Friday, October 30, 2015
Resources for October 30, 2015
Hartocollis, Anemona. "Trekking With Refugees Across Europe: An Up-Close View." ProPublica (October 12, 2015) ["Anemona Hartocollis was in Greece in August, covering the economic crisis for the New York Times, when a clash broke out between police and refugees on the island of Kos. After learning that 1,000 refugees been locked in a municipal stadium without food or water, she set off to investigate. Over the next month, she traveled with migrants and refugees across the continent and – through daily online dispatches, video, photography and tweets – documented their journey."]
Currier, Cora and Ryan Devereaux. "What You Need to Know About the Latest Drone Revelations." ProPublica (October 19, 2015) ["The Intercept published a sweeping series of stories based on secret documents involving the U.S.’s drone strike program. We sat down with two reporters on the project, Cora Currier and Ryan Devereaux, to talk about what they found."]
Reid, Azan, Heather Ann Thompson and Bruce Western. "After Attica." Open Source (March 6, 2015) ["We’re revisiting the Attica prison revolt in 1971. It began as a civil rights protest and ended in a massacre when Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered his state troopers to teargas the prisoners and open fire. In the story only now coming clear, Attica marks the twilight of the civil rights movement and the dawn of mass incarceration."]
Bordwell, David. "The Grand Budapest Hotel: Wes Anderson takes the 4:3 challenge." Observations on Film Art (March 26, 2014)
Cobb, William Jelani and Orlando Patterson. "‘The Changing Same’: Race in America." Open Source (March 12, 2015)
Zhang, Sarah. "Bacon Causes Cancer? Sort of. Not Really. Ish." Wired (October 27, 2015)
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Resources for October 29, 2015
ENG 102: Propaganda/Disinformation/Censorship/Euphemisms/Dogma Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
Lee, Jaeah and Phil Stinson. "Cops in the Classroom: South Carolina Incident Highlights Growing Police Presence in Schools." Democracy Now (October 28, 2015) [... shocking new videos that have surfaced from inside a South Carolina high school where a police officer has been caught on camera slamming a teenage girl to the ground and dragging the student out of the classroom. The videos, which went viral on Monday, appear to show Deputy Sheriff Ben Fields approaching the student, who is seated at her desk, then wrapping his arm around her neck and flipping her and her desk to the ground. He then appears to drag her out of the classroom. The student was arrested. Another student who filmed the assault was also arrested and held on a $1,000 bail. The incident reportedly began when the student refused to give her teacher her phone. The incident is the latest in a series of cases of police officers in schools using excessive force against students."]
Shapiro, Ryan. "NSA, FBI, DIA Sued over Refusal to Disclose U.S. Role in Imprisonment of Nelson Mandela." Democracy Now (March 25, 2015) ["... one of the nation’s most prolific transparency activists, Ryan Shapiro, reveals he is suing the NSA, FBI and Defense Intelligence Agency in an attempt to force them to open their records on one of the country’s greatest secrets: how the U.S. helped apartheid South Africa capture Nelson Mandela in 1962, leading to his 27 years in prison. The U.S. has never confirmed its involvement, but details have leaked out over the years. Shapiro already has a pending suit against the CIA over its role in Mandela’s capture and to find out why it took until 2008 for the former South African president to be removed from the U.S. terrorist watch list. The NSA has already rejected one of Shapiro’s requests for its information on Mandela, citing 'national defense.'"]
Popova, Maria. "Vladimir Nabokov on Writing, Reading, and the Three Qualities a Great Storyteller Must Have." Brain Pickings (February 21, 2014)
Poon, Linda. "Gastrodiplomacy: Cooking Up A Tasty Lesson On War And Peace." The Salt (March 24, 2014)
Gonnerman, Jennifer. "An Arrest, a Suicide, a Year Later: The Lasting Tragedy of Kalief Browder." Pro Publica (October 5, 2015) ["Almost one year ago today, The New Yorker published the story of a young man named Kalief Browder, who spent three years on Rikers Island without being convicted of a crime. Accused of stealing a backpack in 2010 at the age of 16, he was held on Rikers for more than 1,000 days waiting for a trial that never happened. His brutal detention included, among other abuses, two years in solitary confinement and beatings by officers and inmates. This tragedy of criminal justice was further compounded last June when, two years after his case was dismissed for lack of evidence, Browder, 22, committed suicide. On this week’s podcast, New Yorker staff writer Jennifer Gonnerman – who brought Browder’s story to light and has been reporting on the criminal justice system for nearly two decades – joins ProPublica senior editor Joe Sexton. Here Gonnerman discusses how she came to tell this story, its aftermath and why, even with the world of hurt that inhabits the criminal justice system, she remains driven to report on it."]
Davenport, Coral, et al. "Greenland is Melting Away." The New York Times (October 27, 2015) ["This river is one of a network of thousands at the front line of climate change."]
Top 25 Censored News Stories of All Time Project Censored (Ongoing Archive)
Anderson, Jeffrey. "Night of the Living Dead (Again): A Halloween appreciation." Keyframe (October 27, 2015)
Lee, Jaeah and Phil Stinson. "Cops in the Classroom: South Carolina Incident Highlights Growing Police Presence in Schools." Democracy Now (October 28, 2015) [... shocking new videos that have surfaced from inside a South Carolina high school where a police officer has been caught on camera slamming a teenage girl to the ground and dragging the student out of the classroom. The videos, which went viral on Monday, appear to show Deputy Sheriff Ben Fields approaching the student, who is seated at her desk, then wrapping his arm around her neck and flipping her and her desk to the ground. He then appears to drag her out of the classroom. The student was arrested. Another student who filmed the assault was also arrested and held on a $1,000 bail. The incident reportedly began when the student refused to give her teacher her phone. The incident is the latest in a series of cases of police officers in schools using excessive force against students."]
Shapiro, Ryan. "NSA, FBI, DIA Sued over Refusal to Disclose U.S. Role in Imprisonment of Nelson Mandela." Democracy Now (March 25, 2015) ["... one of the nation’s most prolific transparency activists, Ryan Shapiro, reveals he is suing the NSA, FBI and Defense Intelligence Agency in an attempt to force them to open their records on one of the country’s greatest secrets: how the U.S. helped apartheid South Africa capture Nelson Mandela in 1962, leading to his 27 years in prison. The U.S. has never confirmed its involvement, but details have leaked out over the years. Shapiro already has a pending suit against the CIA over its role in Mandela’s capture and to find out why it took until 2008 for the former South African president to be removed from the U.S. terrorist watch list. The NSA has already rejected one of Shapiro’s requests for its information on Mandela, citing 'national defense.'"]
Popova, Maria. "Vladimir Nabokov on Writing, Reading, and the Three Qualities a Great Storyteller Must Have." Brain Pickings (February 21, 2014)
Poon, Linda. "Gastrodiplomacy: Cooking Up A Tasty Lesson On War And Peace." The Salt (March 24, 2014)
Gonnerman, Jennifer. "An Arrest, a Suicide, a Year Later: The Lasting Tragedy of Kalief Browder." Pro Publica (October 5, 2015) ["Almost one year ago today, The New Yorker published the story of a young man named Kalief Browder, who spent three years on Rikers Island without being convicted of a crime. Accused of stealing a backpack in 2010 at the age of 16, he was held on Rikers for more than 1,000 days waiting for a trial that never happened. His brutal detention included, among other abuses, two years in solitary confinement and beatings by officers and inmates. This tragedy of criminal justice was further compounded last June when, two years after his case was dismissed for lack of evidence, Browder, 22, committed suicide. On this week’s podcast, New Yorker staff writer Jennifer Gonnerman – who brought Browder’s story to light and has been reporting on the criminal justice system for nearly two decades – joins ProPublica senior editor Joe Sexton. Here Gonnerman discusses how she came to tell this story, its aftermath and why, even with the world of hurt that inhabits the criminal justice system, she remains driven to report on it."]
Davenport, Coral, et al. "Greenland is Melting Away." The New York Times (October 27, 2015) ["This river is one of a network of thousands at the front line of climate change."]
Top 25 Censored News Stories of All Time Project Censored (Ongoing Archive)
Anderson, Jeffrey. "Night of the Living Dead (Again): A Halloween appreciation." Keyframe (October 27, 2015)
Resources for October 28, 2015
Mahler, Jonathan. "What Do We Really Know About Osama bin Laden’s Death?" The New York Times (October 18, 2015)
Buchheit, Paul. "Higher Education: Capitalism at Its Most Despicable." BuzzFlash (October 26, 2015)
Henriksen, Lance, Mike Mayo and Edward G. Pettit. "Near Dark." The Projection Booth #122 (July 9, 2013) ["Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark is a hybrid vampire film in which "The V Word" is never uttered. We discuss this film, penned by screenwriter Eric Red, and other vampire flicks this episode."]
Lourdes (Austria/France/Germany: Jessica Hausner, 2009: 96 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 (Denmark/Germany/France/Belgium/UK: Lars von Trier, 2013); Nymphomaniac: Volume 2 (Denmark/Belgium/France/Germany/UK: Lars von Trier, 2013) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
"Aldous Huxley on Drugs, Democracy, and Religion." Brain Pickings (March 25, 2014)
Shapiro, Ryan. "Why Did the FBI Label Ryan Shapiro's Dissertation on Animal Rights a Threat to National Security?" Democracy Now (March 25, 2014) ["Over the past decade, Ryan Shapiro has become a leading freedom of information activist, unearthing tens of thousands of once-secret documents. His work focuses on how the government infiltrates and monitors political movements, in particular those for animal and environmental rights. Today, he has around 700 Freedom of Information Act requests before the FBI, seeking around 350,000 documents. That tenacity has led the Justice Department to call him the "most prolific" requester there is — in one year, two requests per day. It has also led the FBI to claim his dissertation research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology would "irreparably damage national security." Shapiro discusses his methodology in obtaining government documents through FOIA requests, and the details that have emerged therein about the crackdown on animal rights activists."]
