Can any film do justice to the political genius of Abraham Lincoln?
Film & TV
War and torture get the Hollywood treatment. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
Martin Scorsese's The Departed is a blurry copy of the Hong Kong original. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
The merciless comic keeps hitting below the Borscht Belt. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
An inside look at Dan Brown's new novel. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
The Queen and Marie Antoinette ask whether the modern world can understand monarchy anymore. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
Cantor attempts to link four TV programs to the themes of globalization and the end of the nation state. A review of Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization (2001).
A lesson from Nigeria, on balancing the blessings of modernity and the celebration of an ancestral past.
The problem with our media isn’t “fake news.” It’s the absence of meaningful contexts for interpretation.
How serious political reporting became a luxury good amid a mass-market media circus.
(Co-authored with Jeffrey Gedmin)
President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union Address, televised January 2018 on the Daily Donald Trump (DDT) network.
(Co-authored with Jeffrey Gedmin)
Forget about North Korea and The Interview: For decades Hollywood has been censoring its own output to protect access to the Chinese market.
Five discomfiting aspects of the media spectacle that now accompanies every mass shooting.