Anthony Sacramone

At the climax of Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest , R.P. McMurphy, the irascible antihero who believed time in a madhouse was preferable to time in the Big House, has succeeded in making life miserable for a psychiatric hospital’s staff and tolerable for its inmates. . . . . Continue Reading »

“Can everything around here be got?” oil man Daniel Plainview asks. “Sure” is the reply. And so There Will Be Blood , roughly adapted from Upton Sinclair’s Oil ! and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson ( Boogie Nights ), begins to gush¯rage and sweat and blood.There . . . . Continue Reading »

Oh for the days of the old Hollywood Production Code, when men were men, women were ladies, and sociopaths weren’t always the coolest guys in the room. You remember the Production Code: that system of dos and don’ts more or less agreed upon by moral watchdogs and studio heads to ensure . . . . Continue Reading »

Imagine The Incredibles meets A Clockwork Orange . You remember The Incredibles , that Pixar sensation about the family of superheroes who are domesticated by a politically correct society that defines pluralism as an egregious egalitarianism and a uniform mediocrity. And A Clockwork Orange is, of . . . . Continue Reading »

So the hottest homiletical tool seems to be a piece of software called Wordle . Cut and paste the text of your sermon into the appropriate window and Wordle creates a verbal mosaic, calling out key words in various colors and designs. (You can also try that with your denomination’s confession . . . . Continue Reading »

So Saturday I caught The Incredible Hulk (not to be confused with Ang Lee’s 2003 merely credible Hulk ). I also happened to be working my way through Volume 1 of The Philokalia , a collection of fourth- to fifteenth-century texts that exemplify Eastern Orthodox spiritual wisdom. A strange . . . . Continue Reading »

M. Night Shyamalan seems determined to kill off his career. I’ll explain. In his latest film, a would-be Hitchcockian thriller called The Happening , people start killing themselves all along the Northeast corridor. (And no —Amtrak does not figure in this scenario.) It starts in Central . . . . Continue Reading »

Arguably the most literate, witty, and truly “adult” Britcom ever broadcast was Yes, Minister and its sequel, Yes, Prime Minister . Like any good satire, it skewered both right and left, as this ongoing saga of British political hijinks is told from a bureaucrat’s point of view, . . . . Continue Reading »

of the pope’s U.S. visit can be found here . Raymond Arroyo and our own Fr. Neuhaus preside over the coverage. (It may take a few seconds to load fully. Remember the words of St. Augustine: “Patience is the companion of wisdom.” He also contended that the damned will not demerit . . . . Continue Reading »

THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary _________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release April 16, 2008 REMARKS BY PRESIDENT BUSH AND HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI IN ARRIVAL CEREMONY South Lawn 10:38 A.M. EDT PRESIDENT BUSH: Holy Father, Laura and I . . . . Continue Reading »