Richardson, Marque and Justin Simien. "Dear White People: Film Tackles Racial Stereotypes on Campus & Being a 'Black Face in a White Space'." Democracy Now (March 24, 2014) ["As colleges across the country, from Harvard to University of Mississippi, continue to witness racism on campus, we look at a new film that tackles the issue through comedy and satire. "Dear White People" follows a group of black students at a fictional, predominantly white, Ivy League school. One of the main characters, Sam, hosts the campus radio show "Dear White People," where she confronts the racist stereotypes and dilemmas faced by students of color. Racial tensions on campus come to a head when a group of mostly white students throw an African-American-themed party, wearing blackface and using watermelons and fake guns as props. We speak to actor Marque Richardson and award-winning, first-time director Justin Simien."]
Erickson, Megan. "Are We Winning?" Jacobin (October 28, 2015) ["The Obama administration’s new rhetoric on testing shows the tide may be turning against corporate education reformers."]
McLemee, Scott. "Isn't It Shocking?" Inside Higher Ed (October 28, 2015)
Buchheit, Paul. "Higher Education: Capitalism at Its Most Despicable." BuzzFlash (October 26, 2015)
Henriksen, Lance, Mike Mayo and Edward G. Pettit. "Near Dark." The Projection Booth #122 (July 9, 2013) ["Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark is a hybrid vampire film in which "The V Word" is never uttered. We discuss this film, penned by screenwriter Eric Red, and other vampire flicks this episode."]
Lourdes (Austria/France/Germany: Jessica Hausner, 2009: 96 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 (Denmark/Germany/France/Belgium/UK: Lars von Trier, 2013); Nymphomaniac: Volume 2 (Denmark/Belgium/France/Germany/UK: Lars von Trier, 2013) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
"Aldous Huxley on Drugs, Democracy, and Religion." Brain Pickings (March 25, 2014)
Shapiro, Ryan. "Why Did the FBI Label Ryan Shapiro's Dissertation on Animal Rights a Threat to National Security?" Democracy Now (March 25, 2014) ["Over the past decade, Ryan Shapiro has become a leading freedom of information activist, unearthing tens of thousands of once-secret documents. His work focuses on how the government infiltrates and monitors political movements, in particular those for animal and environmental rights. Today, he has around 700 Freedom of Information Act requests before the FBI, seeking around 350,000 documents. That tenacity has led the Justice Department to call him the "most prolific" requester there is — in one year, two requests per day. It has also led the FBI to claim his dissertation research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology would "irreparably damage national security." Shapiro discusses his methodology in obtaining government documents through FOIA requests, and the details that have emerged therein about the crackdown on animal rights activists."]
Richardson, Marque and Justin Simien. "Dear White People: Film Tackles Racial Stereotypes on Campus & Being a 'Black Face in a White Space'." Democracy Now (March 24, 2014) ["As colleges across the country, from Harvard to University of Mississippi, continue to witness racism on campus, we look at a new film that tackles the issue through comedy and satire. "Dear White People" follows a group of black students at a fictional, predominantly white, Ivy League school. One of the main characters, Sam, hosts the campus radio show "Dear White People," where she confronts the racist stereotypes and dilemmas faced by students of color. Racial tensions on campus come to a head when a group of mostly white students throw an African-American-themed party, wearing blackface and using watermelons and fake guns as props. We speak to actor Marque Richardson and award-winning, first-time director Justin Simien."]
Erickson, Megan. "Are We Winning?" Jacobin (October 28, 2015) ["The Obama administration’s new rhetoric on testing shows the tide may be turning against corporate education reformers."]
McLemee, Scott. "Isn't It Shocking?" Inside Higher Ed (October 28, 2015)
ENG 102: Documentaries
Films and Resources:
Documentaries:
"50+ Films About Women That Will Inspire Your Perspective on Social Change." Films for Action (April 4, 2015)
The Act of Killing (Denmark/Norway/UK/Sweden/Finland: Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012: 115 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (Sweden: Göran Olsson, 2011: 100 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
The Captors (Season 2 of Serial from WBEZ Chicago: "In May 2014, a U.S. Special Operations team in a Black Hawk helicopter landed in the hills of Afghanistan. Waiting for them were more than a dozen Taliban fighters and a tall American, who looked pale and out of sorts: Bowe Bergdahl. Bergdahl, a U.S. soldier, had been a prisoner of the Taliban for nearly five years, and now he was going home. President Obama announced Bergdahl’s return in the Rose Garden, with the soldier's parents at his side. Bergdahl's hometown of Hailey, Idaho, planned a big celebration to welcome him back. But then, within days—within hours of his rescue, in fact—public reaction to his return flipped. People started saying Bergdahl shouldn’t be celebrated. Some of the soldiers from his unit called him a deserter, a traitor. They said he had deliberately walked off their small outpost in eastern Afghanistan and into hostile territory. Hailey canceled its celebration. The army launched an investigation. Finally, in March, the military charged Bergdahl with two crimes, one of which carries the possibility of a life sentence. Through all of this, Bergdahl has been quiet. He hasn’t spoken to the press or done any interviews on TV. He’s been like a ghost at the center of a raucous fight. Now, in Season Two, we get to hear what he has to say. For this season, Sarah Koenig teams up with filmmaker Mark Boal and Page 1 to find out why one idiosyncratic guy decided to walk away, into Afghanistan, and how the consequences of that decision have spun out wider and wider. It’s a story that has played out in unexpected ways from the start. And it’s a story that’s still going on."]
Century of the Self (BBC: Adam Curtis, 4 pts 60 mins) ["To many in both business and government, the triumph of the self is the ultimate expression of democracy, where power is truly moved into the hands of the people. Certainly the people may feel they are in charge, but are they really? The Century of the Self tells the untold and controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society. How is the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interest?"]
Chan, Julia B. "Do Not Drink: The Water Crisis in Flint, Michigan." Reveal (Parts 1-3: 2016) ["The economically depressed city of Flint, Michigan, is making headlines across the country because there’s something in its water that shouldn’t be there. You may have heard about the problems in Flint: about how the tap water can be brownish, stinky, funny-tasting. After denying there was a problem for more than a year, state and city officials finally admitted it – there was too much lead in the water. On this hour of Reveal, you’re going to hear the whole story of how people in Flint went from trusting their tap water to fearing it. And thanks to Michigan Radio’s Lindsey Smith, who produced an incredible documentary called “Not Safe to Drink,” we dive right in."]
Citizenfour (USA/Germany/UK: Laura Poitras, 2014: 114 mins) ["In January 2013, film-maker Laura Poitras received an encrypted e-mail from a stranger who called himself Citizen Four. In it, he offered her inside information about illegal wiretapping practices of the NSA and other intelligence agencies. Poitras had already been working for several years on a film about mass surveillance programs in the United States, and so in June 2013, she went to Hong Kong with her camera for the first meeting with the stranger, who identified himself as Edward Snowden. She was met there by investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald and The Guardian intelligence reporter Ewen MacAskill. Several other meetings followed. Citizenfour is based on the recordings from these meetings. What follows is the largest confirmations of mass surveillance using official documents themselves, the world has never seen…"]
Crips and Bloods: Made in America (USA: Stacey Peralta, 2008: 98 mins) ["... this film examines the conditions that have led to decades of devastating gang violence among young African Americans growing up in South Los Angeles."] Available in the BCTC Library.
The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing (USA/Japan/UK: Wendy Apple, 2004: 98 mins) ["Documentary about the art of film editing. Clips are shown from many groundbreaking films with innovative editing styles."]
Dirty Wars (USA/Afghanistan/Iraq/Kenya/Somalia/Yemen: Rick Rowley, 2013: 87 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
Exit Through the Gift Shop (UK/USA: Banksy, 2010: 87 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
Grizzly Man (USA: Werner Herzog, 2005: 103 mins)
Hearts and Minds (USA: Peter Davis, 1974: 112 mins)
Human Resources: Social Engineering in the 20th Century (Metanoia Films: Scott Noble, 2010: 119 mins) ["Human Resources — Social Engineering in the 20th Century is about the rise of mechanistic philosophy and the exploitation of human beings under modern hierarchical systems. The film captures how humans are regarded as a resource by corporations–something to be exploited for pecuniary gain–by following the history of psychological experiments in behaviour modification, conditioning and mind control; applying the outcomes to modern day establishment experiments such as institutionalised education, military training, and social engineering by way of things like television…"]
Inside Job (USA: Charles Ferguson, 2010: 105 mins) ["... a comprehensive analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which at a cost over $20 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse. Through exhaustive research and extensive interviews with key financial insiders, politicians, journalists, and academics, the film traces the rise of a rogue industry which has corrupted politics, regulation, and academia. It was made on location in the United States, Iceland, England, France, Singapore, and China."] Available in the BCTC Library.]
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz (USA: Brian Knappenberger, 2014: 105 mins) ["The story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz. From Swartz's help in the development of the basic internet protocol RSS to his co-founding of Reddit, his fingerprints are all over the internet. But it was Swartz's groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing combined with his aggressive approach to information access that ensnared him in a two year legal nightmare. It was a battle that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26. Aaron's story touched a nerve with people far beyond the online communities in which he was a celebrity. This film is a personal story about what we lose when we are tone deaf about technology and its relationship to our civil liberties."]
