THE WITCH PROVIDES ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE PURITANS When uneducated people look for explanations of unexpected and unwelcome events, they may revere a religious document as their only source of wisdom. The Witch, directed by Robert Eggers, demonstrates how the Puritans tried to have witches assigned as causes of unusual events. In the film, a family […]
CHI-RAQ OFFERS A GUN CONTROL SOLUTION When Chi-Raq begins, the screen is covered with slogans shouted anonymously. They complain about safety in Chicago but also paradoxically declare that they love their city. In the first full frame, Chicago’s bodycount during the era of the Iraq War is revealed as far exceeding that of American troops
THE BIG SHORT IS A TEACHING TOOL Not everyone on Wall Street suffered financial disaster during the Great Recession. The Big Short, directed by Adam McKay, is primarily a biopic of economics student Michael Burry (played by Christian Bale), Greg Lippmann (renamed in the film Jared Vennette and played by Ryan Gosling), and Steve Eisman
99 HOMES EXPOSES THE FORECLOSURE RACKET After the housing bubble burst in 2007, followed by increased unemployment, thousands of persons were unable to pay their mortgages, whereupon banks went to court and obtained orders to foreclose homeowners. In 99 Homes, unemployed Dennis Nash (played by Andrew Garfield) is foreclosed from his home near Orlando. Soon,
THE LETTERS EXPLAINS WHY MOTHER TERESA WAS CANONIZED In 1910, Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhi (played by Juliet Stevenson) was born in Skopje, then a part of the Ottoman Empire but now the capital of Macedonia. She relocated to Ireland at the age of 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto, seeking to become a missionary in
THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY – PART 2 SUPPORTS THE TEA PARTY Based on the idea that a city is divided into districts under the strict control of President Snow (played by Donald Sutherland), The Hunger Games series has portrayed totalitarian rule primarily for the entertainment of kids, resonating with some of whom grow up in
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JOE’S WAR HIGHLIGHTS PTSD AGAIN After serving as a marine for five years of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, Joe Caruso (played by Michael Markiewicz) returns to his Staten Island home but is plagued by memories of intense combat, including dead bodies, which are presented on the screen as flashbacks. He cannot sleep without nightmares,
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” title
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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
OLVIDADOS LINKS AMERICA’S OPERATION CONDOR WITH TORTURE OF LEFTISTS When Olvidados begins, soldiers from six dictatorships in Latin Americas are being trained at an American base in Panamá to engage in Operation Condor, which aimed to eliminate the supposed threat of Soviet communist efforts to overthrow military regimes during the 1970s and 1980s. The film