2012 was the best year for movies in many seasons. Ticket sales were up, and along

 No contemporary Hollywood director is bolder than Ang Lee—at least in the realm of trying new things. With Life of Pi, Yann Martel’s novel about an Indian boy shipwrecked on a lifeboat with a wild tiger is rendered in dazzling 3D. The boy, called Pi, goes down in the stormy Pacific on the way to Canada, where his zoo-keeping family

 “What’s the secret of magic?” ponders David Seebach. “The secret of magic is the magician.” He would know. Seebach is arguably the most famous modern magician in the land of Houdini. He’s performed

 Unemployment is still too high, income is still too low and the recovery is still much too slow—but the United States is faring