The Interrupters (USA: Steve James, 2011: 125 mins)
Is the Man Who is Tall Happy? (France: Michel Gondry, 2013: 88 mins)
Killing Us Softly, 4 (USA: Sut Jhally and Jean Kilbourne, 2010: 45 mins) ["Author and activist Jean Kilbourne analyses the depiction of women in advertising and media by decoding a large array of print and television ads. What is revealed is a torrent of stereotypes; sexist and misogynistic images and messages; laying bare a world of frighteningly thin women in positions of subservience; collectively, the restrictive code of femininity that works to undermine girls and women in the real world. By examining these messages, Killing Us Softly asks us to take advertising seriously, and to think critically about its relationship to sexism, eating disorders, violence against women, popular culture, and contemporary politics."]
La Commune (Paris 1871) (France: Peter Watkins, 2000: 345 mins)
The Living Dead (BBC: Adam Curtis, 1995: three 60 minute episodes) ["The Living Dead: Three Films About the Power of the Past is a series of films that investigate the way that history and memory (both national and individual) have been manipulated and distorted by politicians and others for various means of control."]
Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal (USA: Stephen Vittoria, 2013: 120 mins)
Merchants of Cool (PBS: Barak Goodman and Douglas Rushkoff, 2001: 55 mins) ["They spend their days sifting through reams of market research data. They conduct endless surveys and focus groups. They comb the streets, the schools and the malls, hot on the trail of the “next big thing” that will snare the attention of their prey — a market segment worth an estimated $150 billion a year. They are the merchants of cool: creators and sellers of ‘popular culture’ who have made teenagers the hottest consumer demographic…"]
Night and Fog (France: Alain Resnais, 1955: 32 mins)
The Persuaders (PBS: Rachel Dretzin, Barak Goodman and Douglas Rushkoff, 2004: 90 mins) ["Each year, legions of ad people, copywriters, market researchers, pollsters, consultants, and even linguists (most of whom work for one of six giant companies) spend billions of dollars and millions of hours trying to determine how to persuade consumers what to buy, whom to trust, and what to think. Increasingly, these techniques are migrating to the high-stakes arena of politics, shaping policy and influencing how Americans choose their leaders. In The Persuaders, Douglas Rushkoff explores how the cultures of marketing and advertising have come to influence not only what Americans buy, but also how they view themselves and the world around them. The Persuaders draws on a range of experts and observers of the advertising/marketing world, to examine how, in the words of one on-camera commentator, “the principal of democracy yields to the practice of demography,” as highly customised messages are delivered to a smaller segment of the market…"]
The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear (United Kingdom: Adam Curtis, 2004: 180 mins)
Psywar (Canada: Scott Noble, 2010: 99 mins) ["Psywar explores the history and evolution of propaganda along with the rise of ‘public relations’ with an emphasis on the relationship between war, propaganda and privilege… Contains interviews with Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Peter Phillips, John Stauber, Christopher Simpson."]
The Square (Egypt/USA: Jehane Noujaim, 2013: 104 mins)
Standard Operating Procedure (USA: Errol Morris, 2008: 116 mins)
Taxi to the Dark Side (USA: Alex Gibney, 2007: 106 mins)
The Thin Blue Line (USA: Errol Morris, 1988: 103 mins)
Triumph of the Will (Germany: Leni Riefenstahl, 1935: 110 mins)
The Unknown Known (USA: Errol Morris, 2013: 96 mins)
The Virtual Revolution (BBC: Aleks Krotoski, 2010: four 60 mins episodes) ["20 years on from the invention of the World Wide Web, The Virtual Revolution explores how the Internet is reshaping almost every aspect of our lives. But what is really going on behind this reshaping? The founding father of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, believed his invention would remain an open frontier that nobody could own, and that it would take power from the few and give it to the many. So how do these utopian claims stand today? Have the possibilities of the technology been constrained purposefully by corporations and distorted by government?"]
Waltz With Bashir (Israel/France/Germany/USA/Finland/Switzerland/Belgium/Australia: Ari Folman, 2008: 90 Mins)
Resources:
"The 20 Best Documentaries of 2015." The Playlist (December 15, 2015)
Adam Curtis: Documentary Filmmaker/Journalist Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
Bailey, Jason. " Errol Morris’ ‘Unknown Known’: Donald Rumsfeld and the Limits of Self-Deception." Flavorwire (April 2, 2014)
Greene, Steve. "The Best Documentaries of 2015, According to the Criticwire Network." Indiewire (Last updated December 4, 2015)
Heineman, Matthew. "Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare." Film School (October 4, 2012)
Jhally, Sut. "The Tough Guise 2." (Posted on Vimeo: 2013)
Jones, Kent, Adam Kempenaar and Josh Larsen. "Top 5 Film Books / Kent Jones Interview (Hitchcock/Truffaut)." Filmspotting #565 (December 4, 2015)
Kilkenny, Katie. "Geeking Out to Hitchcock/Truffaut." Los Angeles Review of Books (December 5, 2015)
O'Hehir, Andrew. "Errol Morris on Rumsfeld, the Truth and The Unknown Known.” Salon (April 2, 2014)
"Over 10 Years, Two Filmmakers Documented The 'Making' Of A Murderer." NPR (January 5, 2016)
Pangburn, D.J. "Aaron Swartz's Documentarian on the Life and Death of an Anti-Establishment Icon." Motherboard (January 23, 2014)
Documentaries:
"50+ Films About Women That Will Inspire Your Perspective on Social Change." Films for Action (April 4, 2015)
The Act of Killing (Denmark/Norway/UK/Sweden/Finland: Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012: 115 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (Sweden: Göran Olsson, 2011: 100 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
The Captors (Season 2 of Serial from WBEZ Chicago: "In May 2014, a U.S. Special Operations team in a Black Hawk helicopter landed in the hills of Afghanistan. Waiting for them were more than a dozen Taliban fighters and a tall American, who looked pale and out of sorts: Bowe Bergdahl. Bergdahl, a U.S. soldier, had been a prisoner of the Taliban for nearly five years, and now he was going home. President Obama announced Bergdahl’s return in the Rose Garden, with the soldier's parents at his side. Bergdahl's hometown of Hailey, Idaho, planned a big celebration to welcome him back. But then, within days—within hours of his rescue, in fact—public reaction to his return flipped. People started saying Bergdahl shouldn’t be celebrated. Some of the soldiers from his unit called him a deserter, a traitor. They said he had deliberately walked off their small outpost in eastern Afghanistan and into hostile territory. Hailey canceled its celebration. The army launched an investigation. Finally, in March, the military charged Bergdahl with two crimes, one of which carries the possibility of a life sentence. Through all of this, Bergdahl has been quiet. He hasn’t spoken to the press or done any interviews on TV. He’s been like a ghost at the center of a raucous fight. Now, in Season Two, we get to hear what he has to say. For this season, Sarah Koenig teams up with filmmaker Mark Boal and Page 1 to find out why one idiosyncratic guy decided to walk away, into Afghanistan, and how the consequences of that decision have spun out wider and wider. It’s a story that has played out in unexpected ways from the start. And it’s a story that’s still going on."]
Century of the Self (BBC: Adam Curtis, 4 pts 60 mins) ["To many in both business and government, the triumph of the self is the ultimate expression of democracy, where power is truly moved into the hands of the people. Certainly the people may feel they are in charge, but are they really? The Century of the Self tells the untold and controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society. How is the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interest?"]
Chan, Julia B. "Do Not Drink: The Water Crisis in Flint, Michigan." Reveal (Parts 1-3: 2016) ["The economically depressed city of Flint, Michigan, is making headlines across the country because there’s something in its water that shouldn’t be there. You may have heard about the problems in Flint: about how the tap water can be brownish, stinky, funny-tasting. After denying there was a problem for more than a year, state and city officials finally admitted it – there was too much lead in the water. On this hour of Reveal, you’re going to hear the whole story of how people in Flint went from trusting their tap water to fearing it. And thanks to Michigan Radio’s Lindsey Smith, who produced an incredible documentary called “Not Safe to Drink,” we dive right in."]
Citizenfour (USA/Germany/UK: Laura Poitras, 2014: 114 mins) ["In January 2013, film-maker Laura Poitras received an encrypted e-mail from a stranger who called himself Citizen Four. In it, he offered her inside information about illegal wiretapping practices of the NSA and other intelligence agencies. Poitras had already been working for several years on a film about mass surveillance programs in the United States, and so in June 2013, she went to Hong Kong with her camera for the first meeting with the stranger, who identified himself as Edward Snowden. She was met there by investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald and The Guardian intelligence reporter Ewen MacAskill. Several other meetings followed. Citizenfour is based on the recordings from these meetings. What follows is the largest confirmations of mass surveillance using official documents themselves, the world has never seen…"]
Crips and Bloods: Made in America (USA: Stacey Peralta, 2008: 98 mins) ["... this film examines the conditions that have led to decades of devastating gang violence among young African Americans growing up in South Los Angeles."] Available in the BCTC Library.
The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing (USA/Japan/UK: Wendy Apple, 2004: 98 mins) ["Documentary about the art of film editing. Clips are shown from many groundbreaking films with innovative editing styles."]
