http://www.inthesetimes.com/archives/tags/movies/ In These Times features award-winning investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter. en-us Expression Engine jessica@inthesetimes.com seamus@inthesetimes.com Fri, 26 Nov 2004 07:00:01 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/1707/helping_themselves/ There may not be a more thoroughly ravaged national economy on the planet than Argentina’s—it’s a poster child for IMF wrack and ruin. As revealed in grueling, horrifying detail in Fernando Solanas’ 2004 documentary Memoria del Saqueo (shown here only in film festivals), the last 30 years or so have been a relentless litany of bureaucratic power grabs, political lies, privatization sell-offs and insidious opportunism, much of it at the International Monetary Fund’s insistence and due to President Carlos Menem’s bald-faced carpetbagging. In just a few decades a country that boasted South America’s most prosperous middle class was converted into a nation of scrambling beggars, saddled with an excess of 20 percent unemployment and a national bankruptcy that outscaled any… movies economy international affairs south america David Moberg Tue, 06 Jun 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2667/iraq_on_the_big_screen/ Who should define what a war is "about"? By any ethical standard, that right should fall to the besieged--those who were waged upon, the people with the most corpses and the least to gain from combat. Of course, in reality, an armed conflict's character is limned by the powerful, in whose mitts the media will, as we all know, contort, grind and dilute matters of truth to fit the message of the campaign. The cold facts about the Iraq ordeal--from lies and sword-rattling to tens of thousands of murdered civilians and an increasingly dedicated "insurgence" (a misapplied word carefully chosen by the think tanks, and reflexively used by nearly every public voice)--are visible from a modest height. But that's not… Iraq War Art and Culture Movies David Moberg Tue, 27 Jun 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2716/delay_may_be_gone_but_his_legacy_isn/ Every so often a documentary film comes along that makes you think, "If only more people could see this." The Big Buy: Tom Delay's Stolen Congress, by filmmakers Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck, is such a film. The subject: how corporate money corrupts democracy. The case in point: former Speaker of the House Tom "the Hammer" DeLay's successful scheme to funnel illegal corporate donations into races for the Texas House in order to gain control the Texas legislature. He then had the legislature redraw congressional district boundaries to give the Republicans control of five additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. As DeLay bragged to Fox News, "We took the house, we did redistricting, we gained five Republican seats."… Corruption Congress Movies David Moberg Fri, 30 Jun 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2705/perpetuating_the_yellow_peril/ At first glance, Jeff Adachi's Slanted Screen is an earnest documentary that covers familiar ground. The shameful depiction of minorities--in this case, Asian-American men--in television and film is hardly news. What makes the movie special, however, is that it offers a rare view of Hollywood from the inside. Apart from the occasional talking head, the interviewees are actors, producers, directors and screenwriters. Part of the movie's interest lies in their horror stories, which are likely to make even the most jaded viewer cringe. Producer Terence Chang--whose big-budget credits include Mission Impossible II, Face-Off and Broken Arrow--describes being told to change the race of the white villain in the script for the Chow Yun Fat vehicle, The Replacement Killers, and make… Race Gender Movies Art and Culture David Moberg Thu, 07 Sep 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2811/privatized_warfare_the_summer_of_discontent/ For private contractors fighting wars and racking up huge profits without being plagued by pesky accountability, this hasn't been the happiest summer. Sure, some solace could be had in the decision of a federal judge in August to overturn a guilty verdict against Custer Battles, the company providing "risk management and security consulting services" in Iraq. The judge concluded that the company couldn't have defrauded the U.S. government with false invoices. While the company had been convicted of defrauding the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which ran Iraq from 2003 to 2004, the judge said that despite being funded with taxpayer dollars, the CPA wasn't technically part of the U.S. government. But then again, in August, a federal jury in Raleigh,… iraq war war and peace economy movies David Moberg Tue, 19 Sep 2006 12:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2824/9_11_refracted/ Katie Couric, her eyes thickly lined with black kohl, seemed to have one intention on the fifth anniversary of 9/11: to make us cry. She and CBS were instantly criticized, after her debut, for turning their nightly news broadcast into a news magazine stocked with feel good, soft news features, and 9/11 was no different. After a story about how much progress there has been in Afghanistan (which directly contradicted a piece that had aired on Couric's first night about the dangerous re-arming of the Taliban), Couric turned to a tear-jerking story (repurposed from the previous night's "60 Minutes") about a boy who had lost his father on 9/11 but had found a new father figure through a program called… iraq war media movies war on terror David Moberg Tue, 03 Oct 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2837/jesus_is_tragic/ Kids are cute. Documentaries confirm this, from the nerdy word-whizzes of Spellbound to the agile dancers of Mad Hot Ballroom. But in the new documentary Jesus Camp, children are terrifying symbols of the Christian Right's power to indoctrinate, manipulate and control. The film's creators, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, directed