In a 1932 letter Leo Strauss wrote, "I cannot believe and . . . therefore I search for a possibility to live without faith." That search, which began in the 1920s, led him from contemporary theological debates and the modern liberal critique of religion... http://www.thomashibbs.org/7187/ralph-mcinerny-1929-2010 Wed, 1 Apr 2010 09:00:00 EST According to Aristotle, is the performance of virtuous acts with ease and delight. On that basis, as well as others, Ralph McInerny was a remarkably virtuous man. One of Ralph's most beautiful books is entitled The Very Rich Hours of Jacques Maritain: A... http://www.thomashibbs.org/7186/oscars-parochial-world Mon, 8 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST In a scene in the Oscar-nominated film An Education, an older British man with designs on a precocious teenage girl concocts a story for her parents about how he is taking her to visit his old professor, C.S. Lewis. Although Lewis does not figure further... http://www.thomashibbs.org/7185/children-of-lesser-gods Wed, 3 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST Woody Allen's Whatever Works, a serious contender for worst movie of 2009, is noteworthy mostly as a disastrous attempt to channel Allen's humor through the caustic verbiage of the increasingly unfunny Larry David. But the problem is deeper than casting.... http://www.thomashibbs.org/6685/up-in-the-air Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST Pascal once observed that, in the absence of a framing purpose for human life, the best life was one with access to a host of diversions. Moving its denizens from one diversion to another, modern society would seem to have discovered the key to life in... http://www.thomashibbs.org/7184/the-modern-philosophical-revolution Mon, 1 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST CHARLES TAYLOR ONCE lamented that, on the topic of modernity, scholars seem divided into two camps: knockers and boosters. In The Modern Philosophical Revolution: The Luminosity of Existence, David Walsh, longtime professor of political science at the... http://www.thomashibbs.org/6620/the-blind-side Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST The Blind Side is the true story of the high-school years of Baltimore Ravens lineman Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron), who was born in a Memphis housing project with no father and a drug-addicted mother. Because of his athletic potential and despite his... http://www.thomashibbs.org/6599/the-twilight-saga-new-moon Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST If Elvis and Christopher Walken had a son, he would look like Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), the dreamy-eyed vampire in Chris Weitz's film The Twilight Saga: New Moon. The much-anticipated film is a sequel to the hugely popular Twilight, based on the... http://www.thomashibbs.org/6546/mad-men-held-by-the-past Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST "So, who are you supposed to be?" a man asks Don Draper on Halloween night as he and his wife, Betty, take their children trick-or-treating. That of course is the abiding question of the critically acclaimed AMC series Mad Men, whose satisfying... http://www.thomashibbs.org/6360/paris Fri, 2 Oct 2009 09:00:00 EST Director Cedric Klapisch's new film, Paris, begins with young girls looking out over the City of Light and asking their mother, "Where is the universe?" She responds, "Everywhere." But for the city dwellers in this film, Paris is everywhere. The focus is... http://www.thomashibbs.org/6318/fame Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:00:00 EST In an early scene in Fame, director Kevin Tancharoen's remake of the Oscar-winning film from 1980, students who have made the cut for entrance into the highly selective New York City High School of Performing Arts assemble for an orientation session. The... http://www.thomashibbs.org/6130/who-is-don-draper Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:00:00 EST "I keep going different places, and always winding up where I've already been." That is a comment by Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the main character of the critically acclaimed AMC series Mad Men, in its hyped third-season opener, which aired last Sunday night... http://www.thomashibbs.org/6082/bandslam Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:00:00 EST The new Walden Media production, Bandslam, is for the most part an entertaining story about the new kid in town, Will Burton (Gaelan Connell), a classic-rock purist and typical loner who suddenly finds himself drawing the attention of two beautiful and... http://www.thomashibbs.org/6060/funny-people Fri, 7 Aug 2009 09:00:00 EST Midway through the new Judd Apatow film, Funny People, Eminem in a cameo appearance admonishes a leukemia-suffering George Simmons (Adam Sandler): Your best move would simply be to die. Apatow might have applied that piece of advice to the film itself....