LUMINARIAS NOMINATED FOR BEST EXPOSÉ OF THE YEAR 2000 Because Latinas tend to play a stereotypical role in most mainstream films, the movie Luminarias is a window into a subculture that opens and brings fresh air in a manner similar to how The Joy Luck Club (1993) opened the eyes of filmviewers to the difficulties […]
Political Film Review #73 Read More »
A FRENCH FAMILY & A UKRAINIAN ATHLETE ESCAPE FROM SOVIET HORRORS Immediately after World War II, unemployment in France was extremely high. In an effort to lure Russian émigrés back to the homeland, the Soviet Union promised employment, food, shelter, and amnesty, and some naïve Russians returned. The fate of one such Russian and his
A FRENCH FAMILY & A UKRAINIAN ATHLETE ESCAPE FROM SOVIET HORRORS Immediately after World War II, unemployment in France was extremely high. In an effort to lure Russian émigrés back to the homeland, the Soviet Union promised employment, food, shelter, and amnesty, and some naïve Russians returned. The fate of one such Russian and his
Political Film Review #72 Read More »
DID SPAIN CONQUER MÉXICO SPIRITUALLY? Credits at the end of the Mexican film The Other Conquest (La Otra Conquista) tell us that the movie is about events during the first years of the Spanish conquest of México—from the arrival of Don Hernán Cortés (1519) to the appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe (1531). Written and
The Other Conquest Read More »
DID SPAIN CONQUER MÉXICO SPIRITUALLY? Credits at the end of the Mexican film The Other Conquest (La Otra Conquista) tell us that the movie is about events during the first years of the Spanish conquest of México—from the arrival of Don Hernán Cortés (1519) to the appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe (1531). Written and
Political Film Review #71 Read More »
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT STEREOTYPES ARABS—AND AMERICANS, TOO The imperatives of foreign policy clash with the desires for justice in Rules of Engagement, directed by William Friedkin from a story by former Navy Secretary James Webb, whose nostalgia for the Cold War appears unquenched. In 1968, during a battle in a Vietnamese jungle, Terry L. Childers
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RULES OF ENGAGEMENT STEREOTYPES ARABS—AND AMERICANS, TOO The imperatives of foreign policy clash with the desires for justice in Rules of Engagement, directed by William Friedkin from a story by former Navy Secretary James Webb, whose nostalgia for the Cold War appears unquenched. In 1968, during a battle in a Vietnamese jungle, Terry L. Childers
Political Film Review #70 Read More »
THE SKULLS WARNS THAT YALE MAY RULE AMERICA Who runs America? Although academic answers to this question vary from a power elite of some sort to a large set of organized interests who check one another, Hollywood’s frequent answer has consistently been that a secret clique runs the country. In The Skulls, we learn from
THE SKULLS WARNS THAT YALE MAY RULE AMERICA Who runs America? Although academic answers to this question vary from a power elite of some sort to a large set of organized interests who check one another, Hollywood’s frequent answer has consistently been that a secret clique runs the country. In The Skulls, we learn from
Political Film Review #69 Read More »
ERIN BROCKOVICH IS NOMINATED FOR TWO AWARDS Before Erin Brockovich begins, a title tells us that the film is based on a true story. The movie, directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by transparently feminist Susannah Grant, focuses on numbers, though the tagline is “She brought a small town to its feet and a huge