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The Atomic Cafe
(1982)
Review by Jay Moore
-- A darkly comic documentary on life in the U.S. during the paranoid Cold
War 1950s. Uses a lot of footage from actual government propaganda films made
to convince the American public that nukes were OK. We emerge from the theatre
into the bright light of day feeling more frightened of nukes (and the
government) than ever. After you see this film, the phrase, "Duck and Cover"
will always be knocking around in your head.
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The Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Review by Ethan Berne
-- Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, "Battleship Potemkin" is a classic of early
Soviet cinema. It was made to commemorate the mutiny aboard the Battleship
Potemkin, which occured during the first Russian Revolution of 1905-7. The
sailors' mutiny was in response to the harsh treatment they received from their
officers, such as the ignoring of maggots on the meat to be used as food for
the sailors. The most dramatic scene in the film is the portrayal of a
demonstration in Odessa. This scene is Eisenstein's contribution to the
definition of a film montage, a crying baby in a carriage rolling down the
steps with Cossacks firing on the unarmed demonstrators running away. The fact
that it is a silent
film does not hinder the overall message, it does more with images than most
movies can do with words.
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Roger Ebert
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Bulworth
(1998)
Review by Jay Moore
-- Heh, I know what you're going to say already: Haven't we had an ample diet
of movies out of Hollywood about middle-aged white men going native a la
"Dances with Wolves"? Too true! Yes, it would be easy to put this movie down
-- which stars (and is written and directed by) Warren Beatty as your typical
post-liberal dissembling and venal politician who has a mid-life epiphany, dons
baggy hip hop clothes, hangs with the homeboys on the corner, and rhymes
righteous truths to the powerful and the powerless in awkward rap lyrics. Even
worse in this case, after he's rejuvenated himself in an exotic culture, our
hero ultimately returns to his own kind wearing a coat and tie and taking back
a new trophy girlfriend (played by Halle Berry). Still, I enjoyed this flick.
It's frequently quite funny -- and on the mark about corporations and money in
American politics. And where else, in recent Hollywood films (perhaps not
since Beatty's "Reds"?) can we hear the 9-letter "s-word" spoken out loudly and
proudly? [
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Roger Ebert
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Edwin Jahiel
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Cradle Will Rock
(1999)
Review by Jay Moore
-- Tim Robbins's lavish tribute to a less cynical time than our own when, during the Great Depression and the New Deal, politics and art actually had a visible impact on the real world. Full of interesting people, historical and imaginary, played by a cast of some of Hollywood's most handsome stars. The principal story here is of communist and homosexual Marc Blitzstein's proletarian theatrical -- from which the movie takes its name --and how it gets performed despite the efforts of the red-baiting authorities to suppress it. An interwoven story follows Diego Rivera (deftly played by Ruben Blades) and his confrontation with Nelson Rockefeller over his mural decorating the lobby of New York's new Rockefeller Center. For some reason, Rocky didn't care for Rivera's portrait of Lenin and his inclusion of syphillus germs with his depiction of the leaders of industry.
[
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Roger Ebert
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Get Real (1998)
Review by Jay Moore
-- An emotionally complicated -- sad, funny, and ultimately triumphant --
gay coming-out story set in an English secondary school. Highly recommended.
Directed by
Simon Shore
. (
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Havana (1990)
Review by Jay Moore
-- An improbable romance directed by Sydney Pollack set in the exciting last
countdown days of Batista's Cuba. Stars Robert Redford as a professional
high-stakes gambler who's heavily smitten with a beautiful Swedish woman,
played by Lena Olin, he meets on the Florida ferry. She's smuggling equipment
for Fidel's bearded ones in Havana and the Sierra Maestre, and he makes all the
right poker bluffs to save her from the counter-revolutionaries. Do yourself a
favor: Watch the opening scenes of U.S. gangster-run decadence and corruption
and then fast forward through the Christmas holidays to the closing scenes on
New Year's 1959 of the masses unleashed by the successful revolution romping
happily through the streets, smashing the slot machines and trashing the
casinos.(
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The Hurricane (1999)
Review by Ron Jacobs
-- Directed by Norman Jewison. The Hurricane is the story of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter's 1966
arrest, false conviction and subsequent imprisonment on triple murder
charges, and the decades long struggle to free him and the other man
falsely convicted and sent up with Carter (John Artis). Carter grew up in
a working-class family in Paterson, New Jersey. When he was eleven, he
stabbed a white man who was making sexual advances to his friends and ended
up in a reformatory. He escaped from the reformatory eight years later
after being denied his release despite a good behavior record. He then
joined the service and began boxing. His boxing instructor also gave
Carter an interest in Islam, books and intellectual learning. After his
enlistment was up, Carter returned to Paterson, found work and lived a
relativley quiet life until he was arrested on charges stemming from his
escape from the reformatory. He was sent back to prison and began to train
as a boxer in earnest. Upon his release, he began to box professionally
and stunned the boxing world with his power and speed, quickly racking up a
number of impressive victories.
