I don’t care about mainstream sports. Football doesn’t matter, basketball is a nonissue, and baseball is met with a shrug.* Despite my father’s repeated attempts to raise an all-American son who loved to toss around the ol’ pigskin and would cheer lustily for the home team, what he got was someone who could talk at […]

Back in the day, whodunits appeared with great regularity on both televisions and movie screens. With the cinema, audiences ate up mysteries such as Chinatown, Basic Instinct, Gosford Park, The Gift, and In the Heat of the Night. These films didn’t need massive explosions, death-defying stunts, or even high-wattage movie stars. All they needed were […]

You might not be a fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s films. You might not be into his ludicrous musculature, his puns, or his movies that so often feature him shooting, stabbing, crushing, and exploding a wide variety of luckless goons. You might turn your back haughtily on all of that, but one thing you can’t do […]

What is the government for, anyway? What is it supposed to do? If you’re a libertarian or an old school Republican, you think its function should be minimal. Government should safeguard the rights of citizens, and otherwise butt out of everyday life.. If you’re a liberal, you believe its function should be more active. You […]

Trigger warning: This review and the film itself deal extensively with suicidal ideation. If you’re like me and need a regular blast of positivity to get through the horrors of life in 2025, do yourself a favor and subscribe to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Pump Club email newsletter.* Monday through Friday, Arnold and his team offer fitness […]

I’ve said for as long as I can remember that there’s no such thing as a bad year for movies. To be sure, there are some years, such as 1999, that are positively crammed full of classics. To be also sure, there are other years where the number of quality films is…uh…a little reduced! But […]

It took a minute for me to realize that Channing Tatum is, for the most part, awesome. I have to admit that it took a minute. When he showed up initially in the mid-2000s, I figured he was standard issue beefcake, some guy manufactured in a lab deep underneath the Hollywood sign, destined to appear […]

As I write this, there are two dogs in my house. The first is Gambol, our elder statesman. He’s friendly in a reserved way, as if a traditional Republican from the Northeast were reincarnated into the body of a canine. If you were to walk into the house, Gambol would almost certainly let you pet […]

With a little bit of luck, we’ll all be old. That’s just as true for me as anyone else. I’m not so much pushing fifty as I pushed over fifty. I don’t really feel too different than I did five years ago, yet I can’t help but notice slightly more white in my beard, and […]

One of the most memorable first lines in the history of film can be found in The Godfather. It’s spoken by the coroner, Bonasera, who tells Don Vito Corleone, “I believe in America.” Bonasera talks of the brutal assault against his daughter. He explains to the Don that he went to the police and reported […]