Author: Benjamin Radford

Creation, directed by Jon Amiel. 2010. Screenplay by John Collee based on the biography by Randal Keynes. 108 minutes. The image most people have of Charles Darwin is that of an old man with a long white beard sitting in a chair, perhaps lost in contemplation about the common ancestry between apes and humans. That’s …

In my home state of New Mexico, most people are familiar with descansos, roadside memorials that dot the roads and highways. The word descanso comes from the Spanish word meaning “to rest” (as in a resting place, either a final one for a deceased person or a temporary one for pallbearers making their way to …

The Magdalene Sisters, directed by Peter Mullan (U.K.: Bórd Scannán na hE´ireann, 2002). The Magdalene Sisters follows the lives of four young Irish women: Rose (Dorothy Duffy) who, to her mother’s mortification, has just given birth to an illegitimate child; Margaret (Anne­Marie Duff), who is a rape victim; devout and slow­witted Crispina (Eileen Walsh); and …