He also began to acquire enemies because of his statements supporting the
civil rights movement and black liberation movements. It was Carter's
belief from the beginning that these statements played a role in certain
boxing decisions that went against him despite an overwhelming consensus
that he had won these fights and were primary motivations in his arrest and
conviction on the murder charges.
The film is not just the story of Carter, however. It is also the story
of the struggle that eventually freed him. It was a battle waged by a
young African-American man schooled by and living with three Canadians.
This was after the mass movement of the mid-1970s to free Hurricane perhaps
best symbolized by Bob Dylan's song "Hurricane" had faltered. The young
man, named Lezra Martin, picked up Hurricane's autobiography The Sixteenth
Round at a used book sale and can not put the book down. He begins
correspondence with Carter and eventually convinces his guardians of
Carter's innocence. The four move to New Jersey and began a long
investigation that eventually results in Carter's freedom.
The film occasionally teeters toward the presentation of justice in these
United States as ultimately fair, but the facts of Carter's case make it
impossible for Hollywood to pull off such an endeavor. Rubin's eventual
freedom after almost twenty years proves the exception, not the rule. This
is where the much criticized character of the corrupt, racist cop comes in.
The film has been criticized for its fictionalizing of Carter's story with
some critics observing that the story is powerful enough without
fictionalization. While this is certainly true, it is this viewer's
perception that the fictionalization plays an essential role in the movie's
politics. Specifically, the script has been criticized for its enhancement
of the role this policeman played in Carter's life even though he is not,
as some have suggested, entirely fictional. This character is not meant to
be perceived literally. His presence in the film is metaphorical. He
represents the American system of justice and the role it plays in
oppressing Black people in this country. When this cop tells Carter that
Hurricane still owes him time after arresting him on the aforementioned
escape charges, this policeman is the slave master telling all
African-Americans that they still owe time.
Although there are a number of great performances here, this film is
Denzel Washington's. His portrayal of Hurricane Carter captures the pure
emotion of the story without shortchanging the political and ethical
aspects. In essence, Washington becomes Carter for the duration of the
film. Carter's story is an ugly tale of racism and oppression yet the
movie is a work of beauty.
However, the "Hurricane" is more than the story of a man's oppression. It
is also the tale of how a human can resist that oppression--an oppression
that is greater yet more petty than any individual. It is the story of the
hope of youth and the naivete from which that hope springs. Of course, as
an individual who does what he can in the struggle to obtain a new trial
for Mumia Abu-Jamal and others unjustly in prison, it was impossible not to
draw parallels between the story of Hurricane and the tales of those
currently wrongly imprisoned. This makes Hurricane's story even more
important. It is a story that needs to be told and re-told until all those
who have been falsely imprisoned are released.
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Lone Star (1996)
Review by Faith Jones
-- About Chicana, Black and white Americans in Texas. Combining features of a
murder mystery, a western and a romance, it explores the hold that family and
national history has over the lives of individuals, of cultures, and of an
uneasy multicultural community. Features one of the hottest, non-exploitative
sex scenes ever put on screen. Directed by John Sayles. (
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Roger Ebert
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Edwin Jahiel
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Love Field (1992)
Review by Faith Jones
-- Has a Black man, his daughter, and a white woman thrown together in the
days following the assasination of John F. Kennedy. They try to help each
other; instead the woman brings danger to the man, and the girl is caught not
knowing who can protect her. Again and again they try to leave each other, but
keep being drawn together, like Black and white America. (
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Roger Ebert
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Malcolm X (1993)
Review by Afshin Rattansi
-- Spike Lee's Hollywood-ized
biopic based on the great autobiography of Malcolm X may have cameos from the
likes of Nelson Mandela but sadly misses out the political legacy of one of the
twentieth century's great revolutionaries. The early years of
poverty and the criminal underworld capture the feeling of the book and Lee is
clever in dancing around the controversial issues as to the confusion of the
Black Muslims. However, the film cops out, ignoring completely
Malcolm's final conversion to international socialism, his meeting with the
likes of Algeria's Bella, Congo's Lumumba, Cuba's Castro et al. Today,
Malcolm's phrase "By Any Means Necessary" is not just about racial oppression,
it's about economic oppression and Lee opts for something more post-modern,
thereby failing to see the real power of Malcolm's legacy. (
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The Molly Maguires (1970)
Review by Jay Moore
-- Hollywood-style production values along with a fair amount of historical
verisimilitude and some rare sensitivity to working-class issues, plus drama,
romance, and excitement make this film a real winner. Starring Sean Connery
as the leader of a clandestine band of Irish immigrant coal miners in eastern
Pennsylvania during the 1870s driven to desperate acts by the conditions under
which they labor (vividly portrayed). Co-starring Richard Harris as the
class-conflicted labor spy who eventually puts Connery and his men on the
gallows. (
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Panther (1995)
Review by Jay Moore
-- Perhaps not historically accurate in every respect, this film by Mario Van
Peebles nevertheless captures the flavor of the times when the Black Panther
Party for Self-Defense under the gutsy leadership of Huey P. Newton and Bobby
Seale emerged out of the Oakland ghetto to confront police violence and the
racist power structures of Amerikkka. The scene in which Seale leads an armed
and uniformed band of Panthers on an invasion of the California statehouse in
Sacremento is unforgettable. (
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Roger Ebert
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Roger and Me (1989)
Review by Jay Moore
-- Michael Moore's hilarious and extremely sad documentary about his home
town, Flint, Michigan -- the home of General Motors and the United Auto Workers
-- and Moore's efforts to track down GM's boss Roger Smith to talk to him about
GM's corporate "downsizing" and its callous neglect of the rotting community.
