Mike Pilewski writes about life, politics and culture in the United States
Among the aging paperbacks on my bookshelf is a thin volume from 1963 by Martin Luther King, Jr., called Why We Can’t Wait. King wrote this nearly 10 years into a civil-rights movement whose origin he placed in a Supreme Court decision in 1954. The book came years after the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott and several marches King had organized. … >>
This is an interesting month from a criminal-justice perspective. Both Batman and the Joker are having their day in court. “The Joker”, in this case, is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who along with his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, set off the bombs at the Boston Marathon in April 2013. His trial is coming to an end. “Batman” here is James Eagan Holmes, … >>
The recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, have played out in a way that only Quentin Tarantino could have imagined. Tarantino’s films, which are very violent, often tell their story from more than one perspective. Scenes are not shown in the usual order. Key information is presented after the fact, reversing whatever conclusions one may have drawn up to that point. … >>
Few things are certain in this world, but there’s one prediction I can make: When the Mayan apocalypse comes and goes this weekend, life will continue as it always has. Unfortunately for the United States, this means that mall shoppers, moviegoers and schoolchildren will be gunned down on a regular basis. It sounds cruel and cynical of me to say … >>
There have been three generations of Batman on the screen. There was the comedic Batman of 1966–68 (one of the first TV series in color); the movie Batman of 1989–97 (which suffered from a lot of bad acting); and the dark Batman of 2005–12 (which explores the origins of the title character). Inspiration came from the original Batman comic from … >>
I have mixed feelings about this. The stated purpose of this column is to explain what America is really like, not to dwell on its extreme aspects. For example, I try to convince you that most Americans do not walk around carrying guns. But then something like this happens: once again, some deranged kid has brought a gun to school … >>
Regular readers of this column will know that I don’t like to revisit a topic — at least not right away. I like to give you something new every week. However, I can’t let this one go, because I’ve told only two thirds of the story. The cities of England (in reality) and the city of San Francisco (in fiction) … >>
These are crazy times. On one TV channel, mobs are destroying cities in England. On another channel, mobs are destroying San Francisco. The first is presented as news, and I’m supposed to be shocked by it. The second is presented as entertainment, and I’m supposed to enjoy it. Is this sick or what? Obviously the makers of Rise of the … >>
It was the darkest movie I’d ever seen. A relentless killer stalked a young woman in Los Angeles. No matter what she did, she wasn’t safe. He was fully armed, he was unstoppable and he’d find her. He was the Terminator, in a movie filmed in 1984. My friends and I thought the film was good, but extremely violent — … >>