Everybody Ben-Hurts: Wherein I answer all your questions about the new (fourth) big-screen adaption of the 19th century novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ except "Why?"

Jack Huston, who is descended from showbiz royalty but in no way related to Keanu Reeves, and Toby Kebbell in the fourth movie version of Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur.

Here's is the sort of sterling-quality joke that got whittled from what started out as a straight-up review of the new, Timur Bekmambetov-directed adaptation of Ben-Hur, but quickly turned into this.

EDITOR: Agreed. So they got an actor of Middle Eastern descent?

KLIMEK: They got a guy from Memphis.

EDITOR: You mean Memphis, Egypt?

KLIMEK: I do not. His name is Morgan Freeman.

EDITOR: I have heard of him.

KLIMEK: He has been in some other movies.

You can't blame me for digging in to the little differences between new and old, especially in light of the fact that Ben-Hur '59 is a venerable classic that I first saw when I was whatever age I was last Saturday night.

1959: BEN-HUR, from the director of THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES.

2016: BEN-HUR, from the director of ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER.

— Chris Klimek (@ctklimek) August 8, 2016

What the Movies Taught Us About World War II Aviation

I wrote this fun piece for my day job. It appears in our May 2015 issue of Air & Space / Smithsonian, now on sale at Barnes & Noble and other fine booksellers and newsstands, as well as the National Air & Space Museum. It's our 70th anniversary of V-E Day issue, which – because it'll be out in time for the Arsenal of Democracy Flyover on Friday, May 8th (the actual anniversary) – includes pull-out Spotter Cards you can use to identify the silhouettes of the two dozen vintage warbirds that'll be buzzing over your head a few minutes past noon if you come down to the National Mall on that day.

For the record, I do think William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives is the greatest of the films I surveyed – if not the greatest flying movie – save for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1943 masterpiece The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, which I had occasion to mention only fleetingly. (The photo at the top of this post is of Roger Livesey and Anton Walbrook in that film.)

Mark Harris's book Five Came Back was an invaluable resource for me while writing this story.