Films that demonstrate how governments or quasigovernmental groups have violated or promoted the values in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
AVATAR IS THE MOST PROFOUND ANTI-IMPERIAL FILM OF THE YEARObsoletorium is necessary for the human race to survive, filmviewers of Avatar are told, so an expedi-tion goes to the planet Pandora in 2154 to get the substance. Humanoidlike creatures, the Na’vi, inhabit the area where the substance can be mined, but the expedition is heavily […]
FIFTY DEAD MEN WALKING DEPICTS NORTHERN IRELAND AT ITS WORST The title of the film Fifty Dead Men Walking, as explained at the end of the film, refers to the number of British police and soldiers whose lives were saved by Martin McGartland (played by Jim Sturgess), who spied for the British while working undercover
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STORM REVEALS THE POLITICS OF THE BOSNIAN WAR CRIMES TRIALS Heinous acts were committed in the Bosnian Civil War, so the UN Security Council set up a special war crimes tribunal to bring the major perpetrators to justice. The procedure was for a prosecutor’s office to compile information about persons to be tried from documents
THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD—IF ONLY THEY COULD! Another installment in the capers of Andy Bichlbaum and Michael Bonnano, who codirect The Yes Men Fix the World, tells lies that should be true and upsets the elites as usual. First, they set up a website for Dow Chemical Company and await an invitation to
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SKIN REVEALS THE FATE OF SANDRA LAING Directed by Anthony Fabian, Skin is a biopic of Sandra Laing that differs in important ways from the 1977 documentary The Search for Sandra Laing. In the documentary, journalists try to find Sandra’s whereabouts, so they inquire at various places featured in news reports, ultimately finding her in
SPACE INVADERS EVOKE SYMPATHY IN DISTRICT 9 A spacecraft hovers over Johannisberg. A million or so ugly extraterrestrial aliens, who speak a strange language, descend to earth. They are herded into the city’s District 9, where they build shanties and seek food from trashdumps for two decades, called “prawns” because their appearance and appetite resemble
The Russians reached Berlin first and remained for occasional raids to wipe out lingering Nazi resistance. Most of their idle time was spent eating, sleeping, and turning the city into a whorehouse. In A Woman in Berlin (Anonyma—Eine Frau in Berlin), directed by Max Fäberböck, the women of Berlin find protectors and try to turn
DOLPHIN BLOOD RUNS DEEP IN THE COVE Richard O’Barry made the adorable bottlenose dolphin a focus of worldwide awe in the television series Flipper (1964-1968). As he trained the five dolphins known as Flipper, he learned of their beauty, intelligence, and sensitivity, but not until after ten years, when one died by suicide in his
By far, the best of the lot is The Stoning of Soraya M., directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh and based on an event in 1986. The venue is a small town in Iran, where Soraya (played by Mozhan Marnò) was stoned. When the film begins, a journalist’s car has broken down in that town. Freidoune Sahebjam
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