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KINSEY REVEALS THAT SEX WAS ONCE A VIRGIN SCIENTIFIC TOPIC In 1948 and 1953, Alfred C. Kinsey published the two books that ushered in the sexual revolution. The film Kinsey, directed by Bill Condon, is a biopic that explains how and why he wrote on the subject, including flashbacks to key aspects of his youth. […]

VERA DRAKE REVEALS WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN IF ABORTIONS ARE BANNED In 1861, Britain made abortions illegal. On November 17, 1950, middle-aged Vera Drake is arrested for performing an illegal abortion, and she is sentenced to thirty months in prison after a trial during the following January. The film Vera Drake, directed by Mike Leigh, tells

TEAM AMERICA SHOULD BE ARRESTED BY THE WORLD POLICE Team America: World Police, directed by Trey Parker, is an insult to those who died on 9/11 rather than a clever satire of the war on terrorism.  Audiences laugh at rather than with the movie. Presumably, no actor could be found to agree to play a

TWO FILMS FOCUS ON HOW CORPORATE GREED CREATES POVERTY Why would an apolitical medical student from an affluent family in Buenos Aires become a revolutionary? The Motorcycle Diaries (Diarios de Motorcicleta), directed by Walter Salles, not only explains why but also reminds filmviewers that the same injustices, which affected him so profoundly, still exist. With

POLITICIANS ARE BOUGHT & SOLD FOR PIECES OF SILVER IN SILVER CITY If documentaries shaped public opinion, Control Room, Fahrenheit 9/11, The Corporation, The Hunting of the President, Outfoxed, and Bush’s Brain would have already sewed up the election for John Kerry. The feature film Silver City appears to be an indictment of the naïveté

A KOREAN FILM DEPICTS WAR AS AN INCUBATOR FOR THE DEHUMANIZATION OF WARRIORS Korea’s Civil War is relived through the fictional experiences of two brothers in Taegukgi Hwinalraimyeo (Korean Flag Waving Victoriously), South Korea’s top moneymaking film. When the film begins, an artifact is discovered at an archaeological site, identified by lettering on a pen

TWO FILMS SHOW HOW THE IMPACT OF NAZI GERMANY CONTINUES TO AFFLICT MEMORIES & MEDICINE Although Nazi law exempted Jewish spouses from liquidation if they married “Aryan” Germans, in February 1943 the Gestapo rounded them up anyway. When the film begins, sixty-year-old Ruth Weinstein (played by Jutta Lampe) is mourning the recent death of her

TWO VILLAGES DEFEND THEMSELVES AGAINST IMPOSSIBLE ODDS The Village is obviously allegorical, but different filmviewers will probably see different lessons. To conjecture about the allegory in a review, however, requires a “spoiler” on the manifest content of the film. Edward Walker (played by William Hurt) evidently is a millionaire who bought a large plot of

A GIANT CORPORATION CONTROLS A PUPPET PRESIDENT IN THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE In 1962, The Manchurian Candidate was released but quickly withdrawn because of a possible adverse impact on the public, which was perceived to be more credulous in those days; the film was reissued in 1988, but the black-and-white format placed the film outside the

SPIKE LEE DEMONSTRATES HOW MONEY CONTROLS AMERICA IN SHE HATE ME Director Spike Lee never ceases to be controversial. His latest, She Hate Me, almost literally joins two stories with an umbilical cord–or cords. The first story unfolds after opening credits in the form of American currency seemingly waving as if they were flags; one