Author Archives: Brendan Kearns

Reading a newspaper in January 2006, one feels a tragic sense of deja vu. Stories of violent insurgencies, military operations and ceaselessly rising body counts are reported with such regularity that a person can often find it difficult to distinguish one day’s news from the last. War has become an accepted, perhaps even expected, element […]

Freedom is a subjective concept. Just ask the stars of “After Innocence.” The documentary film, which screens at the James Bridges Theater tonight courtesy of Melnitz Movies, tells the stories of seven men who were wrongfully imprisoned for years, sometimes even decades, before their innocence was proven. With the charges against them discredited through DNA […]

This is definitely not your parents’ Woody Allen film. With “Match Point,” the latest offering from the filmmaker, Allen has departed from many of the conventions of his earlier work. London has replaced the director’s much-beloved New York as the setting. Sensuality has replaced self-deprecation as the definitive element of romance. Opera music has replaced […]

Imagine Miles Davis playing at Schoenberg, Ernest Hemingway reading his work at Royce, or Michelangelo presenting one of his masterpieces at the Sculpture Garden, and one gets the idea. A master of his chosen craft ““ in Stan Lee’s case, the comic book ““ will be present, in the flesh, on our humble campus Tuesday […]

Superheroes just don’t get enough respect. Recently, a group of friends assembled at my apartment to watch “Spider-Man 2.” The behavior of my buddies during the film appalled me: they talked over the movie, answered their cell phones, and generally disregarded this masterpiece of modern cinema. “How can they neglect Spider-Man this way?” I wondered […]

Celebrity activism has long been a part of American culture. From Jane Fonda’s appearance with the Viet Cong in 1971 to Kanye West’s televised rant on the president’s disaffection for black people, the famous have long embraced the role of aspiring world changer. While I admire the idealism and empathy driving these stars, there is […]

Dear Tara Reid, I was so sorry to hear about the recent cancellation of your E! television program “Taradise.” While the show ““ in which you traveled the world pursuing both fun and answers to life’s great questions, often in an inebriated haze ““ was unable to establish itself as a creative or ratings powerhouse, […]