Dirty Wars (USA/Afghanistan/Iraq/Kenya/Somalia/Yemen: Rick Rowley, 2013: 87 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
Exit Through the Gift Shop (UK/USA: Banksy, 2010: 87 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
Grizzly Man (USA: Werner Herzog, 2005: 103 mins)
Hearts and Minds (USA: Peter Davis, 1974: 112 mins)
Human Resources: Social Engineering in the 20th Century (Metanoia Films: Scott Noble, 2010: 119 mins) ["Human Resources — Social Engineering in the 20th Century is about the rise of mechanistic philosophy and the exploitation of human beings under modern hierarchical systems. The film captures how humans are regarded as a resource by corporations–something to be exploited for pecuniary gain–by following the history of psychological experiments in behaviour modification, conditioning and mind control; applying the outcomes to modern day establishment experiments such as institutionalised education, military training, and social engineering by way of things like television…"]
Inside Job (USA: Charles Ferguson, 2010: 105 mins) ["... a comprehensive analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which at a cost over $20 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse. Through exhaustive research and extensive interviews with key financial insiders, politicians, journalists, and academics, the film traces the rise of a rogue industry which has corrupted politics, regulation, and academia. It was made on location in the United States, Iceland, England, France, Singapore, and China."] Available in the BCTC Library.]
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz (USA: Brian Knappenberger, 2014: 105 mins) ["The story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz. From Swartz's help in the development of the basic internet protocol RSS to his co-founding of Reddit, his fingerprints are all over the internet. But it was Swartz's groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing combined with his aggressive approach to information access that ensnared him in a two year legal nightmare. It was a battle that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26. Aaron's story touched a nerve with people far beyond the online communities in which he was a celebrity. This film is a personal story about what we lose when we are tone deaf about technology and its relationship to our civil liberties."]
The Interrupters (USA: Steve James, 2011: 125 mins)
Is the Man Who is Tall Happy? (France: Michel Gondry, 2013: 88 mins)
Killing Us Softly, 4 (USA: Sut Jhally and Jean Kilbourne, 2010: 45 mins) ["Author and activist Jean Kilbourne analyses the depiction of women in advertising and media by decoding a large array of print and television ads. What is revealed is a torrent of stereotypes; sexist and misogynistic images and messages; laying bare a world of frighteningly thin women in positions of subservience; collectively, the restrictive code of femininity that works to undermine girls and women in the real world. By examining these messages, Killing Us Softly asks us to take advertising seriously, and to think critically about its relationship to sexism, eating disorders, violence against women, popular culture, and contemporary politics."]
La Commune (Paris 1871) (France: Peter Watkins, 2000: 345 mins)
The Living Dead (BBC: Adam Curtis, 1995: three 60 minute episodes) ["The Living Dead: Three Films About the Power of the Past is a series of films that investigate the way that history and memory (both national and individual) have been manipulated and distorted by politicians and others for various means of control."]
Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal (USA: Stephen Vittoria, 2013: 120 mins)
Merchants of Cool (PBS: Barak Goodman and Douglas Rushkoff, 2001: 55 mins) ["They spend their days sifting through reams of market research data. They conduct endless surveys and focus groups. They comb the streets, the schools and the malls, hot on the trail of the “next big thing” that will snare the attention of their prey — a market segment worth an estimated $150 billion a year. They are the merchants of cool: creators and sellers of ‘popular culture’ who have made teenagers the hottest consumer demographic…"]
Night and Fog (France: Alain Resnais, 1955: 32 mins)
The Persuaders (PBS: Rachel Dretzin, Barak Goodman and Douglas Rushkoff, 2004: 90 mins) ["Each year, legions of ad people, copywriters, market researchers, pollsters, consultants, and even linguists (most of whom work for one of six giant companies) spend billions of dollars and millions of hours trying to determine how to persuade consumers what to buy, whom to trust, and what to think. Increasingly, these techniques are migrating to the high-stakes arena of politics, shaping policy and influencing how Americans choose their leaders. In The Persuaders, Douglas Rushkoff explores how the cultures of marketing and advertising have come to influence not only what Americans buy, but also how they view themselves and the world around them. The Persuaders draws on a range of experts and observers of the advertising/marketing world, to examine how, in the words of one on-camera commentator, “the principal of democracy yields to the practice of demography,” as highly customised messages are delivered to a smaller segment of the market…"]
The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear (United Kingdom: Adam Curtis, 2004: 180 mins)
Psywar (Canada: Scott Noble, 2010: 99 mins) ["Psywar explores the history and evolution of propaganda along with the rise of ‘public relations’ with an emphasis on the relationship between war, propaganda and privilege… Contains interviews with Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Peter Phillips, John Stauber, Christopher Simpson."]
The Square (Egypt/USA: Jehane Noujaim, 2013: 104 mins)
Standard Operating Procedure (USA: Errol Morris, 2008: 116 mins)
Taxi to the Dark Side (USA: Alex Gibney, 2007: 106 mins)
The Thin Blue Line (USA: Errol Morris, 1988: 103 mins)
Triumph of the Will (Germany: Leni Riefenstahl, 1935: 110 mins)
The Unknown Known (USA: Errol Morris, 2013: 96 mins)
The Virtual Revolution (BBC: Aleks Krotoski, 2010: four 60 mins episodes) ["20 years on from the invention of the World Wide Web, The Virtual Revolution explores how the Internet is reshaping almost every aspect of our lives. But what is really going on behind this reshaping? The founding father of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, believed his invention would remain an open frontier that nobody could own, and that it would take power from the few and give it to the many. So how do these utopian claims stand today? Have the possibilities of the technology been constrained purposefully by corporations and distorted by government?"]
Waltz With Bashir (Israel/France/Germany/USA/Finland/Switzerland/Belgium/Australia: Ari Folman, 2008: 90 Mins)
Resources:
"The 20 Best Documentaries of 2015." The Playlist (December 15, 2015)
Adam Curtis: Documentary Filmmaker/Journalist Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
Bailey, Jason. " Errol Morris’ ‘Unknown Known’: Donald Rumsfeld and the Limits of Self-Deception." Flavorwire (April 2, 2014)
Greene, Steve. "The Best Documentaries of 2015, According to the Criticwire Network." Indiewire (Last updated December 4, 2015)
Heineman, Matthew. "Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare." Film School (October 4, 2012)
Jhally, Sut. "The Tough Guise 2." (Posted on Vimeo: 2013)
Jones, Kent, Adam Kempenaar and Josh Larsen. "Top 5 Film Books / Kent Jones Interview (Hitchcock/Truffaut)." Filmspotting #565 (December 4, 2015)
Kilkenny, Katie. "Geeking Out to Hitchcock/Truffaut." Los Angeles Review of Books (December 5, 2015)
"Over 10 Years, Two Filmmakers Documented The 'Making' Of A Murderer." NPR (January 5, 2016)
Pangburn, D.J. "Aaron Swartz's Documentarian on the Life and Death of an Anti-Establishment Icon." Motherboard (January 23, 2014)
Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 (Denmark/Germany/France/Belgium/UK: Lars von Trier, 2013); Nymphomaniac: Volume 2 (Denmark/Belgium/France/Germany/UK: Lars von Trier, 2013)
Nymphomaniac: Volume 1(Denmark/Germany/France/Belgium/UK: Lars von Trier, 2013: 118 mins)/Nymphomaniac: Volume 2 (Denmark/Belgium/France/Germany/UK: Lars von Trier, 2013: 123 mins)
Atkinson, Michael. "Nymphomaniac: Lars Von Trier’s Masturbatory Fantasy." In These Times (April 10, 2014)
Bernstein, Arielle. "The Rumpus Review of Nymphomaniac, Vol. 1." The Rumpus (April 11, 2014)
Bernstein, Arielle and Larry Fahey. "The Rumpus Discussion of Nymphomaniac." The Rumpus (May 16, 2014)
Bond, Lewis. "Lars von Trier: Deconstructing Cinema." (Posted on Youtube: July 23, 2016)
---. "Uma Thurman Comes Clean on Her Tryst in Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac." Film Society Lincoln Center (March 27, 2014)
Ehrlich, David. "Nymphomaniac and the infinite loneliness of Lars von Trier." The Dissolve (March 27, 2014)
Fahey, Larry. "The Rumpus Review of Nymphomaniac Vol. II." The Rumpus (April 25, 2014)
Hancock, James and Orest Ludwig. "Confronting Taboos Through the Films of Charlotte Gainsbourg." Wrong Reel #232 (February 2017)
Kiang, Jessica. "Berlin Review: Lars von Trier's Director's Cut Of Nymphomaniac Part 1." The Playlist (February 9, 2014)
Meek, Tom. "Women Who Prey." The Rumpus (April 18, 2014)
Nymphomaniac." Critics Round Up (Ongoing Archive)
Saner, Emine. "From Nymphomaniac to Stranger By the Lake, is Sex in Cinema Getting too Real?" The Guardian (February 21, 2014)
Sharett, Christopher. "The Function of Film Criticism at Any Time." Film International (April 29, 2017)
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Lourdes (Austria/France/Germany: Jessica Hausner, 2009)
Lourdes (Austria/France/Germany: Jessica Hausner, 2009: 96 mins)
Bradshaw, Peter. "Lourdes: Jessica Hausner's drama is subtle, mysterious and brilliant." The Guardian (March 25, 2010)
Calhoun, Dave. "Lourdes is a new film that takes us inside the French religious resort. Time Out meets its director, Jessica Hausner." Time Out
Cho, Seongyong. "In Search of a Miracle." Roger Ebert (January 28, 2012)
Dargis, Manohla. "Lourdes: Mysteries and Hopes Converge on a Shrine." The New York Times (February 17, 2010)
Ferdinand, Marilyn. "#Crucial21DbW: Lourdes directed by Jessica Hausner." #DirectedbyWomen (January 3, 2019)
Hudson, David. "Lourdes." Notebook (February 17, 2010)
"Jessica Hausner's Lourdes." Catholic Commentary (October 19, 2009)
Kasman, Daniel. "TIFF 09: Lourdes (Jessica Hausner, Austria)." Notebook (September 19, 2009)
Kiefer, Jonathan. "Lourdes’ Blessing: In which Jessica Hausner declares her fascination with adjustable perspective." Keyframe (May 9, 2016)
Lanthier, Joseph Jon. "Lourdes." Slant (February 16, 2010)
Romney, Jonathan. "Lourdes: What's indisputable is the power of cinema in this slippery story of a disabled young woman's pilgrimage to Lourdes." The Independent (March 28, 2010)
Resources for October 27, 2015
Matt Zoller Seitz: Video Essays." Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
The Drone Papers The Intercept (Archive) ["The Intercept has obtained a cache of secret documents detailing the inner workings of the U.S. military’s assassination program in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia. The documents, provided by a whistleblower, offer an unprecedented glimpse into Obama’s drone wars."]
