Australia ** When you name your movie after a country, it's pretty obvious that you're not trying to make a grungy little indie about, say, convenience stores. Baz Luhrmann's "Australia" is a big, bold historical epic with sweeping cinematography, grand passions and lots of cattle. Nicole Kidman is the starchy English chick who inherits a big spread, as well as hunky cow man Hugh Jackman. ...more

March 5, 2009

Among the outtakes we're left to ponder after the presidential election is this one: candidate appearances on late-night talk shows reached a new high. For the record, there were a total of 110 candidate-appearances on the late-night comedy shows, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs. Accounting for nearly three quarters of such on-set appearances were "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," the "Late Show With David Letterman" and "The Colbert Report" with Stephen Colbert. In contrast, there were 25 such appearances in 2004 (an election year with an incumbent). ...more

January 5, 2009

During the Cold War, the United States had a clear, coherent, widely supported national security strategy that focused on containing and deterring Soviet communist expansion. In waging the war on terror, President Bush has embraced a strategy that calls for leveraging American military dominance with preventive military action. ...more

September 28, 2008

•If you watched TV last weekend, you know that ABC's Charlie Gibson did something John McCain has never done - interviewed Sarah Palin. ...more

September 16, 2008