WHY ARE POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS SO ROUGH? OUR BRAND IS CRISIS TELLS WHY Based on the 2002 election in Bolivia of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada de Bustamante, which was first covered as a documentary with the same title in 2005, Our Brand of Crisis so loosely recreates that election that there is no “Based on True Facts” […]
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DUKHTAR IS ABOUT ANOTHER MUSLIM GIRL TRAPPED BY TRADITION Among recent films focusing on how “women’s lib” is needed in some Islamic countries, The Stoning of Soraya M. (2008) is perhaps the most tragic. Last year’s Difret was more hopeful, reporting how arranged marriage kidnappings and rapes were recently banned in Ethiopia, but that is
SUFFRAGETTE FEATURES EVENTS IN LONDON DURING 1912 In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft’s book A Vindication of the Rights of Women launched a movement. Suffragette, directed by Sarah Gavron, takes place in London during 1912, when the movement’s leader Emmeline Pankhurst (played by Meryl Streep) urges suffragettes to engage in civil disobedience, though titles indicate that the
SUFFRAGETTE FEATURES EVENTS IN LONDON DURING 1912 In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft’s book A Vindication of the Rights of Women launched a movement. Suffragette, directed by Sarah Gavron, takes place in London during 1912, when the movement’s leader Emmeline Pankhurst (played by Meryl Streep) urges suffragettes to engage in civil disobedience, though titles indicate that the
Political Film Review #493 Read More »
CHAOS IN CENTRAL AFRICA REIGNS IN BEASTS OF NO NATION Continual civil war reaches the town where 12-year-old Agu (played by Abraham Attah) is living with his family soon after Beasts of No Nation begins. When government forces are about to enter the town to track down rebels, women and babies flee, men stand their
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TRUTH SEEKINGDEFINITELY HAS CONSEQUENCES It is no coincidence that in 2004 George W. Bush was re-elected and Dan Rather resigned from CBS news. Truth, directed by James Vanderbilt, explains why but focuses most attention on the career of Mary Mapes (played by Cate Blanchett), who engaged in investigative reporting for Rather (Robert Redford) and Sixty
TRUTH SEEKINGDEFINITELY HAS CONSEQUENCES It is no coincidence that in 2004 George W. Bush was re-elected and Dan Rather resigned from CBS news. Truth, directed by James Vanderbilt, explains why but focuses most attention on the career of Mary Mapes (played by Cate Blanchett), who engaged in investigative reporting for Rather (Robert Redford) and Sixty
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EXPERIMENTER SHOWS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PSYCHOLOGISTS IGNORE PHILOSOPHY A biopic of famous social psychologist Stanley Milgram (played by Peter Sarsgaard), Experimenter reviews his career, which is traced back to when he is a grad student of Harvard’s Solomon Asch (Ned Eisenberg), who proved in the early 1950s that most students conform to group pressure, even
EXPERIMENTER SHOWS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PSYCHOLOGISTS IGNORE PHILOSOPHY A biopic of famous social psychologist Stanley Milgram (played by Peter Sarsgaard), Experimenter reviews his career, which is traced back to when he is a grad student of Harvard’s Solomon Asch (Ned Eisenberg), who proved in the early 1950s that most students conform to group pressure, even
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WOODLAWN PLEADS FOR CHRISTIAN LOVE TO SOLVE RACE PROBLEMS Races have been brought together through American sports at various levels, but until Woodlawn, the transformation of Birmingham, Alabama, in 1973/74 had not been told on the screen. When the film begins, documentary footage provides some context of the era. Then African American students are bussed