essays

[National Review Online; November 21, 2007] 

I’m going to try not to gush, but it’s hard when a movie is this delightful. “Enchanted” is even more than that, it’s original—lovely, fresh, funny, and charming to a princely degree. And this is where you and I can start to lose each other, because there’s no reviewer so smitten as the one who expected to endure a so-so movie and was surprised to find something really very good. Gratitude produces a review with a rosy glow, but if you read that review and buy a ticket expecting to see the best thing next to “Citizen Kane,” you could well be disappointed. It’s the very same movie, but it depends on where you’re coming from. That gap between discovery and verification is a communications hazard for readers and writers of all kinds of reviews. I know all that, but I can’t help it. “Enchanted” knocked me out.

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[National Review Online; Nov 16, 2007]

 
The Church of Stop Shopping? The name might ring a bell. During last year’s pre-Christmas shopping season, this parody gospel choir roamed the country, stopping in places like Mall of America to offer carols rewritten to warn of the evils of consumerism. The music-and-comedy troupe was founded by “Rev. Billy” (Bill Talen), who preaches the Stop Shopping gospel (“We’re on a mission to save Christmas from overconsumption”) while costumed and coiffed to resemble the most terrifying wide-eyed faith healer on TV. (Actually, the Anglican-style clergy collar doesn’t go with this character, nor the pre-Vatican II Catholic confessional, but we’re not asking for historic accuracy here.)

“What Would Jesus Buy?” is a documentary about that cross-country pilgrimage,

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[First Things Online; November 6, 2007] 

For some time now I’ve been reading Bill Bryson’s terrific 2003 book, A Short History of Nearly Everything. (You should interpret “some time” to mean “a pretty long time,” because not only is this a hefty-sized book, it’s about science.) In his introduction Bryson, an entertaining travel writer, explains how he came to write a book about the origins of life, the universe, and everything. He says that when he was in the fourth or fifth grade the cover of his science text showed the earth with a quarter cut away, revealing an interior neatly arranged in colorful layers. Not only did Bryson enjoy the thought of unsuspecting motorists sailing off the edge,

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