Posts Tagged ‘ morality ’

Billy Wilder’s ‘The Apartment’—A Caustic, Comic Look at America’s Changing Morality

December 31, 2012
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Billy Wilder’s ‘The Apartment’—A Caustic, Comic Look at America’s Changing Morality

My recommendation for New Year's Eve viewing, if you're inclined to watch a movie: 'The Apartment,' directed by Billy Wilder. Turner Classic Movies is showing it tonight beginning at 10 p.m. EST. It's one of Billy Wilder's best films, and it won several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine star as a mismatched couple in New York City in 1960, a time when the nation's values were changing rapidly. Wilder catches the enormity of the shift in moral…

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Is the Liberal-Progressive Welfare State a Moral Threat?

July 19, 2011
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Is the Liberal-Progressive Welfare State a Moral Threat?

By Mike Gray Dennis Prager says, “Oh, yeah!” and offers ten reasons why: 1. The bigger the government, the less the citizens do for one another. 2. The welfare state, though often well intended, is nevertheless a Ponzi scheme. 3. Citizens of liberal welfare states become increasingly narcissistic. 4. The liberal welfare state makes people disdain work. 5. Nothing more guarantees the erosion of character than getting something for nothing. 6. The bigger the government, the more the corruption. 7. The welfare state corrupts family…

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Can the State Inspire Moral Clarity and Courage?

May 8, 2010
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Can the State Inspire Moral Clarity and Courage?

Few would argue that laws reflect the nation’s values. The real debate is law’s ability to shapes those values. Ethics and Public Policy Center senior fellow, Peter Wehner argues not only should we not dismiss government’s ability to form the values people bring to the public square, but we should embrace the idea. Responding to James Davison Hunter’s book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity, Wehner writes, The laws of a nation embody its values and shape them, in ways…

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Jack Bauer Is Dead. . . .

March 27, 2010
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Jack Bauer Is Dead. . . .

… at least on Fox come May after the conclusion of it’s eighth “day,” otherwise known as a season. From The Hollywood Reporter: Tick, tick, tick … and done. After eight seasons, Fox’s “24” is coming to an end. The groundbreaking action drama will air its final real-time episode in May, the victim of a confluence of circumstances: a swelling budget, declining ratings and creative fatigue. BOOOOO!!!!! Apparently, due to the fact that salaries spiral upward dramatically the longer a show is on television (especially…

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Woody Allen’s Big Blind Spot

November 15, 2009
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Woody Allen’s Big Blind Spot

It’s not inherently a bad thing that the characters in Woody Allen’s movies tend to be victims of their lusts, but it shows a weakness in his vision and his films, writes TAC guest contributor Shmuel Ben-Gad.

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CW’s ‘Melrose Place’ Remake Shows Promise

September 14, 2009
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CW’s ‘Melrose Place’ Remake Shows Promise

            The CW network’s new mystery-drama soap opera Melrose Place isn’t art, but it might turn out to be good entertainment.  

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‘Friday the 13th’ Sets Opening Weekend Box Office Record; Besson Film Stays Strong

February 16, 2009
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‘Friday the 13th’ Sets Opening Weekend Box Office Record; Besson Film Stays Strong

      Warner Bros’ and producer Michael Bay’s remake of the influential 1980 horror film Friday the 13th significantly outperformed expectations by setting a new opening weekend box office record for a horror movie, taking in more than $42 million to finish first among U.S. audiences this past weekend. But the best news was the continuing strength of Taken, the action thriller starring Liam Neeson, written and produced by Luc Besson, and directed by Pierre Morel.

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TNT’s ‘Leverage’ Shows Promise

December 6, 2008
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TNT’s ‘Leverage’ Shows Promise

          TNT"s new series, Leverage, starring Timothy Hutton, is a worthy entry in two classic narrative traditions—the caper story and the vigilante tale.    

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FX Series ‘Sons of Anarchy’ Tackles New Formula with Ambitions

September 11, 2008
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FX Series ‘Sons of Anarchy’ Tackles New Formula with Ambitions

The FX drama series Sons of Anarchy plays to an increasingly common formula, but does it well.

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Scientists Present Ultimate No-Fault Divorce Theory

September 4, 2008
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Scientists Present Ultimate No-Fault Divorce Theory

Study suggests tendency to unfaithfulness and divorce is genetic.  

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Unusual Moral Concerns in a Sitcom

September 20, 2007
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Unusual Moral Concerns in a Sitcom

 Back to You is an idea devised in TV programmer’s Heaven: get the star of Frasier and the co-star and only likeable character in Everybody Loves Raymond, mix them together any old way, and voila, a sitcom hit is born. We’ll have to wait and see whether audiences like Back to You, starring Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton as two bickering news anchors in Pittsburgh and created by the same people who made Frasier. As is inevitable with sitcoms today, the premiere episode of Back…

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Free Will, Determinism, and Pop Culture

August 17, 2007
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Free Will, Determinism, and Pop Culture

The central moral issue of the past century was whether a traditional (in fact, millennias old) assumption behind moral thinking should prevail, or should be replaced by a newer, seemingly more compassionate thought. It is a matter over which American society is still struggling. The classical Western notion, of course, was that an individual is responsible for his or her own actions, even if outside circumstances contributed to the person’s decision to break a rule. That meant, for example, that even poverty did not excuse…

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Movies for Good Girls

June 12, 2007
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Movies for Good Girls

A new wave of movies aimed at young girls is coming, starting this Friday with the theatrical release of Nancy Drew. The director of that film, Andrew Fleming, points out that the recent preteen and teen culture presented models of behavior very different from that of the children at which they have been aimed and which most of their parents would endorse. The LA Times reports the good news that this is about to change somewhat:

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The Inestimable Larry Miller

December 13, 2006
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The Inestimable Larry Miller

Larry Miller is one of the funniest comedians around. Rather like a younger Bob Newhart but with a bit more of an edge, the balding, pudgy Miller has made a name for himself as a comic character actor in numerous movies and tv shows, but where he made his name was as a hilariously funny standup comedian who applied traditional morality and sound common sense to our crazy Omniculture society, a place that is simultaneously puritanical about progressive political shibboleths (such as tobacco, fatty foods,…

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Macy’s Name Change Backfires

December 12, 2006
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Sometimes it’s important to respect traditions and follow conventional morality even when it doesn’t seem to make logical sense on the surface. Consider, for example, Macy’s recent travails. The retail giant bought numerous other stores in the past couple of years and decided to change all their names to Macy’s, to strengthen the corporate identity. Macy’s also reduced service and merchandise quality at the stores. That’s exactly the type of crude corporate behavior one sees in old movies (and many new ones as well). The…

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