wall street journal

A Gratifying Victory

August 20, 2012 politics

Over at Breitbart’s Big Hollywood, movie maven Christian Toto points out that some members of the media are finally coming around to agree with my Wall Street Journal piece about The Dark Knight Rises. This is, as Christian points out, a victory for new media, which spread the word — not about my piece but [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

Sort of X-Men Versus Whatever-It-Is

September 29, 2011 Books

I have a review of Mark Bowden’s new book Worm in the Wall Street Journal Today: Even before the Internet became a household word, let alone a household tool, there were those who conceived of it as an actual place—an alternative reality of mystery, possibility and danger. Science-fiction novelist William Gibson dubbed computer networks “cyberspace” in a [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

Me on Mamet

May 28, 2011 Books

Here’s my Wall Street Journal review of David Mamet’s new political book, The Secret Knowledge: “In a celebrated 2008 essay for the Village Voice, David Mamet made the startling announcement that he was “no longer a brain-dead liberal.” I think it only fair to mention here that I rejoiced. Mr. Mamet is a terrific playwright, [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

Me on Video Games vs. Life

January 24, 2011 Books

Last Friday’s Wall Street Journal ran my review of Jane McGonigal’s Reality is Broken:  Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World: Ms. McGonigal’s notions about how to enliven what gamers call “RL” (“real life”) run the gamut from shallow to, well, that’s it, really. It’s not that she has nothing [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

Wall St. Journal Praises ID Man

November 17, 2010 Books

The Wall Street Journal‘s excellent weekend review has given The Identity Man a nice notice: Mr. Klavan, writer of a dozen previous novels, has produced a compelling moral fable in the shape of a gritty, twist-filled thriller. Reviewer Tom Nolan does take an unfair swipe at my politics by, in my opinion, mischaracterizing something a [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

Singing The Praises: The WSJ Review

September 27, 2010 Culture

One of my biggest beefs with my fellow conservatives when it comes to the arts is what I’ll call “sanctimonious disengagement.” It sounds like this:  “I never go to the movies anymore!  There’s nothing good to see!” Or:  “I haven’t watched TV since they canceled Leave it to Beaver.  It’s all trash.” Or:  “I don’t [...]

17 comments Read the full article →

Me on James Ellroy

September 14, 2010 Culture

For those who somehow missed it, I had a review of crime writer James Ellroy’s new memoir in Monday’s Wall Street Journal.  The book is called “The Hilliker Curse, My Pursuit of Women.” The book is brief, but it covers a world of pain. In dense, explicit and yet jazzily lyrical prose, Mr. Ellroy recounts [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

American Movies, Foreign Minds

August 2, 2010 Culture

Two articles in the Wall Street Journal this week confirm a lot of people’s feelings about modern American movies. The first article, a witty tirade by Joe Queenan, asks whether 2010 is the worst year for movies ever: Go into a movie theater any day of the week and watch as the audience sits listlessly [...]

14 comments Read the full article →

You Heard It Here First!

June 29, 2010 Culture

Okay, get this.  In today’s Wall Street Journal, we read: Federal prosecutors alleged 11 people were spies living secret lives in American communities, from Seattle to Washington D.C., sent years ago to infiltrate U.S. society and glean its secrets. In an extensive and bizarre affidavit whose details echoed Cold War spy thrillers, the Federal Bureau [...]

2 comments Read the full article →