Arts & Culture

Does the success of Michael Bay’s style of big-budget, explosion-y, thrill ride movie mean that Transformers: Age of Extinction is an especially good film? Not really. Was it fun to watch? Of course it was; that’s the entire point!

What’s the biggest effect the internet has had on writing? It’s a question that gets asked a lot in literary circles. Answers have included an exponential increase in narcissism, the erosion of grammatical standards, and the overall decline of Western civilization. For my money, the most transformative effect has been much more specific, and seemingly banal. In a word: paragraphs.

Does politics have only a remedial function or are we created for political life from the beginning? Does government exist only to counter the effects of human sin, or does it play an important role in human life even apart from sin?

“Fiction to me is a kind of parable,” she once said. “You have got to make up your mind it’s not true. Some kind of truth emerges from it.”

Resolutely analytical and critical, Ehrenreich is a ruthless puncturer of platitudes and soft-headed consolations about the way the world works.

What do we expect from family members? As brothers and sisters together, working out our faith in fear and trembling? We’re justified, we’re adopted . . . and so how then shall we live with one another in the bonds of love that God the Father has lavished on us?

In this lively, inspiring, and sometimes humorous synopsis of the lives of seven men, Eric Metaxas explores the secret of their greatness.

“This is normal,” says a young man named Ahmed as he lights a candle to brighten up a Cairo room. “The lights are out all over the world.

Amish people are often looked upon as quaint cultural curiosities by those of us who are, well, not Amish. The idea of a horse and buggy on a country road makes for a fuzzy feeling. It is tempting to think something like this: “Is it just wonderful that some people still live in this old-fashioned way?” Or to remark, “I’ve heard that they hire people with tractors, but won’t own one. And some of them have propane refrigerators but won’t have electric ones; quite inconsistent.” We condescend to what we don’t understand.

Five minutes into The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and characters are already acting stupidly. Or at least not acting how you or I might act, were we placed in a similar situation. There’s this scientist on a plane, secreting away some high-clearance research data on his laptop. The plane is hijacked, but the scientist is able to overcome his attacker, and get back to securing the data. The hijacker wasn’t subdued enough, of course – no handcuffs, no incapacitating blow to the noggin – and he springs back up, attacking our beleaguered scientist. Chaos ensues.