Babel is a hideously preposterous attempt at drama. When realism is entirely abdicated to create artificial passionate stirs of emotion, disbelief is suspended thus distancing the subject from trying to gain a new perspective on reality by peering through the looking-glass of alternative subjects. And what I speak to here is how utterly fantastic any of the tension that arises in the film is. In....

Lo and Behold is Werner Herzog’s rendition of what we should be fearful of with the march of technological progress, nay advancement. I must rectify myself in presuming all technology is progress toward a better human condition. It is not self-evidently the case, as the argument can be made, as Herzog tries here, that technology paired with the bottomless depths of human depravity can lead to....

Contemplating the afterlife is a past-time that humans have endeavored with since perhaps the first moments of sympathy for the loss of a human life. The question, eternally, of where does one go when one’s life ends has been the work, almost foundationally, of religion since human records began. Defending Your Life is not trying to be religious, or even satirical, in the matter. It simply....