Jack Nuelle

Mar 27, 2024 | commonwealmagazine.org | Jack Nuelle |Thomas Geoghegan |Beverly Willett |Sharon Mesmer

When we talk about the decline of religion in modern life, religious orders are not often our first topic of conversation. Shrinking Catholic religious life is a relatively specialized concern affecting a relatively small number of people. What use are orders of priests or nuns when 30 percent of U.S. adults belong to no religious denomination at all? From one perspective, the religious life can seem like a refuge for men and women holding too tightly to an outdated mode of existence.

Nov 29, 2023 | commonwealmagazine.org | Jack Nuelle |Matt McManus |Marcia Chatelain |Brad East

It’s Christmas Eve, 1940, in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp on the heights above Trier, Germany. The camp sits on the border of occupied Luxembourg, four hours from Paris. Outside, a war rages. The Nazis have taken much of Europe, and France is torn between resistance and collaboration.

Aug 22, 2023 | commonwealmagazine.org | Jack Nuelle |Mollie Wilson O’Reilly |Daniele Palmer |Santiago Ramos

The Bear, FX’s restaurant business dramedy, follows James Beard-winning phenom chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) and his efforts to turn his family’s Italian beef restaurant, The Beef of Chicagoland, into a functioning business (in the first season) and then a fine-dining establishment called The Bear (in the second). The show is known for its depiction of workplace and family tension—many episodes are at least 95 percent screaming.

Jul 2, 2023 | commonwealmagazine.org | Jack Nuelle |Richard Brown |John Rodden |Jennifer Banks

Paul Newman appears as Eddie Felson in a Chicago pool hall in Martin Scorsese’s “The Color of Money” (Touchstone Pictures). I learned to love eight-ball pool early, at the edge of a gleaming Brunswick table in the corner of my great-grandmother’s basement. The table was for adults, and I wasn’t allowed to touch it, but sometimes my grandfather would let me get the balls out. He taught me a rudimentary bridge, how to draw the cue back straight.