Moore takes us on sidetrips to meet other inhabitants of Flint who are trying
to deal with the contradictions of survival in capitalist America. My favorites
are a deputy sheriff who carries out evictions and a woman who raises and sells
rabbits for "pets or meat". I laughed til I cried -- I used to work in an auto
plant myself -- and then I laughed some more. (
IMDB
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Edwin Jahiel
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Salt of the Earth (1954)
Review by Jay Moore
-- A classic labor film made under extremely difficult political conditions
during the McCarthy period. The true story of a strike among Hispanic miners
in New Mexico featuring some of the miners themselves. Highly noteable as well
for its depiction of the role of women in taking over the strike and seeing it
through to a successful completion when the men lose hope. The director,
Herbert Biberman, was one of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten. (
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Salvador (1983)
Review by Afshin Rattansi
-- One of the best films about the
US backed terror squads in Latin America, despite its poor female characters
and occasional lapse into sentimental liberalism. James Woods, a struggling LA
hack, and his naive friend, James Belushi star in Oliver Stone's first
major picture, about the horrors of eighties' El Salvador. The assassination
of Archbishop Romero, the uselessness of the foreign press corps, the complete
and total collusion of the US government in genocide is all covered at a
frenetic pace. Even the end of the film is a triumph, twisting and turning to
communicate Stone's anguish at Reagan's death squads. What real "gonzo"
journalism should be about. (
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Scarface (1983)
Review by Afshin Rattansi
-- From the opening scene of Fidel
Castro announcing that the Cuban revolution only belongs to true
revolutionaries, this Brian De Palma directed, Oliver Stone written film is
very different from Howard Hawks 1932 gangster pic about Al Capone. Here, Al
Pacino gives the performance of his life as an anti-Communist criminal in
Miami, seeking the American Dream at all costs. This film is a violent
denunciation of all existing social conditions in America and capitalism's
ability to destroy everything that is good in people, even if, at times, it
seems the director himself doesn't seem to know what's going on. Oh, and
Michelle Pfeiffer is incandescent as the coke-destroyed moll. The only problem
with the film is that US Distributors cut Castro from the beginning of the film
on some prints, stripping away the underlying theme: that there
is an alternative.
(
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Schindler's List (1993)
Review by Faith Jones
-- Is the most complex fictional rendering of the experience of the death
camps in a movie. It shows the various ways people can resist oppression, and
the way different tactics succeed or fail in different circumstances. It does
not show Jews as passive participants in their own slaughter; nor does it show
them as perfect martyrs. It also poses questions about choices that are made by
members of the oppressor group: when one chooses to be a fascist, and when one
chooses to be an allyto the oppressed.
(
IMDB
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Roger Ebert
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Edwin Jahiel
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State of Seige (1973)
Review by Jay Moore
-- Costa-Gavra's gripping drama about the Tupamoro urban guerillas in Uruguay
who capture a CIA agent who is training the local military in torture
techniques. The guerillas hope to spur a government crackdown and thereby
catalyze a revolution. In real life, it doesn't quite work out that way. But
thinking of the current campaign to close down the U.S. military's School of
the Americas where torturers are produced, this movie is as relevant today as
when it first came out. (
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Tierra y Libertad (1995)
Review by Jay Moore
-- Ken Loach's great film about the Spanish Civil War from the perspective of
a British worker who joins and fights against the fascists with the
independent Trotskyist militia, the POUM. Based loosely on George Orwell's
personal account "Homage to Catalonia." Good for understanding the political
questions which separated the POUM and the anarchists from the Stalinists and
the Comintern-organized volunteers such as those in the CPUSA-sponsored Abraham
Lincoln Brigade. (
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The War at Home
(1979)
Review by Jay Moore
-- Excellent documentary about the anti-Vietnam War movement on the campus of
the University of Wisconsin and in the surrounding city of Madison, Wisconsin,
the state capital. Shows the evolution of the resistance, as Nixon escalated
the war and the deaths and destruction mounted, from peaceful pickets to
increasingly desperate efforts in solidarity with the NLF to "bring the war
home". Exposes the connections of the University to the military and the war.
Doesn't apologize for the bombing of the University's Army Math Research
Center. (
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