Films that bring previously obscured truths about the political process to the attention of the public, showing for example how offices of public trust are used for private purposes.
BATTLE IN SEATTLE PROVIDESAN INSIDE LOOK AT A PEACEFUL PROTEST & BLOODTHIRSTY POLICE The opening session of the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle on November 29, 1999, was canceled because peaceful demonstrators blocked all the intersections leading to the meeting. The quasi-docudrama, written and directed by Stuart Townsend, carefully recounts the events of that […]
MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA EXPOSES THE RACISM OF THE “GREATEST GENERATION” Based on the novel by James McBride, Miracle at St. Anna will keep filmviewers in suspense to ascertain what exactly is the “miracle.” In 1983, when the film begins, Hector Negrón (played by Laz Alonso) is watching a World War II movie, The Longest
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THE BANK JOB DEPICTS POSSIBLY THE BIGGEST SCANDAL & CERTAINLY THE BIGGEST HEIST OF ALL TIME Photographs were taken while the late Princess Margaret was sleeping with someone at a Caribbean island resort in 1971. They were conveniently stored in the safety deposit box of Michael X (played by Peter De Jersey), a gangster kingpin,
THE COUNTERFEITERS IS ON THE MONEY The German film The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher) reveals a true story about Jewish prisoners of the Nazis who were recruited from the death camps to make counterfeit British and American currency. Under the direction of Salomen Sorowitsch (played by Karl Markovics), they are successful with the pound and make
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AMERICAN GANGSTER REVEALS THE “FOODCHAIN” OF THE DRUG TRADE In the early 1970s, heroin from Southeast Asia follows a specific path to distribution points in New York after a deal is struck between African American Frank Lucas (played by Denzil Washington) and a Southeast Asian heroin kingpin, who in turn pays off members of the
UPTON SINCLAIR’S OIL! COMES TO THE SCREEN AS THERE WILL BE BLOOD Socialist Upton Sinclair’s novels are not heartwarming. Oil! (1927), written in the context of President Harding’s teapot dome scandal, is no exception. The film version, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, exposes not only the ruthlessness of capitalism but also the hypocrisy of evangelists–both
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CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR LINKS THE SOVIET DEFEAT TO 9/11 On April 6, 1980, Texas Congressman Charles Wilson (played by Tom Hanks), while nude in a Vegas hot tub and imbibing whiskey, watches a Dan Rather news story from Afghanistan in which an Afghan woman wonders why the Americans are not helping her people to defeat
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WILEY COLLEGE DEBATES HARVARD IN THE GREAT DEBATERS In 1935, a debate team from Wiley College for the first time tangled with the top debate team in the United States, Harvard University. How could students from an obscure traditional Black college in Marshall, Texas, receive such an invitation? The Great Debaters, directed by Political Film
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HOLLY HOLDS UP IN TRAFFICKING For centuries, poor families have sold their children in certain parts of Asia to perform services for the rich. In recent years, an estimated million or so have been coerced, sold, or stolen into prostitution at young ages. One of the centers of child trafficking, Cambodia, is featured in Holly,
IRAN’S PAINFUL HISTORY THROUGH THE EARS & EYES OF A TEENAGER IN PERSEPOLIS Persepolis is a coming-of-age biopic based on a four-volume graphic book (subtitled The Story of a Childhood) that is portrayed on the screen through animation. Based on the life of Marjane Satrapi, who writes the book and directs the animation, the story