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Culture Highlights Column

Periodically Updated
 Recommendations

Featured music:

"Footprints in Paradise"
Title track excerpt
from Larry Lagerberg's
first CD release.
Smooth, relaxing jazz.
Album available at Larry's website here


Play music sample


Recommended reading:

Nihilism in Film and Television
(2006)
by Kevin L. Stoehr

Stoehr offers a critical overview of the nihilistic vision of film noir from Citizen Kane to The Sopranos. Though I offer an alternative to a noir interpretation of The Sopranos (click here), Stoehr's chapter on this TV series is insightful, as is the entire book. For publisher's information click on the title.


Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History
(2006)
by David Frankfurter

Consistent with the thesis of Our Faith in Evil, Frankfurter challenges the social/cultural value invested in the traditional concept of evil by revealing how this fictional concept creates very real horrors in human community. For publisher's information click on the title.

Featured reading among recent additions to this site:


W. B. Macomber's
Love and Culture

A Philosophical commentary inspired by Plato's Symposium
Chapters released monthly
For Table of Contents, further information,
and chapter links click
here


Recommended viewing:

No Country for Old Men
(2007)
Directed by
Ethan and Joel Coen

Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy and winner of four Academy Awards. See further comments and links on the home page.


Merry Christmas
Mr. Lawrence
(1983)
Directed by Nagisa Oshima

Optimum's 2005 DVD release of this classic film contains an interview with the author of the book on which Oshima's screenplay is based--Laurens Van Der Post--as well as interviews with David Bowie and Ryuichi Sakamoto. This World War II POW drama presents an extraordinary clash of cultural differences and individual wills. Click on the title above for my commentary on the film.

Recommended art:

The Salvador Dali Gallery
Browse a complete collection of Dali's work along with a wealth of information about each work and his life

The Zeugma Mosaics
Beautiful GrecoRoman art saved from a flooded section of the Euphrates River. See the video fly-through at this link for the 14 room Roman villa that housed these amazing mosaics.



 
 
 

 

 

The Sopranos

The Sopranos
Gratuitous Violence or High Drama?


 

Scroll down for complete list

  

 

Memoirs of a Geisha

Memoirs of a Geisha
Melodrama or Tragic Drama?

 

 

Harry Potter

Harry Potter
Popular Fantasy at What Cultural Cost?



Film Analyses and Reviews
(most of which can be found in Part II of Our Faith in Evil)

Red River (1948)

Shane (1953) and later variations on the Western

Psycho (1960) and the (Slasher) Horror Genre

Bonnie and Clyde (1968)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Jaws (1975) versus Moby Dick

Taxi Driver (1976)

Star Wars Epic (1977, 1980, 1983, 1999, 2002, 2005)

Raging Bull (1980)

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983)

The Terminator Series (1984, 1991, 2003)

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

The Matrix Series (1999, 2003, 2003)

Harry Potter Series (2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007)

Lord of the Rings Epic (2001, 2002, 2003)

The Passion of the Christ (2004)

Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)

The Sopranos (1999-2007)

No Country for Old Men (2007)



Click on the following link to preview works on Media Violence 



































































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