essays

[National Review Online, October 29, 2004]

I hope Jamie Foxx has a nice Oscar-sized spot dusted off on his mantle, because if there's any justice in the world, he'll be going home with a statuette next February. His starring performance in "Ray," a biography of Ray Charles by director Taylor Hackford, is gripping from the start. It's not just the dazzling grin, not just the swaying head and tottering walk, but most of all the voice-a little higher and faster than you'd expect, with a hint of a stutter. Every time he speaks there's a jolt of energy, and it always comes as a surprise.

Click to read more ...

[Christianity Today Online, October 9, 2004]

As four-letter words become an ever more popular form of communication, it's hardly surprising that athletes might use them, or that one might slip out in a TV interview. NBC's Matt Yocum had just asked Dale Earnhardt Jr. how it felt to win a race at the Talladega Superspeedway for the fifth time, and he replied modestly that his famous dad, Dale Earnhardt Sr, had won there ten times. "It don't mean s---," he said.

The sky fell in.

Click to read more ...

[National Review Online, October 12, 2004]

Toward the end of "I [Heart] Huckabees," the "existential detective" Vivian Jaffe (Lily Tomlin) is talking with a client. As the camera swings back her way we discover that she has unexpectedly taken out a pair of large, bone-colored knitting needles and is busily working some black yarn. This startling visual distraction must mean something (recall Chekhov's famous dictum that a gun seen in the first act must be fired in the next), so the viewer immediately does a mental Google on "knitters." Top result is Dickens' cruel Madame Defarge. Compare and contrast: Vivian Jaffe is like Mme Defarge in these ways; she is not like her in those ways.

Click to read more ...