Spiegelman, Adam. "Death Race: 2000." The Projection Booth (July 2, 2013) ["Celebrate your independence with this most American of our national sports, the Death Race! We're joined this week by Adam Spiegelman of the Proudly Resents and Dream Tweet podcasts to talk about this 1975 Paul Bartel film about a murderous cross-continental road race."]
Huth, John Edward. "Losing Our Way in the World." The New York Times (July 21, 2013)
O'Connor, M.R. "Finding the Way Back." The New Yorker (July 6, 2015)
Benen, Steve. "Carson sketches out plan for monitoring on-campus speech." The Maddow Blog (October 26, 2015)
Guillén, Michael. "Crafting Truth: James Vanderbilt." Keyframe (October 26, 2015)
Koresky, Michael. "A Few Great Pumpkins X: The Witch." Reverse Shot (October 25, 2015)
The Drone Papers The Intercept (Archive) ["The Intercept has obtained a cache of secret documents detailing the inner workings of the U.S. military’s assassination program in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia. The documents, provided by a whistleblower, offer an unprecedented glimpse into Obama’s drone wars."]
Spiegelman, Adam. "Death Race: 2000." The Projection Booth (July 2, 2013) ["Celebrate your independence with this most American of our national sports, the Death Race! We're joined this week by Adam Spiegelman of the Proudly Resents and Dream Tweet podcasts to talk about this 1975 Paul Bartel film about a murderous cross-continental road race."]
Huth, John Edward. "Losing Our Way in the World." The New York Times (July 21, 2013)
O'Connor, M.R. "Finding the Way Back." The New Yorker (July 6, 2015)
Benen, Steve. "Carson sketches out plan for monitoring on-campus speech." The Maddow Blog (October 26, 2015)
Guillén, Michael. "Crafting Truth: James Vanderbilt." Keyframe (October 26, 2015)
Koresky, Michael. "A Few Great Pumpkins X: The Witch." Reverse Shot (October 25, 2015)
Editing as Punctuation in Film from Max Tohline on Vimeo.
Friday, October 23, 2015
Resources for October 23, 2015
Baldwin, Craig and Adam Parfrey. "Mock Up On Mu." The Projection Booth #116 (May 27, 2013) ["In the first of our two-part series on Scientology in Film, we look at Craig Baldwin's Mock Up on Mu, a story of sex magick, science fiction, and technology. We discuss Jack Parsons, one of the "characters" in Mock Up with Adam Parfrey of Feral House, the publishers of Sex & Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons. We also discuss Peter Alexander's The Profit, a re-telling of Scientology-founder L. Ron Hubbard's life, and compare it with Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master."]
The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears (Belgium/France/Luxembourg: Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, 2013: 102 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
Muižnieks, Nils. "'Everybody is a Suspect': European Rights Chief on Edward Snowden's Call for Global Privacy Treaty." Democracy Now (October 23, 2015) ["Last month, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald and other privacy activists launched a new campaign to establish global privacy standards. The proposed International Treaty on the Right to Privacy, Protection Against Improper Surveillance and Protection of Whistleblowers would require states to ban mass data collection and implement public oversight of national security programs. It would also require states to offer asylum to whistleblowers. It’s been dubbed the "Snowden Treaty." We discuss the state of mass surveillance with Nils Muižnieks, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights."]
Johnson, Dave. "Demands Increase For Investigating Exxon’s Funding Of Climate Denial." The Smirking Chimp (October 23, 2015)
Kessler, Glenn. "A story too good to check: Paul Ryan and the tale of the brown paper bag." The Washington Post (March 6, 2014)
Schwarz, Jon. "Drones, IBM, and the Big Data of Death." The Intercept (October 23, 2015)
Cyzyk, Skizz and Joe Tropea. "Hit and Stay." The Projection Booth #120 (June 25, 2013) [" A look at Hit & Stay, a documentary that looks at the anti-war activism movement from the Catonsville 9 to the Camden 28 and beyond."]
The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears (Belgium/France/Luxembourg: Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, 2013: 102 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
Muižnieks, Nils. "'Everybody is a Suspect': European Rights Chief on Edward Snowden's Call for Global Privacy Treaty." Democracy Now (October 23, 2015) ["Last month, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald and other privacy activists launched a new campaign to establish global privacy standards. The proposed International Treaty on the Right to Privacy, Protection Against Improper Surveillance and Protection of Whistleblowers would require states to ban mass data collection and implement public oversight of national security programs. It would also require states to offer asylum to whistleblowers. It’s been dubbed the "Snowden Treaty." We discuss the state of mass surveillance with Nils Muižnieks, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights."]
Johnson, Dave. "Demands Increase For Investigating Exxon’s Funding Of Climate Denial." The Smirking Chimp (October 23, 2015)
A Field In England – They’re over here devil! from Intro on Vimeo.
Kessler, Glenn. "A story too good to check: Paul Ryan and the tale of the brown paper bag." The Washington Post (March 6, 2014)
Schwarz, Jon. "Drones, IBM, and the Big Data of Death." The Intercept (October 23, 2015)
Cyzyk, Skizz and Joe Tropea. "Hit and Stay." The Projection Booth #120 (June 25, 2013) [" A look at Hit & Stay, a documentary that looks at the anti-war activism movement from the Catonsville 9 to the Camden 28 and beyond."]
Matt Zoller Seitz: Video Essays
Seitz, Matt Zoller. "All Things Shining, Pt. 1 -- The Films of Terrence Malick: Badlands." Moving Image Source (May 10, 2011)
---. "All Things Shining, Pt 2 - The films of Terrence Malick: Days of Heaven." Moving Image Source (May 11, 2011)
---. "All Things Shining, Pt. 3 - The Films of Terrence Malick: The Thin Red Line." Moving Image Source (May 13, 2011)
---. "All Things Shining, Pt 4 - The films of Terrence Malick: The New World." Moving Image Source (May 31, 2011)
---. "All Things Shining, Pt. 5: The Tree of Life." Moving Image Source (October 24, 2011)
---. "Fosse Time." Current (September 25, 2014)
---. "The Wes Anderson Collection Chapter 1: Bottle Rocket." (Posted on Vimeo: 2014)
---. "The Wes Anderson Collection Chapter 2: Rushmore." (Posted on Vimeo: 2014)
---. "The Wes Anderson Collection Chapter 3: The Royal Tenenbaums." (Posted on Vimeo: 2014)
---. "The Wes Anderson Collection Chapter 4: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou." (Posted on Vimeo: 2014)
---. "The Wes Anderson Collection Chapter 5: The Darjeeling Limited." (Posted on Vimeo: 2014)
---. "The Wes Anderson Collection, Chapter 8: The Grand Budapest Hotel." MZS (February 16, 2015)
---. "What Does ‘Cinematic TV’ Really Mean?" Vulture (October 21, 2015)
---. "Zachary Oberzan's One Man Rambo Rethink." Filmmaker (January 10, 2010)
---. "Zombie 101." Moving Image Source (October 28, 2009)
---. "All Things Shining, Pt 2 - The films of Terrence Malick: Days of Heaven." Moving Image Source (May 11, 2011)
---. "All Things Shining, Pt. 3 - The Films of Terrence Malick: The Thin Red Line." Moving Image Source (May 13, 2011)
---. "All Things Shining, Pt 4 - The films of Terrence Malick: The New World." Moving Image Source (May 31, 2011)
---. "All Things Shining, Pt. 5: The Tree of Life." Moving Image Source (October 24, 2011)
---. "Fosse Time." Current (September 25, 2014)
---. "The Wes Anderson Collection Chapter 1: Bottle Rocket." (Posted on Vimeo: 2014)
---. "The Wes Anderson Collection Chapter 2: Rushmore." (Posted on Vimeo: 2014)
---. "The Wes Anderson Collection Chapter 3: The Royal Tenenbaums." (Posted on Vimeo: 2014)
---. "The Wes Anderson Collection Chapter 4: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou." (Posted on Vimeo: 2014)
---. "The Wes Anderson Collection Chapter 5: The Darjeeling Limited." (Posted on Vimeo: 2014)
---. "The Wes Anderson Collection, Chapter 8: The Grand Budapest Hotel." MZS (February 16, 2015)
---. "What Does ‘Cinematic TV’ Really Mean?" Vulture (October 21, 2015)
---. "Zombie 101." Moving Image Source (October 28, 2009)
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Michael Benton: On Feminism
(Repost for students doing conceptual papers on feminism--I need to update this as it is eight years old... --MB)
A response to a comment to an earlier post:
Feminism doesn't demand equality in the sense of Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" (a classic story of PC mania)... rather it is a simple demand for equal opportunity, value and respect.
