Portside

Shocking Collaboration Between Hollywood and Hitler; High-Paying Lure of the Sea; Selling Guns to Fund the Anti-Abortion Fight; Vacation Camp with Israeli Commandos; Power of Political Comics; Kickstarter Kicks Out Abuse Manual

Twenty years ago, after appearing in two phenomenally successful, visually opulent and generally brilliant Batman movies, Michael Keaton decided he didn't want to make any more Caped Crusader films. So he walked away. It was a disastrous move that effectively ended Keaton's career as a leading man, the actor learning the hard way that the only unforgivable crime in Hollywood is to walk away from a phenomenally successful franchise.

Netflix’s new House of Cards series offers an inside look at Beltway power games and is far better than most of this genre---which is why its retrograde and even racist union-bashing is so unfortunate.