Staff Reviews
Review: Tron: Ares Reminds Us That Artificial Intelligence Is Not the Enemy
Will a hyperadvanced AI be a danger to humanity? That's nothing compared to the threat posed by military contractors. That's the implicit conclusion of Tron: Ares, the third installment in the series that began with…
‘The Sound of Music’ is an anti-authoritarian musical
The Kennedy Center hosted director Jack O'Brien's production of The Sound of Music from September to October. O'Brien's rendition left little to criticize: stunning sets, apt casting, and exquisite vocal…
Review: Wayward Spotlights the Dark Secrets of Troubled-Teen Programs
Netflix's Wayward follows Abbie and Leila, two best friends trying to escape Tall Pines Academy—a disciplinary boarding school in a small town—as well as Alex, a police officer who just moved to town with his wife. Abbie…
‘Project Mind Control’ book documents MKUltra project
Project Mind Control tells the lurid tale of the CIA's attempts to discover the scientific principles that would allow people to control subjects' thoughts and actions. The author, University of Texas historian John…
‘Tradecraft’ book chronicles John le Carré’s career
John le Carré's characters were the opposite of James Bond. Like Bond creator Ian Fleming, le Carré was a veteran British intelligence officer who wrote spy novels. But unlike Fleming's action hero, le Carré's…
‘The Paper’ parodies work at a struggling newspaper
Peacock attempted to recapture the magic of The Office in The Paper, a spin-off series set at a local newspaper. The mockumentary follows the travails of the Toledo Truth Teller, a once-thriving paper that now shares an…
Earth’ is a prequel to the 1979 movie
The 1979 movie Alien was part deep-space monster movie, part dystopian extrapolation of the era's economic concerns. The movie's main antagonist was a chest-bursting alien with acid for blood, but an all-powerful…
Frank S. Meyer and the history of fusionism
With The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer, Daniel J. Flynn has produced a biography valuable to both political novices and serious students of the conservative movement. Laymen will gain from…
Jerry Garcia biography explores counterculture history
Former Los Angeles Times man Jim Newton, in his book Here Beside the Rising Tide, picked a representative subject through which to judge the achievements and excesses of the 1960s counterculture: Grateful Dead guitarist and…
New Carole King biography is the first dedicated solely to the music legend
The Shirelles, an all-black girl group out of New Jersey, had just cracked the Top 40 in September 1960 and needed a follow-up hit. Don Kirshner, impresario of a songwriting factory in Manhattan's Brill Building, gave…
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