Monthly Archives: December 2007

It’s time for everyone’s favorite game: fill-in-the-blank. You finish this sentence: “This year I am going to ________” or perhaps this one, “This year I am going to be a better ______” or, finally, “This year I am going to stop ______.” Perhaps you’ve made that statement recently, or at least heard it made by others. It’s the time for “New Years Resolutions.” That time of the year has arrived when we all make promises we know we won’t keep.

That time is again upon us when car, make-up, and insurance commercials are momentarily sidelined to make way for content-less, image-shaping, political advertisements; when millions of bumpers across this great land will be drafted in an attempt to create the illusion that a candidate has wide-spread support.

He is the all-seeing, all-knowing, omnipresent being, who rewards the good and punishes the bad. He is mysterious and beyond our comprehension. He is both transcendent and immanent, and we feel His presence in special ways around this time of year. Wait…I’ve lost myself in my own introduction. Are we talking about God or Santa?

The Coen brother’s latest film, No Country for Old Men, has been released to almost unanimous praise by film critics, making it a strong contender for film of the year. The film is an adaptation of a novel by Cormac McCarthy, an author known for his unremitting violence, esoteric dialogue, and dense descriptions — preoccupations shared by the Coen brothers in many of their previous films.

“When Polar Bears Attack” is not the name of a new Fox Television reality show, rather it is the only remotely interesting part in an otherwise confused, tiresome, and overly-hyped film. The Golden Compass directed by Chris Weitz, was billed as another Lord of the Rings type fantasy epic film, it falls far short, however.