to Kramer's churlish caricature of Kael as a happy pig wallowing in the dirt. The magazine has suffered for its myopic editorial bias against films. The last decade has been "a rich and productive moment for American independent film-making," as New Criterion contributor Donald Lyons noted in his Independent Visions (1994). Anyone who has seen even a few of the highly personal films that have been made outside the Hollywood system can hardly disagree. Consider only Reservoir Dogs , Sex, Lies and Videotape , and The Decline of the American Empire . While not quite a renaissance, we are living through an efflorescence of independent film-making that is heartening to anyone who cares about contemporary culture. The New Criterion has employed a number of critics, Lyons included, who have the passion and knowledge needed to describe this event. Alas, the editors do not believe that a serious cultural magazine should have room for contemporary North American movies. Once again, the official theology of the magazine is at odds with the actual experience of those who write for it. In our religious life, if our behaviour contradicts our theology we should attempt to reform our actions. Our relationship with culture, however, should be ordered differently than our relationship with God. Thus, if we find ourselves taking pleasure in works of art that contradict our aesthetic ideals, we should reformulate our ideals rather than deny the validity of our experience. The same hostility to experience that governs the magazines attitude to popular