In Unbroken, World War II bombardier Louis Zamperini is subjected to a crash landing at sea and a grueling stint in a Japanese POW camp. Will he survive?

Obviously. Otherwise, the flick would be titled Broken.

The real question is whether you, the viewer, will survive Angelina Jolie’s oh-so-slow, oh-so-traditional war epic. Two hours and 17 minutes might not sound like a long slog, but that’s exactly what it turns out to be.

As you know if you’ve seen any of the recent interviews with Jolie, the second-time director was enamored of the real-life Zamperini, who died before the film was ready for release. Perhaps the saga’s greatest shortcoming is that, after watching it, we’re not sure why she found his story so compelling.

Yes, he was heroic. Yes, he was a survivor. But so were lots of other U.S. veterans.

One thing that sets Zamperini apart is that he was a distance runner at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Even there, however, he barely stood out. In an early flashback, we watch as he runs an exceptionally fast final lap on his way to an eighth-place finish.

Demonstrators against police brutality took advantage of the busiest holiday shopping day of the year by staging a “die-in” at the Easton mall in Columbus on December 20, the Saturday before Christmas. Sixty or so activists gathered in the Easton mall food court, unfurled a banner proclaiming “Black Lives Matter,” and struck death poses on the floor.

Columbus police and mall security were there in large numbers, but a legal observer overheard orders to the police to “stand down.” Twenty to thirty bystanders, mostly young black adults, joined the demonstration. After a brief die-in, the demonstrators moved close to the AMC theatre area and proceeded to sing and chant: “No justice, no peace! No racist police!” and “Black Lives Matter!”

The group marched outside and overwhelmed the holiday musicians with their own musical performance. They also chanted “Hands up! Don’t shoot” and “This is what democracy looks like!”

Back inside the mall, one demonstrator gave a speech to the crowd about how the community was no longer going to tolerate racist police killings. Hundreds of shoppers stopped holiday consumption to record the events on their cellphone cameras.

Once again we come to the end of our time in Middle-earth. Like the Lord of the Rings movies before it, the Hobbit trilogy—adapted from the predecessor to the Lord of the Rings novels—is, with the release of The Battle of the Five Armies, now complete. But is the finale worth five and a half hours of lead-up? 

The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies have all been long, ridiculously so when the “extended” versions are taken into account, so it’s no surprise that The Battle of the Five Armies clocks in at two and a half hours. But in this case it doesn’t feel drawn out or overlong—for a change. The only part that feels at all extraneous is the several minutes at the beginning spent wrapping up the cliffhanger from the end of The Desolation of Smaug. It’s an exciting, stand-out scene, full of suspense and property damage, but it feels like it should have been the climax of the previous movie instead of the beginning of this one. 

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has been taking bows for being the guardian of American law, decency, and character. It’s not. It’s not even close. American law, decency, and character have yet to be redeemed. Worse, only a small percentage of Americans in or out of power seems to care enough to act against the pall of moral failure still spreading through the culture.

The intelligence committee has done a good, small thing in its effort to make some partial truth somewhat better known, but its report is fundamentally short on meaningful intelligence. This is a committee divided against itself that nevertheless managed to exceed expectation by a bit. But this committee is no truth commission. The committee’s report is a negotiated settlement in which the perpetrators exercised too much control over the content.

Senator Ron Wyden has a petition up at MoveOn.org that reads "Right now, torture is banned because of President Obama's executive order. It's time for Congress to pass a law banning torture, by all agencies, so that a future president can never revoke the ban." It goes on to explain:

"We live in a dangerous world. But when CIA operatives and contractors torture terrorist suspects, it doesn't make us safer -- and it doesn't work. The recent CIA torture report made that abundantly clear. Right now, the federal law that bans torture only applies to the U.S. military -- not our intelligence agencies. President Obama's executive order barring all agencies from using torture could be reversed, even in secret, by a future president. That's why it's critical that Congress act swiftly to pass a law barring all agencies of the U.S. government, and contractors acting on our behalf, from engaging in torture. Without legislation, the door on torture is still open. It's time for Congress to slam that door shut once and for all."

Why in the world would anybody object to this unless they supported torture? Well, let me explain.