A Dog Day’s Night in Brooklyn: Revisiting Lumet, Pacino, and the ’70s in 2010
“My first exposure to the transcendent grit of Dog Day Afternooon, at the age of 13, may have aroused an inchoate urban longing.”
Category: Activist & Political
Activist & Political · Essays · Exploitation & Erotica
Living the New High Life: A Current Note on Race and Class in America
Or Can Tea Party Porn Strike a Blow for the American Way?
Activist & Political · Drama · Essays
The Illusionist: Film Art and Political Power
“He tries to trick you. I try to enlighten you. Which is the more noble pursuit?” The Illusionist was released in 2006 to generally good reviews (the consensus seemed to[…]
Activist & Political · Actors & Personalities · Historical & Epic · Writers & Critics
Paging Groucho! Notes on Morrie Ryskind and HUAC
“Being Marxist in the Groucho rather than Karl sense would have required the Ten to not take themselves or their politics so seriously.”
Activist & Political · LGBT & Queer
The Irish Queer vs. the IRA Macho in Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto
“The transvestite’s camp humor is here used to stress the unsustainability of the military discourses on which the justification of IRA terrorism is based.”
Activist & Political · Documentaries
Troubled Waters: Crashing into The Cove
“To twist Gayatri Spivak’s famous phrase, it’s a case of (mostly) ‘white men saving cute dolphins from yellow men.'”
Activist & Political · Documentaries · Essays
Corn-Fed Culture: Living Large and “Eating Shit” in King Corn and Fast Food Nation
“The films analyzed here explore the (crude) question: what are the individual and social consequences of eating shit?”
Activist & Political · Festivals & Awards
Oscars II: On The Hurt Locker
As a tonic to all the hoopla surrounding The Hurt Locker and its Oscar win as Best Picture, we’re reprinting BL writer Jay Rothermel’s provocative review of the film, originally[…]
Activist & Political · Reviews
Looking Back on Silence and Condoleezza: The Weirdness of W
“The result is satire that doesn’t breathe.”
Activist & Political · Crime · Historical & Epic · Reviews
The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover: Larry Cohen’s The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover
How a movie exposé of “abuse of power” defends those in power and their institutions
Activist & Political · Drama · Reviews
Critical Distance: What Knowing Knows About 9/11
“Where Cloverfield provocatively blurs the line between being ‘about’ 9/11 and being (mere) entertainment, Knowing lands squarely in the latter camp.”
Activist & Political · Reviews · War
How James Stewart Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb: Anthony Mann’s Strategic Air Command
“Chew popcorn to avoid grinding teeth, comrades.”
Activist & Political · Reviews
“They Come in Peace”: Andy Fickman’s Race to Witch Mountain
“Only saviors can save polluted planets, yellow cab drivers are losers . . .”
Activist & Political · Directors · Interviews
Just Say Oui: An Interview with the Yes Men
“I’m shitting bricks, thinking he’s onto me.”
Activist & Political · Reviews
Dark Harvest: Robert Kenner’s Food, Inc.
“It’s not a tomato, it’s the idea of a tomato.”
Activist & Political · Documentaries
What Is Cheaper Than Nothing at All? Czech Dream, Culture Jamming, and Consumerism
“I jam because I am without ID.”
Activist & Political · Directors · Interviews
Maps and Movies: Talking with Deepa Mehta
“I think it’s really important for you, or anybody who wants to be a filmmaker, to really be honest with yourself.”
Activist & Political · Animation
The Responsible Dream: On Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir
“We were the Nazis.”
Activist & Political · Essays · Silents
Metropolis, Ezra Pound, Mammon: And the Law of Too-Large Numbers
“The old world is dying away, and the new world struggles to come forth: now is the time of monsters.”
Activist & Political · African American · Reviews
Sinful Remake: The Women Problem
“Wife, get a real life for yourself. Career woman, the career isn’t everything. Hussy, men still marry ladies. Lesbian, explore your ‘male’ issues … “
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