Arts & Culture

What do you get when one of the world’s great classical guitarists, Thomas Valeur, teams up with the “Queen of Shred” heavy-metal guitarist, The Commander in Chief? Last year, the two collaborated on a reorchestration of Pablo de Sarasate’s Zigeuenerweisen. The result is an excellent performance by two talented musicians.

The Diplomat, an ESPN documentary about two-time Olympic champion figure skater Katarina Witt of East Germany (the former German Democratic Republic, or GDR), is released to video February 18. The film serves as a reminder—or a revelation—of the crushing grip communist dictatorships held on the people who “lived” under them.

The Super Bowl game was a glorious victory for the Seattle Seahawks and a stunning loss for the Denver Broncos. But the game, while focused on athletic competition, involved more than that: It involved a celebration of American liberty and of American commerce, an economic consequence of that liberty.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born January 27, 1756, was not only a musical genius and prolific composer; he also founded or revolutionized several genres. Here are some of his accomplishments.

“The show that proves unusual scientific facts in the most hilarious ways.” That’s the billing for the delightful new television show Duck Quacks Don’t Echo, co-hosted by Tom Papa, Michael Ian Black, and Seth Herzog. Duck Quacks premiered January 13 on National Geographic Channel, where two half-hour episodes air back…

For members and fans of the Denver Broncos and the New England Patriots, today’s AFC championship football game is nearly as important as the Super Bowl. Two of the greatest quarterbacks of all time—Peyton Manning and Tom Brady—will lead spectacularly successful teams in one of the greatest athletic competitions of…

Fittingly, Jobs opens with Steve Jobs receiving well-earned applause from Apple employees for the release of the iPod, a device that would, as Jobs predicted, revolutionize the music industry. Music is just one of several industries Jobs would revolutionize over the course of his career. Although it strays from essentials…

According to Sandra Lee Dixon, the new film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire celebrates violence rather than challenges it. But she entirely misses the point of the work and of the second of a trilogy of novels on which it is based. Yes, the premise of the film is brutal…

Scott McConnell reviews Notorious, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Scott McConnell reviews The Mark of Zorro, directed by Rouben Mamoulian. zorro.jpg