another kid-centered chronicle, The Boys of Baraka, which follows a group of inner city teenage boys from Baltimore as they spend a year at a school in Kenya. In Jesus Camp they venture to the American heartland for an eye-opening journey into the lives of Evangelical Christians, specifically their Jesus-loving spawn. Conservatives may hail the film as a celebration of their supremacy; for secular humanists, Democrats and the 49 percent… movies art and culture religion and spirituality David Moberg Thu, 02 Nov 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2877/the_crazy_kazakh_correspondent/ Introductions at a new school can be awkward. Anxious to find friends, students ask nervous and often contrived questions about each other's families, backgrounds and interests. But when Kazakhstan native Roman Nurpeissov arrived at the University of Michigan in September to start law school, nearly everyone he met was dying to ask him the same question: "Oh man, have you seen Borat?" "I had heard about him, but never cared to go online and check it out," says Nurpeissov. "But after people kept asking, I went to YouTube.com and had to watch clips." Nurpeissov's experience reflects the staggering popularity of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's character Borat Sagdiyev, whose movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of American for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of… Movies Race David Moberg Fri, 01 Dec 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2899/witnessing_extraordinary_rendition/ In early October, 30 people gathered at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum in Chicago for a screening of Outlawed: Extraordinary Rendition, Torture and the Disappearances in the "War on Terror." As the credits rolled, a few audience members timidly clapped. "I understand if you don't want to applaud what you just saw," said Gillian Caldwell, executive director of Witness and a producer of the film. Outlawed is the latest film by Witness, a nonprofit group based in Brooklyn, N.Y. , that has documented human rights abuses since 1992, when it was founded by musician Peter Gabriel. Caldwell hopes that the unease that emerges after watching Witness' videos will translate into awareness. Partnering with Global Voices, a nonprofit citizens' media project,… movies activism social justice David Moberg Fri, 08 Dec 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2933/the_godless_fundamentalist/ Religion fucking blows!" declares comedian Roseanne Barr in her latest HBO special. Her pronouncement, both in its declarative certainty and self-congratulatory defiance, could easily serve as the succinct moral of Richard Dawkins' documentary, The Root of All Evil. The big-screen version of a two-part British television series follows the noted biologist as he embarks on a global road-trip to the veritable bastions of theological conviction--the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a Christian conservative stronghold in Colorado Springs, a Hassidic community in the heart of London--bullying, berating and heckling the devoutly faithful he encounters along his way. Confronting cancer patients who have traveled to Lourdes in hopes of a cure, Dawkins tells the viewer in the first scene, "It may seem tough… movies religion David Moberg Tue, 12 Dec 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2936/the_skinny_on_thin/ At first, it's hard to know who to identify with in Thin, filmed over six months at the Renfrew Center, a residential facility devoted to treating eating disorders in southern Florida. Sallow and bony, the patients cry over cupcakes and denounce each new ounce of flesh as an affront to their rituals of control. Shivering in their backless hospital gowns, they resemble catwalk caricatures. Documentarian Lauren Greenfield captures staff slagging the women behind closed doors--calling one a "bad seed"--and forcing them into corny group sessions in which they must speak while holding an "integrity stick." But as the film wears on, a more complex picture emerges. The narrative hones in on the treatment paths of four patients: Shelly, 25, so… medical health movies David Moberg Fri, 29 Dec 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2972/the_spychopath_who_loved_me/ If there's a pop cultural icon in dire need of being revisited--and revised--at this historical moment, it is Bond, James Bond. Now that our leaders' own fantasies of besting evil supervillains and making the world bend to their fancies have run aground on the reality-based community known as Iraq, surely it is time for Bond--who shares with his real-life state employers a similar combination of superior technology, unthinking machismo and rakish charm--to look in the mirror and face some unsavory truths. It's to the credit of the writers of Casino Royale--Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis--that just such a scene occurs midway into the 21st installment of this apparently inexhaustible franchise. Having just brutally murdered by hand two Ugandan… movies David Moberg Tue, 09 Jan 2007 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2976/extreme_humanitarians/ Handling Good Samaritans on film can be a daunting task. It's difficult not to have reverence for people who throw themselves into harm's way for the sake of helping others, but filmmakers still need to humanize them so that they won't appear out of reach to the audience. Beyond the Call, a new documentary by Adrian Belic, who directed the Academy Award nominated Ghengis Blues, falls prey to these pitfalls. All the elements are present for a terrific story, so it's a shame the film does not rise to the occasion. The Samaritans in question belong to Knightsbridge International, a small nonprofit that circles the globe in search of humanitarian crises, led by the indefatigable Ed Artimis. After retiring from… movies David Moberg Tue, 06 Feb 2007 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3014/mr_smith_doesn_go_to_washington/ One of 15 films shortlisted for a 2006 Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary, Can Mr. Smith Get To Washington Anymore? is currently playing in limited engagements across the country. But starting in late February, this funny, fast-paced and engaging record of contemporary politics in the United States will be available on DVD from its Web site (http://www.mrsmithmovie.com). Here's hoping it finds the wider audience it deserves. First-time director Frank Popper opens the film with a rapidfire series of cuts that establish the disadvantages of underdog-cum-wunderkind Jeff Smith as he makes an improbable bid for the open House seat in Missouri's 3rd Congressional District in 2004. A St. Louis native, Smith neither looks nor sounds like a politician, and he's… movies elections David Moberg Thu, 08 Feb 2007 05:00:01 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3013/who_afraid_of_peter_boyle/ Peter Boyle died in December. His wacky turn as Frankenstein's tap-dancing monster in a Mel Brooks movie led the obituaries, along with his role as the curmudgeonly father on a hideously popular sitcom. When I heard the news, however, I pulled out one of my old issues of Life magazine. "Agnew on the Warpath" was the lead story. The cover also hymned a new technology: "Cassette TV: The Good Revolution." The date of the issue was October 16, 1970, a time when rage at the bad revolutions--Black Panthers forcing shootouts with police; students burning down ROTC buildings; fornicating hippies like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, whose deaths by overdose were also covered in that issue--was what made Spiro Agnew cover-worthy:… movies David Moberg Wed, 28 Feb 2007 05:00:01 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3051/making_black_voices_heard/ On February 10, the short documentary A Girl Like Me, about the pressures faced by young black females living in a white-dominated society, hit number one on YouTube.com's featured videos. One of the interviewees, Jennifer, 18, looks straight into the camera and confesses: "Since I was young, I considered being lighter [skinned] as … more beautiful than being dark skinned. … I used to think of myself as ugly because I was dark skinned." The film, which had been viewed more than 450,000 times as In These Times went to press, gave voice to a population that is often talked about but rarely heard from, much less listened to. A new University of Chicago study examining the experience of black… race hip hop movies David Moberg Tue, 27 Mar 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3100/the_lessons_of_sacco_and_vanzetti/ This year marks the 80th anniversary of the execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Convicted of a double murder after a notoriously corrupt trial, the anarchists went to their deaths maintaining their innocence. Director Peter Miller's new documentary Sacco and Vanzetti follows the men's lives from their arrival in America to their infamous journey through the U.S. justice system during the '20s red scare. Throughout their trial, they held to the paradoxical ideas that had guided them as activists. As the film's narrator puts it, "They believed in the America that they and their peers had rushed to--a place of political freedom, shared resources and diminished social stratification." And yet they realized, in Vanzetti's words, that "in no other… immigration movies David Moberg Fri, 27 Apr 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3140/a_crime_to_fit_the_punishment/ Unless you attended its 10-week run at New York City's Grand Theatre in 1954, you missed Salt of the Earth the first time around. In the decades since, director Herbert Biberman's dramatic account of the real-life strike by the men and women of a Mexican-American mining community has taken on a mythic status among cultural feminists, interracial unionists and indie film buffs. In most accounts, the movie itself is the main character. A heroic one at that: Producer Paul Jarrico called it "our chance to really say something." Its blacklisted creators, he boasted, had finally committed "a crime to fit the punishment." In On Strike and on Film, historian Ellen Baker explores Salt of the Earth, but shifts the focus… movies labor David Moberg Fri, 18 May 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3183/the_dreams_of_others/ Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others--this year's Oscar-winning film on life under the Stasi, the East German secret police--has often been favorably compared with Ulrich Becker's 2003 comedy Good Bye, Lenin!. The claim is that it provides the necessary corrective to Lenin's sentimental Ostalgie (nostalgia for the East), illustrating how the Stasi terror penetrated every pore of East Germans' private lives. But is this really the case? Like so many other films depicting the harshness of Communist regimes, The Lives of Others misses their true horror. How so? First, what sets the film's plot in motion is the corrupt minister of culture, who wants to get rid of the top German Democratic Republic (GDR) playwright, Georg Dreyman, so… europe movies theory David Moberg Fri, 29 Jun 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3227/stories_of_survival/ Filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons didn't miss a beat when a white, female student told her at a 2003 Boston College screening of her documentary NO!, "Until I saw your film, I didn't know that black women could be raped." Simmons, a Philadelphia resident, calmly asked the young woman why she believed such a thing. The student replied that she didn't think black women, simultaneously praised and pilloried for their strength, would stand for such a violation--as if sexual-violence victims are able to negotiate with attackers or deter them with a hefty serving of attitude. That wasn't the case with Simmons, now 38, who was sexually assaulted in 1989, when she was a 19-year-old Temple University sophomore on a foreign exchange… gender movies race David Moberg