Acolytes of Horror. "The Green Knight: The Uncanny Horror of Masculinity." (Posted on Youtube: October 29, 2021) [Movie description: "WHEN HONOR WAS EVERYTHING. An epic fantasy adventure based on the timeless Arthurian legend, The Green Knight tells the story of Sir Gawain, King Arthur’s reckless and headstrong nephew, who embarks on a daring quest to confront the eponymous Green Knight, a gigantic emerald-skinned stranger and tester of men."]
---. "Saint Maud: God As A Self-Portrait." (Posted on Youtube: May 12, 2021) ["Having recently found God, self-effacing young nurse Maud arrives at a plush home to care for Amanda, a hedonistic dancer left frail from a chronic illness. When a chance encounter with a former colleague throws up hints of a dark past, it becomes clear there is more to sweet Maud than meets the eye."]
Bordwell, David. "Movies By the Numbers." Observations on Film Art (July 14, 2022) ["James Cutting’s Movies on Our Minds: The Evolution of Cinematic Engagement, itself the fruit of many years of intensive studies, builds on these achievements while taking wholly original perspectives as well. Comprehensive and detailed, it is simply the most complete and challenging psychological account of film art yet offered. I can’t do justice to its range and nuance here. Consider what follows as an invitation to you to read this bold book."]
Bushi, Ruth. "The Witch Explained (2015): The Horrors of True History." The Haughty Culturalist (March 23, 2022) ["Religious extremism, misogyny and madness stoke fears of the supernatural in The Witch, a folk tale rooted in horror and history."]
Freeberg, Ernest, et al. "American Socialist (2020)." Throughline (September 1, 2022) ["It's been over a century since a self-described socialist was a viable candidate for president of the United States. And that first socialist candidate, Eugene V. Debs, didn't just capture significant votes, he created a new and enduring populist politics deep in the American grain. This week, the story of Eugene V. Debs and the creation of American socialism." Books on the topic: Democracy's Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent by Ernest Freeberg and Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist by Nick Salvatore.]
Kriegman, Zac.
"The Revolution Will Not Be Criticized." Conversations with Coleman (July 8, 2022) ["My guest today is Zac Kriegman. Zach was a director of data science at Thomson Reuters before he got fired for posting a fact-based criticism of Black Lives Matter in an internal memo. This is one of the worst examples of Cancel Culture and enforced orthodoxy around the issue of race that I've seen in a while. Zach was fired for pointing to research by Roland Fryer who I just had on the podcast, and others, which showed that there was no anti-black bias in police shootings as well as that DOJ investigations into police departments in certain cases caused an increase in homicides due to the police pulling back. Now as a director of data science at a major media company that has a respected fact-checking wing, part of Zac's job was to ensure that Thomson Reuters was using data accurately and he got fired for doing exactly that. Now he's suing Reuters for wrongful termination. In the meantime, Zac has a substack, where he has posted the memo which got him fired, as well as some other essays. You should definitely go check that out. In this conversation, we talk about the circumstances surrounding his firing and we primarily speak on the substantive issue of BLM and the effect it has had on policing and crime."]
Mchangama, Jacob.
Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media. Basic Books, 2022. ["Hailed as the “first freedom,” free speech is the bedrock of democracy. But it is a challenging principle, subject to erosion in times of upheaval. Today, in democracies and authoritarian states around the world, it is on the retreat. In Free Speech, Jacob Mchangama traces the riveting legal, political, and cultural history of this idea. Through captivating stories of free speech’s many defenders—from the ancient Athenian orator Demosthenes and the ninth-century freethinker al-Rāzī, to the anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells and modern-day digital activists—Mchangama reveals how the free exchange of ideas underlies all intellectual achievement and has enabled the advancement of both freedom and equality worldwide. Yet the desire to restrict speech, too, is a constant, and he explores how even its champions can be led down this path when the rise of new and contrarian voices challenge power and privilege of all stripes. Meticulously researched and deeply humane, Free Speech demonstrates how much we have gained from this principle—and how much we stand to lose without it."]
Postman, Neil.
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. Knopf Doubleday, 2011. ["The story of our society's transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it—with radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, education, intelligence, and truth."]
Rose, Caryn.
"Why Patti Smith Matters (University of Texas Press, 2022)." New Books in Pop Culture (July 22, 2022) ["Patti Smith arrived in New York City at the end of the Age of Aquarius in search of work and purpose. What she found—what she fostered—was a cultural revolution. Through her poetry, her songs, her unapologetic vocal power, and her very presence as a woman fronting a rock band, she kicked open a door that countless others walked through. No other musician has better embodied the “nothing-to-hide” rawness of punk, nor has any other done more to nurture a place in society for misfits of every stripe.
Why Patti Smith Matters (University of Texas Press, 2022) is the first book about the iconic artist written by a woman. The veteran music journalist
Caryn Rose contextualizes Smith’s creative work, her influence, and her wide-ranging and still-evolving impact on rock and roll, visual art, and the written word. Rose goes deep into Smith’s oeuvre, from her first album, Horses, to acclaimed memoirs operating at a surprising remove from her music. The portrait of a ceaseless inventor, Why Patti Smith Matters rescues punk’s poet laureate from “strong woman” clichés. Of course Smith is strong. She is also a nuanced thinker. A maker of beautiful and challenging things. A transformative artist who has not simply entertained but also empowered millions."]
Rosen, Ido.
"Divine Smells: Odorama, Melodrama, and the Body in John Waters' Polyester." Open Screens 5.1 (2022)
["The comedy Polyester (John Waters, 1981) introduced a new cinematic experience. The screenings were accompanied by the Odorama technique in the form of a ‘scratch and sniff’ card that was handed to viewers in the movie theater. There has yet to be a serious examination of Odorama, which is usually dismissed as nothing more than a gag. This essay shows that Odorama has sophisticated subversive qualities. It confirms scholars’ and critics’ view that Polyester was a turning point in the career of Waters, one of the most important queer filmmakers of all times. The film is frequently seen as his transition from the realm of anarchistic midnight movies to mainstream cinema. This shift was disappointing to many fans, some of whom even considered it betrayal. By contrast, it is argued here that although the film was made by a distinguished auteur, it is also a parody of classic Hollywood melodramas, and playfully adopts the genre’s conventions. Unlike Waters’ previous films, in Polyester the critical ideas are all beneath the surface. It criticizes social norms, middle class values, hypocritical and fraudulent images, ‘conventional’ families, and gender dichotomies in society and their representations in the cinema. However, this is disguised in a borrowed aesthetic, and expressed through a cunning tactic which some audiences and critics missed entirely."]
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