I'm grateful to Amy Frkyholm for her thoughtful response to my media column on clickbait. I have a religious autobiography similar to Amy's: raised in a highly emotional evangelical/charismatic church, which I left in young adulthood for high liturgy. My response to liturgical forms of worship was very much the same feeling of relief and freedom within structure that Amy describes so well. I appreciate, and in many ways share, her experience with and insight into the pitfalls of coerced emotionality—in worship, church groups, or online.
I'm not sure, however, that the parallel between clickbait and worship really works.
In the holiday movie blitz, one live wire unites two very different films: Christian Bale, who plays the lead in both Out of the Furnace and American Hustle.
While Gravity doesn't pass the Bechdel test, it does feature a female lead in a story that isn't about romance or sex. But is it her story or Everyman's?
Arrested Development is back, and family dysfunction is on display. But family may also be the characters' chance to break free from paralyzing narcissism.