Author - Patrick McCormick

Patrick McCormick is professor of Christian ethics at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.

Then She Found Me

Then She Found Me (THINKFilm, 2008) Are we born into families, or do we fashion them by forging bonds with strangers? At the start of Helen Hunt’s heart...

The Wire

The Wire, created by David Simon (HBO, 2002-2008) The language, violence, and sexuality in the five seasons of David Simon’s sprawling urban novel about...

The Dark Knight

Directed by Christopher Nolan (Warner Brothers, 2008) The truth understood by every 14-year-old comic book fan is that we love superheroes not because they are...

Smart People

Directed by Noam Murro (Miramax, 2008) In a land where brains and hard work are supposed to produce success and happiness, there are a lot of smart, miserable...

The way we work

One reason "Mission Impossible" was so successful as a thriller this year it that lots of American workers could understand Tom Cruise's sense of...

The Counterfeiters

Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky (Sony Pictures Classics, 2007) Holocaust films often present concentration camp inmates as if they were only victims, not complex...

Stop-Loss

Directed by Kimberly Peirce (Paramount, 2008) Five years and more than 4,000 U.S. deaths after the president declared "mission accomplished," the...

The torture show

   Jack Bauer and 24 have made torture mainstream in American homes and psyches. Not long ago torture scenes were rare on TV, and both TV and the...