The Last Temptation of Christ opens with its manifesto: that the realm of man is a battlefield between Heaven and Hell. Hell, it seems, belongs to the desires “of the flesh”. To indulge in the world is to be sinful and is to belong to the realm of eternal damnation, where those who enjoyed the attributes of life, such as happiness derived from their corporeal senses, are sentenced. They did....

When there is no choice, when there are no exits from despair, how does one react? Is one even aware? In impoverished Memphis, the “dirty south”, a pimp who has no other alternative to his life but sitting in a car and exchanging flesh for $20, the answer is to seize a set of good circumstances.   How often in life do such opportunities arise? Curiously, the answer is that....

One must be certain to assess the message in itself, and not provide one’s judgment based on a grander context of the artist’s anti-Americanism. Yes, Platoon is anti-American, versus the more anti-war horror portrayed more magnificently in Apocalypse Now. But arriving at this point cannot use the shortcut of Oliver Stone’s extracurricular.   What exactly makes this film....