Our Family Wedding

Welcome to the new post-racial America, where at long last African Americans and Latinos can star together in a major studio movie every bit as crappy as anything White people have ever done. Our Family Wedding is...

Fig Trees

It’s hard to explain Fig Trees. It’s an opera yet it's also a documentary. There’s an albino squirrel and a nun. It scrutinizes the critical circumstances of the AIDS epidemic, from the 1980s to the present day, and points out, with sharp observations, the irony of consumer-driven AIDS campaigns. The main issues addressed are the ineffectiveness of governments and the greediness of pharmaceutical companies, but popular culture is not completely innocent either. In Fig Trees, director John Greyson documents the story of South African AIDS activist, Zackie Achmat.

Act of God: Meditations on Lightning, Life and Chance

What happens to a person whose life is touched by lightning? How does getting struck by lightning—or losing a loved one to lightning—change a person’s world view? Are such events random acts of nature or are certain people destined to be struck by lightning? Questions of fate, destiny, God’s will, and nature’s intention permeate Act of God: Meditations on Lightning, Life and Chance, a 2008 film directed by Jennifer Baichwal. Baichwal says the idea behind the film was a simple question: how do people find meaning in randomness?

First

If Salt ‘N Peppa had written lyrics with the phrase, “Let’s talk about sexuality, baby,” instead of, “Let’s talk about sex, baby,” I wonder if it would still have its legendary pop status. After all, it is easier to talk about sex than it is to talk, or rap, about sexuality. It’s much easier to talk about sex acts than the decision to express one’s sexual development or process of maturity. If talking about sex is socially taboo, save a handful of pop culture, then talking, or rapping, about sexuality is unthinkable.

One Summer in New Paltz: A Cautionary Tale

In the wake of a failing U.S. economy and two unwarranted wars, former president Bush set out to condemn the gay community as he called for a constitutional amendment to reduce gay rights. Facing reelection, the president’s call to enshrine a heterosexual definition of marriage into the Constitution effectively diverted attention away from his failures and used the gay community as a convenient scapegoat. But Bush’s move did more than spark nationwide debate.

The Blind Side

I didn’t intended to write a review of The Blind Side, but when my aunt responded to my Facebook status deriding the film’s racist indoctrination by saying my critiques were a figment of my liberal imagination, it all came flowing out. The Blind Side is a version of (Black) NFL player Michael Oher's true life story of being

Rage

My partner, Jake Barningham, is an avant garde film and video maker. He’s constantly on the prowl for new ways to express himself visually. Most recently it has been creating videos with his cell phone camera. I really like the idea of using something so accessible and widely used like a cell phone to create art.

From Paris With Love

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent — Isaac Asimov Luc Besson is credited with the “story” for this violent comic book of a thriller that is an insult to Paris. Years ago, Besson wrote Le Dernier Combat and The Fifth Element, flicks that are still worth seeing.

Parenthood

Based on the 1989 Ron Howard movie Parenthood, writer Jason Katims has revised the premise into a modern day, one-hour drama that explores the many facets of being a parent. The stellar cast includes Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls), Craig T.

44 Inch Chest

Colin Diamond (Ray Winstone) is a pot-bellied British gangster happily married to Liz, his wife of twenty-one years (Joanne Whalley). The problem is she’s not happily married to him. When Liz tells Colin she’s leaving him for a lover, he slides from incredulity to rage. Marital delusions wrecked, he resorts to gangster methodology. He assaults his wife (mostly off-screen) to get the lothario’s name—a studly French waiter (Melvil Poupaud). Colin has a four-man crew with whom he toils at their underworld trade.

Chica Busca Chica (Girl Seeks Girl)

For all those who have complained about the suburban whiteness of The L Word, meet Chica Busca Chica (Girl Seeks Girl). Chica Busca Chica is a new Spanish television show with a lesbian perspective.

Christmas Classics: The Yule Log Edition

I never thought that Johnny Cash could ever become kitsch. After all, he is the Man in Black, the patron saint of the disenfranchised and hurting and the bad ass country boy jamming an angry middle finger at the camera. I grew up listening to Cash singing to cheering prisoners and sullen guards, and then later turning a classic industrial rock song on its head. How on earth could this icon of morality—this Original EMO master—possibly be turned into sweet fluff? By having him sing Christmas songs on a video that loops Christmas imagery continuously.

The Revival

In October 2009, hip-hop was declared dead yet again by music critic and New Yorker writer Sasha Frere-Jones.

The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Recorded from a lecture in May 2008, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is an engaging, well-crafted talk by economist-writer-activist Naomi Klein about the problems of increasingly pervasive neoliberal privatization of land and resources on a global scale.