Set in 1991 in an impoverished village in Henan province, in central China, the film is a moving and vivid portrayal of rural life in China.
The film’s success is undoubtedly linked to a growing recognition that resolving the country’s acute political crisis is impossible without a serious reckoning with its history.
There are striking images and certain convincing performances, but on the whole the filmmakers seem very much out of their depth. The work is starved of genuine historical and social insight.
“There used to be skinheads in bomber jackets and combat boots. Today, however, the neo-Nazis are sitting in parliament wearing ties and suits!”
A powerful new TV series recounts Lockerbie relative and campaigner Jim Swire’s dedicated struggle for the truth behind his daughter’s 1988 murder in the downing of PA103.
Three years after the “survival drama” phenomenon attracted millions of viewers’ attention worldwide, Squid Game’s second season struggles to build on the series’ cracked foundation.
Wolf Hall tackles a critical historical period, the Reformation, through one of its key actors, Thomas Cromwell, without reducing his biography to domestic melodrama or making the characters simply ciphers for the history.
Amid war, austerity and the promotion of far-right forces, a major radicalisation of workers and youth is underway. Films and television series have spoken very weakly so far to these complex, convulsive processes.
There are striking images and certain convincing performances, but on the whole the filmmakers seem very much out of their depth. The work is starved of genuine historical and social insight.
“There used to be skinheads in bomber jackets and combat boots. Today, however, the neo-Nazis are sitting in parliament wearing ties and suits!”
Horror films are not, generally speaking, the first place one typically expects to find “substantive” artistic, social or psychological material.
By taking a subjective, “lyrical” approach, director RaMell Ross has turned a novel about racism into a narrower, murkier movie.
The fraternal and humane sentiments expressed in the Instagram post received a significant and very positive response from both Canadians and Americans.
Grammy winning rapper Macklemore released a music video this week that expresses widespread revulsion at deepening capitalist barbarism, especially since Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Wald's Dylan Goes Electric is the work on which the recent film about Bob Dylan’s early days in music, A Complete Unknown (James Mangold), is loosely based.
Lamar and much of the hip hop world represent the antithesis of opposition to big business and capitalism. Hip hop is big business.
The Fourteenth Amendment was the product of a democratic revolutionary change that sought to put the Constitution on a genuine egalitarian footing.
There is promise in Senna’s demonstrating an awareness that there exists a “racial identity-industrial complex” in the contemporary world of art and culture.
This is the second part of an interview with Joseph McBride, author of George Cukor’s People. The first part was posted January 8.
First part of an interview with film historian, critic and biographer Joseph McBride about his new book George Cukor's People: Acting for a Master Director, a study of the Hollywood director whose career in feature films lasted half a century, from 1930 to 1981.
The mass anti-government agitation in Sri Lanka “was the result of real class differences in our society, the divisions between the haves and the have nots” – Prasanna Vithanage
One of his most accomplished works is Omar, a 2013 film about a young Palestinian baker (Adam Bakri) who becomes involved in complex political and moral matters.
“I strongly denounce state-sponsored witch-hunt and prosecution against artists and activists who have come forward against Israel’s genocide.”
Department of Defense interventions into American entertainment media is to “get people acclimated to the presence of military personnel, military bases, military operations, and weapons… normalizing the presence of the military in almost every aspect of life.”
