Confessions of a Conservative Atheist
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In 1994, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein almost ruined Kenneth Branagh’s career while this year’s equivalent of a remake from Guillermo Del Toro received almost universal praise despite making almost the same movie substantially worse. In 1994, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein almost ruined Kenneth Branagh’s career. Though opinions of the film have generally improved in the more than… Continue reading Frankenstein and a tale of two Hollywoods
Benjamin Franklin famously or infamously said that the country was a Republic, if you can keep it. To liken great things to small, this is a blog if I can keep it up, but isn’t that true of everything in life? When I started this blog in November 2020, it wasn’t clear to me how… Continue reading Celebrating 1,000 posts with a few near incoherent thoughts on the past, present, and future
Before the age of political correctness, they used to say that behind every successful man was a special woman. While this is true for me, I don’t think it was intended to apply to expanding one’s taste in music. Shortly before I got married, a colleague asked me to describe my future wife in three… Continue reading Elton John, a cat named “Hercules,” an “Indian Sunset,” and the persistence of my lovely wife
For billions of Christians around the world, Christmas honors the birth of their savior, Jesus Christ, who lived to die to purge humanity of original sin in the ultimate sacrifice, but what if you believe in none of that? Why is a holiday to honor what you don’t accept still so important? For billions of… Continue reading An atheist on the spirit of Christmas
It’s a credit to Shakespeare’s genius that he was able to craft one of the greatest plays ever written from such an unbelievable beginning, but it’s also his genius that the opening is the very heart of it all. Despite his protestations, Lear has broken one of the bonds that protects civilization from the lawlessness… Continue reading King Lear and the primal genius of Kenneth Branagh
The British actor and director released his first film, Henry V in 1989, when I was a tender thirteen years old. It passed without notice for me during its theatrical run, but the video rental store, that monument to entertainment, where most families made at least a weekly pilgrimage before the rise of streaming, was… Continue reading How Kenneth Branagh changed a fantasy geek’s life and transformed him into a Shakespeare fanatic
Unlike his previous work, this is a tight, personal film about the experiences of a nine year old boy in a Belfast riven by The Troubles, thirty years of riots and retaliations among warring factions of adults that a child of such a young age is incapable of making any sense of. The only thing… Continue reading Kenneth Branagh’s brilliant “little” Belfast
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 