I’ve been waiting for a chance to share this movie with you for two years. In Lucky Life, the new film by Lee Isaac Chung, three friends—a writer named Mark, his wife Karen, and their friend Alex—drive to join their friend Jason at a North Carolina beach house. They’ve been friends for years, but this…

I read that famed biologist E.O. Wilson provoked a tempest by claiming a genetic basis for social cooperation that has the politically unfortunate side-effect of undermining a widely embraced explanation for the persistence of homosexuality. If he’s right, we’re stuck with an uncomfortable reality that homosexuality is a choice, or a learned behavior, or something…

The old year ends and the new year begins, a seamless road towards eternity. So as we prepare for that endless prospect, it’s good to remember those that have already entered it. I was sitting with my father at the dinner table a few weeks ago, surrounded by family. Memory calls most after it has…

I went to a middle school dance the other night to watch my son’s band play the four songs they know. What I observed probably won’t surprise you. The boys at the dance reacted to the rock & roll. They jumped and wiggled—some even did what might be considered dancing—and ran and threw their bodies…

Monastic communities have traditionally encouraged lay associates: people drawn not to join the monastery but to absorb themselves in its spirituality and adapt as much of its practice as possible while living “in the world.” Creatively taking this concept of lay associates into the internet age, the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania, have launched “Monasteries…

From time to time, things we have done that we should not have done are brought to our attention. I’m not talking about things we remember; I’m talking about things we don’t. These are things that we not only have no memory of, but also cannot truly fathom a response for. And when we are…

Around the time I decided to quit being a music critic (something I do every couple of years for good measure), the content of my “best of the year” playlists changed. They changed from being a record of my insatiable desire to find and consume new things to an attempt to more faithfully curate something…

It happens every January—movie ads fill up with boasts about awards they’ve won. Soon, those boasts will include Oscar nominations. And The Artist is currently the most boastful of all. Filmmaker Michael Hazanavicius’s tribute to Hollywood’s silent film era is stirring up enthusiasm among audiences and critics alike. Me, I enjoyed it. It was playful,…

It’s that time again: Time to share my favorite films of 2011. Today, I’ll share twenty-one silver medal winners—movies I admired very much. Tomorrow—the gold medalists—the top ten. I was asked to share this list on a Pittsburgh radio program last week. But we got sidetracked. The show hosts asked questions about a celebrity controversy…

Ever since Greg Wolfe started a Facebook thread about the movie, I’ve been thinking about Tree of Life—particularly the section depicting the birth of the universe. At first it appears to be a cinematic non-sequitur, and it seems also never to end. It does end, after almost twenty minutes away from the narrative. The big bang…