Jason Reitman's "Up in the Air' (2nd review)

The American Dream meets the Angel of Death

Jason Reitman's Up in the Air is this year's Hollywood morality tale. It's a throwback to Preston Sturges and Howard Hawks— in short, a Depression-era film for our depressed times. Up In the Air. A film directed by Jason Reitman, from the novel by Walter Kirn. At the Ritz Five, 214 Walnut St. (215) 925-7900 or www.landmarktheatres.com.

Robert Zaller

Feb 23, 2010 · Articles · 7 minute read

Fritz Lang's "Metropolis,' restored

Metropolis, as Lang intended it

Fritz Lang's futuristic 1927 silent masterpiece, Metropolis, isn't for everyone. But the recent discovery of a missing hour's worth of footage will help untangle some of the film's conundrums.

Andrew Mangravite

Feb 13, 2010 · Articles · 3 minute read

In defense of Jane Austen's prose

Jane Austen is still good in bed

Some folks rejoice at the current spate of Jane Austen film adaptations because they find her novels impenetrable. But if Austen's books are such a slog, why have they remained in print continuously for almost 200 years?

Alaina Johns

Feb 07, 2010 · Articles · 4 minute read

James Ellroy's "Blood's A Rover'

Through an American dream, darkly

James Ellroy's American dream is a high-definition nightmare of total political depravity that infects every character in his fiction, from presidents to bellhops. It is totally fascinating, perhaps because there is the sting of truth at its basis. Blood's A Rover. By James Ellroy. Knopf, 2009. 656 pages; $28.95. www.amazon.com.

Bob Ingram

Jan 30, 2010 · Articles · 5 minute read

Jane Austen novels on DVD

Jane Austen is ready for her close-up (and always has been)

Jane Austen's impenetrable prose is difficult to slog through— but her novels translate marvelously to the screen, as two DVD adaptations remind us. This is no accident. Long before the invention of cinema, Austen understood— as, say, Dostoyevsky or Proust or Mailer did not— the power of visual imagery.

Robert J. Murphy

Jan 30, 2010 · Articles · 5 minute read

Howard Zinn and Mary Daly: Up the academy

They rattled our ivory towers

Howard Zinn and Mary Daly, who died last week, shared a penchant for challenging smug academic certainties. To college presidents and deans, they were perennial pests; to society's underdogs, they exemplified what a free society is all about.

Patrick D. Hazard

Jan 30, 2010 · Articles · 3 minute read

Salinger's "Catcher,' then and now

The power to cut through cant

J.D. Salinger's fundamental resistance to adult delusions spoke powerfully to a high school freshman like me. But his message didn't resonate with everyone, even my age.

John L. Erlich

Jan 30, 2010 · Articles · 2 minute read

"Avatar' vs. "The Imaginarium'

Technology vs. imagination: The Avatar of Dr. Parnassus

James Cameron's Avatar dazzles us with expensive high-tech special effects. But Terry Gilliam's Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus dazzles us with the more substantive power of human imagination.

Judy Weightman

Jan 16, 2010 · Articles · 7 minute read

David Owen's "Green Metropolis'

Do fence me in

A Connecticut suburbanite extols the environmental virtues of dense big cities.

Tom Purdom

Jan 05, 2010 · Articles · 3 minute read

"A New Literary History of America'

If scholars wrote blogs, here's what they'd say

From Vespucci to Obama, it's the mesmerizing mix of old chestnuts and unseen treasures in A New Literary History of America that gives this communal blog its intellectual weight. And it triggers memories for this old American studies academic.

Patrick D. Hazard

Jan 02, 2010 · Articles · 7 minute read