I'm sorry but I really do not understand your argument here--there are varying abilities in all people and the fact that some men may be physically stronger than some women is no more important than the equally true fact that some women are stronger than some men. I respect science, more and more as the Bush government seeks to discredit it, but when thinking about gender I think we should avoid a deterministic stance.
Feminism is an important word and theory. It is just as valid today as it was in the past, as we are continuingly assaulted by the decisions of backward-looking theocrats like Dr. Hager; the discrimination of American corporations like Wal-Mart who think of women as servants not leaders; the continuing culture of physical intimidation at a local level and on a global scale; emphasis on body as sole factor in a women's value because she only needs to worry about one thing; or where women's history is generally ignored unless it supports a patriarchal view.
I'm a man, often rightly determined to be chauvinistic in my attitudes... I was raised in the 70s... but damn, how blind must a person be to not recognize a continuing system that grossly favors men overall and that systematically attempts to cover up this reality.
There are abusive feminists, they are human, but you cannot discount an entire movement for the actions of a few members. And I am under no illusion that the world will simply become better if women were placed in power as they are just as capable of cruelty and oppression. This is simply a recognition of systematic discrimination in our society and the call to fight it.
I do not claim gender as a privileged position and recognize that it needs to be put into play with a multitude of other perspectives to understand the relationships of power (most definitely perspectives of class, race, sexuality and place--especially when they are used in a deterministic factor to perpetuate discrimination against groups of people).
A response to a comment to an earlier post:
Feminism doesn't demand equality in the sense of Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" (a classic story of PC mania)... rather it is a simple demand for equal opportunity, value and respect.
I'm sorry but I really do not understand your argument here--there are varying abilities in all people and the fact that some men may be physically stronger than some women is no more important than the equally true fact that some women are stronger than some men. I respect science, more and more as the Bush government seeks to discredit it, but when thinking about gender I think we should avoid a deterministic stance.
Feminism is an important word and theory. It is just as valid today as it was in the past, as we are continuingly assaulted by the decisions of backward-looking theocrats like Dr. Hager; the discrimination of American corporations like Wal-Mart who think of women as servants not leaders; the continuing culture of physical intimidation at a local level and on a global scale; emphasis on body as sole factor in a women's value because she only needs to worry about one thing; or where women's history is generally ignored unless it supports a patriarchal view.
I'm a man, often rightly determined to be chauvinistic in my attitudes... I was raised in the 70s... but damn, how blind must a person be to not recognize a continuing system that grossly favors men overall and that systematically attempts to cover up this reality.
There are abusive feminists, they are human, but you cannot discount an entire movement for the actions of a few members. And I am under no illusion that the world will simply become better if women were placed in power as they are just as capable of cruelty and oppression. This is simply a recognition of systematic discrimination in our society and the call to fight it.
I do not claim gender as a privileged position and recognize that it needs to be put into play with a multitude of other perspectives to understand the relationships of power (most definitely perspectives of class, race, sexuality and place--especially when they are used in a deterministic factor to perpetuate discrimination against groups of people).
Resources for October 21, 2015
Worthen, Molly. "Lecture Me. Really." The New York Times (October 17, 2015)
Melas, Natalie. "Aimé Césaire and the Poetics of Anticolonialism." Against the Grain (September 14, 2015) ["Francophone poet, playwright, intellectual, and politician, Aimé Césaire was a fierce critic of the colonial condition and a modernist trailblazer. Scholar Natalie Melas considers the politics and poetics of the Martiniquan writer, arguably the greatest poet of anticolonialism and decolonization. She discusses Césaire's central involvement in the Négritude movement, his celebrated poem "Notebook of a Return to the Native Land," and his influence on Frantz Fanon."]
Kraska, Peter. "Uprooting Academic Complicity in State Violence." Uprooting Criminology (October 19, 2015)
Lee, Kevin B. "The Tragic Timing of Denis Villeneuve." Keyframe (August 9, 2015) ["How cinema is given meaning and feeling through the sculpting of time."]
Pahle, Rebecca. "A Strongly Worded Letter to Universal's Marketing Department on the Subject of Crimson Peak." Pajiba (October 19, 2015)
Smith, Matt. "Modern-day witch trials: Law enforcement target Mexican folk religion." Reveal (October 16, 2015)
Talbot, David. "Inside Allan Dulles' Reign as CIA Director, from '54 Guatemala Coup to Plotting Castro's Overthrow." Democracy Now (October 19, 2015) ["Voters go to the polls in Guatemala on Sunday to elect a new president after a popular uprising led to President Otto Pérez Molina’s resignation and jailing. We speak with journalist and historian David Talbot, author of "The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government," about the role Allen Dulles and his brother, then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, played in the CIA’s 1954 coup in the country, the ramifications of which are still being felt. "The CIA and Allen Dulles told Eisenhower after the Guatemala coup, 'Oh, it was a clean coup. You know, hardly anyone died,'" Talbot said. "But the fact is, tens of thousands of people died in the killing fields of Guatemala as a result of that coup, and that violence continues today.""]
Hynes, Eric. "Glenn Greenwald [on] the intersection of writing and film, and what led him to explore the bond between homeless people and their dogs in Rio." The Intercept (October 20, 2015)
Hal Hartley Pinewood Dialogues (January 14, 1995) ["Hal Hartley's films are marked by spare, precise visuals, a stylized approach to dialogue that allows characters to speak their innermost thoughts, and an intuitive gift for playing with the conventions of movie-making and storytelling. Playing off the contrast between cerebral characters and quotidian settings, Hartley creates comedic inquiries into the nature of belonging and the search for personal freedom. In the role of writer, director, editor and composer, Hartley exerts control over films about characters for whom control is a fragile and elusive concept. This dialogue took place at a complete retrospective early in Hartley's career."]
Brown, Barrett. "The Barrett Brown Review of Arts and Letters and Prison: Stop Sending Me Jonathan Franzen Novels." The Intercept (October 6, 2015)
Melas, Natalie. "Aimé Césaire and the Poetics of Anticolonialism." Against the Grain (September 14, 2015) ["Francophone poet, playwright, intellectual, and politician, Aimé Césaire was a fierce critic of the colonial condition and a modernist trailblazer. Scholar Natalie Melas considers the politics and poetics of the Martiniquan writer, arguably the greatest poet of anticolonialism and decolonization. She discusses Césaire's central involvement in the Négritude movement, his celebrated poem "Notebook of a Return to the Native Land," and his influence on Frantz Fanon."]
Kraska, Peter. "Uprooting Academic Complicity in State Violence." Uprooting Criminology (October 19, 2015)
Lee, Kevin B. "The Tragic Timing of Denis Villeneuve." Keyframe (August 9, 2015) ["How cinema is given meaning and feeling through the sculpting of time."]
Pahle, Rebecca. "A Strongly Worded Letter to Universal's Marketing Department on the Subject of Crimson Peak." Pajiba (October 19, 2015)
Smith, Matt. "Modern-day witch trials: Law enforcement target Mexican folk religion." Reveal (October 16, 2015)
Talbot, David. "Inside Allan Dulles' Reign as CIA Director, from '54 Guatemala Coup to Plotting Castro's Overthrow." Democracy Now (October 19, 2015) ["Voters go to the polls in Guatemala on Sunday to elect a new president after a popular uprising led to President Otto Pérez Molina’s resignation and jailing. We speak with journalist and historian David Talbot, author of "The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government," about the role Allen Dulles and his brother, then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, played in the CIA’s 1954 coup in the country, the ramifications of which are still being felt. "The CIA and Allen Dulles told Eisenhower after the Guatemala coup, 'Oh, it was a clean coup. You know, hardly anyone died,'" Talbot said. "But the fact is, tens of thousands of people died in the killing fields of Guatemala as a result of that coup, and that violence continues today.""]
Hynes, Eric. "Glenn Greenwald [on] the intersection of writing and film, and what led him to explore the bond between homeless people and their dogs in Rio." The Intercept (October 20, 2015)
Hal Hartley Pinewood Dialogues (January 14, 1995) ["Hal Hartley's films are marked by spare, precise visuals, a stylized approach to dialogue that allows characters to speak their innermost thoughts, and an intuitive gift for playing with the conventions of movie-making and storytelling. Playing off the contrast between cerebral characters and quotidian settings, Hartley creates comedic inquiries into the nature of belonging and the search for personal freedom. In the role of writer, director, editor and composer, Hartley exerts control over films about characters for whom control is a fragile and elusive concept. This dialogue took place at a complete retrospective early in Hartley's career."]
Brown, Barrett. "The Barrett Brown Review of Arts and Letters and Prison: Stop Sending Me Jonathan Franzen Novels." The Intercept (October 6, 2015)
Monday, October 19, 2015
Resources for October 19, 2015
Archive in Focus: Syd Shelton, Rock against Racism from Autograph ABP on Vimeo.
Michael Benton: "Incredible series of powerful photos documenting the Rock Against Racism movement - this was a huge influence on my developing teenage (12-17 yrs) political perspective and I think it is time that RAR is revived/re-established."
