First, let’s acknowledge that I laughed as hard at Bridesmaids as most anyone else. It was a consistently diverting, often very clever romp, and I thought Kristen Wiig and the rest of the cast were, on the whole, first-rate. That said, even with the extra smarts and wit that distinguished this movie from so many imbecilic contemporary comedies, Bridesmaids still … More Details

To feed my all-consuming, ongoing obsession with great movies, I asked myself the following question: which Hollywood director actually made the most great movies? It’s astonishing to me that my answer will likely have lots of people scratching their heads. In the Alsace area of Germany, on the first of this month early in the last century, future director William … More Details

Anyone who missed Matt Richtel’s piece in last Sunday’s New York Times (“Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction”) should lay hands on it now. It’s a sobering if not downright frightening report on eroding attention-skills among today’s high schoolers, who increasingly forsake their summer reading- and sustained reading of any sort- in favor of video games and sites like Facebook … More Details