SLATE
June 15, 2010
By James Verini

Michael Winterbottom’s new film The Killer Inside Me, which comes out on Friday, has attracted comment for its graphic violence—Jessica Alba reportedly walked out of a screening, so put off was she by the unlikely sight of herself being beaten by Casey Affleck. You, too, can skip this adaptation of Jim Thompson’s probably un-adaptable cult novel because, for all the blood, it’s a bloodless and cursory affair. Here’s a better use of your movie time: Log onto Netflix, find every previous movie of Winterbottom’s you can (start the clock at 1997’s Welcome to Sarajevo), and then banish the rest of your queue belowdecks. As off-target as his latest effort is, Winterbottom may be the most consistently absorbing and challenging director working in English-language cinema today. Certainly he’s among the bravest. See Full Story

SLATE
June 3, 2010
By James Verini

It’s been an unpleasant year for Pope Benedict XVI, so much so, one feels moved to ask: Are there any papal practices he takes refuge in that are more fun than, say, celibacy? We know of at least one: saint-making. In his going-on-five-year-old reign, the pontiff has canonized at least 29 souls, according to the Holy See’s Web site—10 in 2009 alone. The newly sainted didn’t include Mother Teresa, everyone’s top seed, but they did include one friar, Bernardo Tolomei, born in the 13th century, whose crowning achievement, according to the Vatican biography, was to leave his fellow “monks an example of a holy life, the practice of the virtues to a heroic level, an existence dedicated to the service of others, and to contemplation.” See Full Story