[Director Paul W.S.] Anderson's answer to the question of what to update in this film seems to be: steampunk everything. Hence the elaborate airship contraptions and weapons, all made in wood and iron and powered by choo-choo engines. What seems to be missing is the why. When far-fetched techno-bits and bobs are put into a story, these items must have a meaning and purpose. Here, the gadgets are throwaway items used for their visual effect, then discarded.

But our limits will not permit us to discuss the many important and curious questions respecting the science of government, to which this learned work invites attention.

The Rosenbloom Loop is a clever little device, but it’s an even more clever symbol of the role that discipline plays in the creation of illusion: the persistence of vision that makes sequential still images appear to move.

From my vantage point in this teeming city it appears that Father—feeling, I suspect, that it was ordained—accepts Mr. Coolidge’s victory too complacently. His rural retreat is untouched by the temper of the polloi.