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.
REMEMBER THE TITANS WARNS THE SUPREME COURT NOT TO RESEGREGATE AMERICA Although the Supreme Court ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional in 1954, some 500 of the 1,500 school districts in the United States had done nothing to integrate enrollment by 1968, when the Supreme Court ruled that immediate integration was required. In 1971, Alexandria, […]
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PARIS SHORTCHANGES CHILDREN TO “SAVE” THE FRENCH ECONOMY During the 1990s, French unemployment hit 10 percent. The province of Nord-Pas-de-Calais (the same province featured in the recently released Humanité) had an unemployment rate of 33 percent, but government agencies turned a deaf ear to the social consequences, according to the fact-based story in Ça commence
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ABBIE HOFFMAN’S REPUTATION IS VINDICATED IN STEAL THIS MOVIE! Founder of the Yippies in the 1960s, Abbie Hoffman is sympathetically portrayed in the biopic Steal This Movie!, produced and directed by Robert Greenwald. Early in the film, Abbie (played by Vincent D’Onofrio) is registering African Americans to vote in Mississippi in 1965, only to receive
A CHEERLEADER BECOMES A LESBIAN WITH THE UNWITTING HELP OF HER PARENTS In But I’m a Cheerleader, Jamie Babbit (both director and storywriter) takes us on a journey to “True Directions,” a rehabilitation camp for “homosexual” children whose parents want them changed into “heterosexuals.” Entitled Make Me Over at some cinemas, we see the odyssey
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CATFISH IN BLACK BEAN SAUCE IS NOMINATED AS BEST FILM EXPOSÉ Catfish in Black Bean Sauce is directed, written, and acted by Sino-Vietnamese Chi Moui Lo, who left Vietnam at the age of six, was sponsored by the Jewish League of America and grew up with his nine brothers and three sisters in Philadelphia before
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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
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
THE HURRICANE RECEIVES THE FIRST POLITICAL FILM SOCIETY NOMINATION FOR 2000 Thanks to two Northwestern University professors, a substantial number of men have been released from death row in Illinois because they were wrongfully convicted. In The Hurricane, director Norman Jewison brings to the screen the book Lazarus and the Hurricane: The Untold Story of
SALVADORANS FALL INTO TRAPS SET BY SOCIAL WORKERS IN EAST OF HOPE STREET As the film begins, we are informed that 73,000 persons are under the care of Child and Family Services, a County of Los Angeles agency. As the film proceeds, we see some of the 73,000 as well as a few social workers
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THE INSIDER EXPOSES HOW “60 MINUTES” BOWED TO 30 PIECES OF SILVER Publicity about The Insider stresses the courage of a whistleblowing research scientist, formerly employed by a tobacco company, who in 1995 exposed the fact that cigarettes have been altered in recent decades to enhance their addictivity. As a result of his testimony, there