Shelton, Syd. Rock Against Racism Photographs (Facebook: Posted on October 15, 2015)
Goldberg, Max. "Hou’s Killer Instincts with THE ASSASSIN." Keyframe (October 15, 2015)
Currier, Cora, Ryan Deveraux, and Jeremy Scahill. "The Longest U.S. War, Prolonged: After Vowing Afghan Pullout, Obama Extends Occupation Indefinitely." Democracy Now (October 16, 2015) ["President Obama has reversed plans to withdraw most U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the time he leaves office. On Thursday, Obama said a deteriorating security situation will force him to maintain the current deployment of 9,800 soldiers through 2016. When Obama’s term ends in 2017, the U.S. will keep at least 5,500 troops at four bases across Afghanistan. After 14 years of war, the Taliban now holds more of Afghanistan than at any point since the 2001 U.S. invasion, and some estimates put them in control of half the country. President Obama’s announcement comes nearly a year after he declared an official end to the U.S. combat mission, though U.S. military operations have continued. The move assures that despite previous pledges, the war will continue under his successor. We are joined by Intercept reporters Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Devereaux and Cora Currier, whose new series "The Drone Papers" includes a detailed look at the drone war in Afghanistan based on government leaks."]
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (USA: Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014: 99 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
Kutner, Jenny. "#CocksNotGlocks Comes From a Long History of Using Sex Toys as Protest Tools." Mic (October 14, 2015)
"Charles Burnett, Pt. 1." Moving Image Source (January 7, 1995) ["The pioneering African-American director Charles Burnett was a film student at UCLA when he made Killer of Sheep (1977), a powerful independent film that combines blues-inspired lyricism and neo-realism in its drama of an inner-city slaughterhouse worker and his family. Killer of Sheep, now regarded as a landmark in American independent cinema, was part of a small group of films that became known as "The L.A. Rebellion." During a retrospective of his films at the Museum of the Moving Image, he introduced a screening of Killer of Sheep and then participated in a wide-ranging discussion moderated by culture critic Greg Tate."]
Grady, Pam. "Regarding Milgram: Michael Almereyda on EXPERIMENTER." Keyframe (October 13, 2015)
"Charles Burnett, Pt. 2." Moving Image Source (January 8, 1995) ["The pioneering African-American director Charles Burnett was a film student at UCLA when he made Killer of Sheep (1977), a powerful independent film that combines blues-inspired lyricism and neo-realism in its drama of an inner-city slaughterhouse worker and his family. Killer of Sheep, now regarded as one of the best films of its era, was part of a small group of films that became known as "The L.A. Rebellion." During a retrospective of his films at the Museum of the Moving Image, he answered questions from the audience about To Sleep with Anger, his drama starring Danny Glover as a mysterious visitor from the South who stirs up a Los Angeles family."]
Hudson, David. "Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak: “Wears its heart on its sleeve, along with its soul and most of its intestines.”." Keyframe (October 14, 2015)
Ackerman, Spencer. "Homan Square revealed: how Chicago police 'disappeared' 7,000 people." The Guardian (October 19, 2015) ["Guardian lawsuit exposes fullest scale yet of detentions at off-the-books interrogation warehouse, while attorneys describe find-your-client chase across Chicago as ‘something from a Bond movie’"]
Longo, Stefano B. "Commodifying the Oceans." Against the Grain (October 19, 2015) ['The oceans are in turmoil, but unfortunately most of it is out of sight and therefore out of mind. Environmental sociologist Stefano Longo explores the multiple threats to the oceans, from overfishing to coral reef collapse to ocean acidification. He weighs in on whether the notion of the “tragedy of the commons” is sufficient to explain the roots of the crisis."]
Saturday, October 17, 2015
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (USA: Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014)
Strange things are afoot in Bad City. [...] The first Iranian Vampire Western, Ana Lily Amirpour's debut feature A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night basks in the sheer pleasure of pulp. A joyful mash-up of genre, archetype and iconography, its prolific influences span spaghetti westerns, graphic novels, horror films, and the Iranian New Wave. Amped by a mix of Iranian rock, techno and Morricone-inspired riffs, its airy, anamorphic, black-and-white aesthetic and artfully drawn-out scenes combine the simmering tension of Sergio Leone with the surrealism of David Lynch. – Kino Lorber
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (USA: Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014: 99 mins)
"Ana Lily Amirpour & Sheila Vand/Jason Ritter/Maya Erdelyi." Filmwax Radio #257 (November 22, 2014) ["Ana Lily Amirpour, director of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night & her lead actress Sheila Wand are the guests in the first segment."]
Bastién, Angelica Jade. "Genre Is a Woman and She Has Fangs – On A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night." Vague Visages (June 10, 2016)
Belzile, Becky. "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Emotional Connection." Pop Culture Case Study (June 22, 2017) ["We talk about female directors, horror movies, vampires, male and female gaze..."]
Ewing, James Blake. "A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT (2014)." Creative Criticism (May 11, 2015)
Feinstein, Howard. "No One Knows About Persian Cats." Filmmaker (November 21, 2014)
Juzwiak, Rich. "The Iranian Vampire Tale of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night." Gawker (November 21, 2014)
Kermode, Mark. "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night review – exhilarating vampire girl power." The Guardian (May 24, 2015)
Kuersten, Erich. "Druggie Vampire Women of B&W City: A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT, THE ADDICTION, NADJA." Acidemic (April 1, 2015)
Lanouette, Janine. "The Story Women Have Been Trying to Tell For Years Now." Filmmaker (November 15, 2017)
Pellegrini, Guido. "Genre Sampling: On Iranian Vampires, Adolescent Demons, Long Nights and Shards of Kryptonite." Vague Visages (December 2, 2016)
Reilly, Phoebe. "From Babadook to Raw: The Rise of the Modern Female Horror Filmmaker." Rolling Stone (October 27, 2016)
Salovaara, Sarah. "The Limits of Supernatural Subversions: Under The Skin and A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night." Filmmaker (April 3, 2014)
Taylor, Drew. "New Directors/New Films Review: A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night Is A New Vampire Classic." Indiewire (March 20, 2014)
Resources for October 17, 2015
Talbot, David. "The Rise of America’s Secret Government: The Deadly Legacy of Ex-CIA Director Allen Dulles." Democracy Now (October 13, 2015) ["It’s been more than 50 years since Allen Dulles resigned as director of the CIA, but his legacy lives on. Between 1953 and 1961, under his watch, the CIA overthrew the governments of Iran and Guatemala, invaded Cuba, and was tied to the killing of Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s first democratically elected leader. We speak with David Talbot, author of "The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government," about how Dulles’ time at the CIA helped shape the current national security state."]
Ehrlich, David. "Nymphomaniac and the infinite loneliness of Lars von Trier." The Dissolve (March 27, 2014)
Annas, Julia. "What is Virtue Ethics For?." Philosophy Bites (December 20, 2014) ["Julia Annas outlines the key features of Virtue Ethics, the approach to living well derived from Aristotle's writings, and explains what she thinks the purpose of this ethical approach is."]
Levinson, Meira. "On the Aims of Education." Philosophy Bites (January 18, 2015) ["Historically the philosophy of education has been at the core of the subject. Today there are relatively few philosophers working in this area. Meira Levinson, a philosopher with experience of teaching in US public schools, is one of them. Here she discusses fundamental questions about what we are trying to do when we educate our children."]
Korsgaard, Christine. "On the Status of Animals." Philosophy Bites (February 3, 2015) ["Harvard philosopher Christine Korsgaard defends a Kantian account of the status of animals in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. She argues that we should treat animals as ends in themselves and spells out what that means in practice."]
Scahill, Jeremy. "Drone War Exposed: Jeremy Scahill on U.S. Kill Program's Secrets & the Whistleblower Who Leaked Them." Democracy Now (October 16, 2015) ["One of the most secretive military campaigns in U.S. history is under the microscope like never before. In a major exposé based on leaked government documents, The Intercept has published the most in-depth look at the U.S. drone assassination program to date. "The Drone Papers" exposes the inner workings of the U.S. military’s assassination program in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia, revealing a number of flaws and far more casualties than the intended targets. The documents were leaked to The Intercept by an unnamed U.S. intelligence source who says he wanted to alert Americans to wrongdoing. We are joined by The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill, lead author of the exposé, "The Drone Papers."]
Currier, Cora and Jeremy Scahill. "'The Drone Papers' Reveals How Faulty Intel & Secret "Kill Chain" Mark Suspects, Civilians for Death." Democracy Now (October 16, 2015) ["The Intercept series "The Drone Papers" exposes the inner workings of how the drone war is waged, from how targets are identified to who decides to kill. They expose a number of flaws, including that strikes have resulted in large part from electronic communications data, or "signals intelligence," that officials acknowledge is unreliable. We speak to Intercept reporter Cora Currier, whose article "The Kill Chain," reveals how the U.S. identifies and selects assassination targets, from the collection of data and human intelligence all the way to President Obama’s desk."]
Nader, Ralph. "Afghanistan and Iraq: Lessons for the Imperial." Veterans for Peace (October 12, 2015)
Ehrlich, David. "Nymphomaniac and the infinite loneliness of Lars von Trier." The Dissolve (March 27, 2014)
Annas, Julia. "What is Virtue Ethics For?." Philosophy Bites (December 20, 2014) ["Julia Annas outlines the key features of Virtue Ethics, the approach to living well derived from Aristotle's writings, and explains what she thinks the purpose of this ethical approach is."]
Levinson, Meira. "On the Aims of Education." Philosophy Bites (January 18, 2015) ["Historically the philosophy of education has been at the core of the subject. Today there are relatively few philosophers working in this area. Meira Levinson, a philosopher with experience of teaching in US public schools, is one of them. Here she discusses fundamental questions about what we are trying to do when we educate our children."]
