Monthly Archives: September 2012

“Don’t you blame the movies,” protests Skeet Ulrich’s horror-fanboy serial killer in Scream (Wes Craven, 1996). “Movies don’t create psychos. Movies make psychos more creative!” The Obama administration falls into the former camp, blaming the past week of anti-American rioting and the murder of US officials on a dreadful YouTube film assailing the Prophet Mohammed.Continue reading “Innocence of Muslims: A Review”

I got caught up, I admit it, in the fire and flyting, the exchange of insults, the contempt that boils right up into your heart until you feel bitter and spiteful and mean as a snake. The anger, for that big agglomerated punching bag the mainstream media, has largely subsided. It was fuelled by someContinue reading “On Libya and Egypt”

The Western and the superhero movie—the two most American genres in cinema—come from the same literary tradition: the great American mythos. In that tradition, America is history told as legend. This is not to say that the nation’s history is fabricated, but that it is attuned to the rhythms and themes of storytelling: the taciturnContinue reading “New sheriffs of the old west”