Korsgaard, Christine. "On the Status of Animals." Philosophy Bites (February 3, 2015) ["Harvard philosopher Christine Korsgaard defends a Kantian account of the status of animals in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. She argues that we should treat animals as ends in themselves and spells out what that means in practice."]
Scahill, Jeremy. "Drone War Exposed: Jeremy Scahill on U.S. Kill Program's Secrets & the Whistleblower Who Leaked Them." Democracy Now (October 16, 2015) ["One of the most secretive military campaigns in U.S. history is under the microscope like never before. In a major exposé based on leaked government documents, The Intercept has published the most in-depth look at the U.S. drone assassination program to date. "The Drone Papers" exposes the inner workings of the U.S. military’s assassination program in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia, revealing a number of flaws and far more casualties than the intended targets. The documents were leaked to The Intercept by an unnamed U.S. intelligence source who says he wanted to alert Americans to wrongdoing. We are joined by The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill, lead author of the exposé, "The Drone Papers."]
Currier, Cora and Jeremy Scahill. "'The Drone Papers' Reveals How Faulty Intel & Secret "Kill Chain" Mark Suspects, Civilians for Death." Democracy Now (October 16, 2015) ["The Intercept series "The Drone Papers" exposes the inner workings of how the drone war is waged, from how targets are identified to who decides to kill. They expose a number of flaws, including that strikes have resulted in large part from electronic communications data, or "signals intelligence," that officials acknowledge is unreliable. We speak to Intercept reporter Cora Currier, whose article "The Kill Chain," reveals how the U.S. identifies and selects assassination targets, from the collection of data and human intelligence all the way to President Obama’s desk."]
Nader, Ralph. "Afghanistan and Iraq: Lessons for the Imperial." Veterans for Peace (October 12, 2015)
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Resources for October 13, 2015
Kiel, Paul and Annie Waldman. "The Color of Debt: How Collection Suits Squeeze Black Neighborhoods." Pro Publica (october 8, 2015)
"Fifteen Confederate ‘flaggers’ indicted for terroristic threats and gang activity in Georgia." Southern Poverty Law Center (October 12, 2015)
Hudson, David. "NYFF 2015 | Don Cheadle’s MILES AHEAD." Keyframe (October 12, 2015) [“As witty and knowing as Mr. Cheadle’s sly, whispery performance.”]
Buchheit, Paul. "Five Great American Hypocrises." Truthdig (October 12, 2015)
Riesman, Abraham. "Jessica Jones Has Hot Sex and Nuanced Sexuality (Especially for a Marvel Show)." Vulture (October 12, 2015)
Jacoby, Alexander. "Journeys into night: the police thrillers of Yoshitaro Nomura." Sight and Sound (March 27, 2014) ["Investigating post-war Japan with Shochiku’s career exponent of sleek, subtle genre cinema."]
Morris, Earl. "The Unknown Known: Errol Morris’ New Doc Tackles Unrepentant Iraq War Architect Donald Rumsfeld." Democracy Now (March 27, 2014)
Monday, October 12, 2015
Resources for October 12, 2015
Kuruvilla, Carol. "Sorry, Islamophobes: Your Anti-Muslim Rallies Ended Up Inspiring Acts Of Love And Service." The Huffington Post (October 11, 2015) ["After hearing about armed protests scheduled to take place around mosques, the interfaith community rallied around Muslims."]
Huff, Mickey. "Top Censored Stories Of 2015." Mint Press (October 7, 2015) ["Mass bee die-offs, the dizzying wealth of the world’s 1%, U.S. military expansion -- the corporate media might not be talking about it, but Project Censored’s Mickey Huff doesn’t shy away from discussing these topics with Mnar Muhawesh on “Behind the Headline.”"]
Popova, Maria. "20-Year-Old Hunter S. Thompson’s Superb Advice on How to Find Your Purpose and Live a Meaningful Life." Brain Pickings (November 4, 2013)
Bacharach, Jacob. "Ben Carson Is Wrong About the Holocaust: Jews Did Fight Back." The New Republic (October 9, 2015)
Bacevich, Andrew. "A Decade of War." The UO Channel (May 3, 2012) ["Andrew Bacevich discussed the U.S.’s over-reliance on military power to achieve its foreign policy aims... [and] addressed several urgently important questions: “More than a decade into the ‘Global War on Terror,’ where has that conflict taken us? What has it achieved? What has it cost? Although,” Bacevich notes, “the inclination to turn away from these questions may be strong, Americans should resist that temptation.” Andrew Bacevich was a persistent and vocal critic of the U.S. occupation of Iraq from the outset, describing George W. Bush’s endorsement of such “preventive wars” as “immoral, illicit, and imprudent.” His son, Andrew Bacevich Jr., also an Army officer, was killed in action in Iraq in 2007 at the age of 27. In 2010, Bacevich accused President Obama of “want[ing] us to forget about the lessons of Iraq.” A graduate of West Point (1969), Bacevich holds a Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton. He taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins prior to joining the faculty at Boston University in 1998. Bacevich is the author of several books, including Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War (2010); The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2008); and The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War (2005). He is also the editor of a book of essays titled The Short American Century: A Postmortem (March 2012)."]
Marinetto, Mike. "Wanted: crime-fighting academics to catch corporate criminals." The Conversation (March 24, 2014)
Nayman, Adam. "Hardbodies and Soul: The Professional Wrestler as Actor." Cinema-Scope #58 (2014)
Cohen, Greg. "The revolution must (not) be advertised. The Players vs. Ángeles Caídos, the discourse of advertising, and the limits of political modernism." Jump Cut #56 (Winter 2014/2015)
Alexander, Michelle. "The New Jim Crow." The UO Channel (November 15, 2012) ["For reasons that seem to have little to do with crime or crime rates, we in the United States have chosen to lock up more than two million of our citizens. The U.S. has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world, and it is continuing to rise. Michelle Alexander, a legal scholar and former civil rights attorney, examines this phenomenon, and offers her thoughts on what she believes to be the underlying racial biases that drive the U.S. criminal justice system. Alexander’s lecture ... will be based on her recent book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010)."]
Okri, Ben. "A New Dream of Politics." The Guardian (October 12, 2015)
Huff, Mickey. "Top Censored Stories Of 2015." Mint Press (October 7, 2015) ["Mass bee die-offs, the dizzying wealth of the world’s 1%, U.S. military expansion -- the corporate media might not be talking about it, but Project Censored’s Mickey Huff doesn’t shy away from discussing these topics with Mnar Muhawesh on “Behind the Headline.”"]
Popova, Maria. "20-Year-Old Hunter S. Thompson’s Superb Advice on How to Find Your Purpose and Live a Meaningful Life." Brain Pickings (November 4, 2013)
Bacharach, Jacob. "Ben Carson Is Wrong About the Holocaust: Jews Did Fight Back." The New Republic (October 9, 2015)
Bacevich, Andrew. "A Decade of War." The UO Channel (May 3, 2012) ["Andrew Bacevich discussed the U.S.’s over-reliance on military power to achieve its foreign policy aims... [and] addressed several urgently important questions: “More than a decade into the ‘Global War on Terror,’ where has that conflict taken us? What has it achieved? What has it cost? Although,” Bacevich notes, “the inclination to turn away from these questions may be strong, Americans should resist that temptation.” Andrew Bacevich was a persistent and vocal critic of the U.S. occupation of Iraq from the outset, describing George W. Bush’s endorsement of such “preventive wars” as “immoral, illicit, and imprudent.” His son, Andrew Bacevich Jr., also an Army officer, was killed in action in Iraq in 2007 at the age of 27. In 2010, Bacevich accused President Obama of “want[ing] us to forget about the lessons of Iraq.” A graduate of West Point (1969), Bacevich holds a Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton. He taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins prior to joining the faculty at Boston University in 1998. Bacevich is the author of several books, including Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War (2010); The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2008); and The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War (2005). He is also the editor of a book of essays titled The Short American Century: A Postmortem (March 2012)."]
Marinetto, Mike. "Wanted: crime-fighting academics to catch corporate criminals." The Conversation (March 24, 2014)
Nayman, Adam. "Hardbodies and Soul: The Professional Wrestler as Actor." Cinema-Scope #58 (2014)
Cohen, Greg. "The revolution must (not) be advertised. The Players vs. Ángeles Caídos, the discourse of advertising, and the limits of political modernism." Jump Cut #56 (Winter 2014/2015)
Alexander, Michelle. "The New Jim Crow." The UO Channel (November 15, 2012) ["For reasons that seem to have little to do with crime or crime rates, we in the United States have chosen to lock up more than two million of our citizens. The U.S. has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world, and it is continuing to rise. Michelle Alexander, a legal scholar and former civil rights attorney, examines this phenomenon, and offers her thoughts on what she believes to be the underlying racial biases that drive the U.S. criminal justice system. Alexander’s lecture ... will be based on her recent book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010)."]
Okri, Ben. "A New Dream of Politics." The Guardian (October 12, 2015)
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Resources for October 11, 2015
Doros, Dennis. "The Films of Shirley Clarke." On Film (March 28, 2015)
Bridges, Tristan and Tara Leigh Tober. "Mass Shootings in the U.S. are on the Rise. What Makes American Men So Dangerous?" Sociological Images (July 27, 2015)
Mass Shooting Tracker (Ongoing Archive)
Jørgensen, Lisbeth Nannestad. "Dreyer's Jesus - A Jew Among Jews." Carlthdreyer (July 5, 2013)
Popova, Maria. "George Lucas on the Meaning of Life." Brain Pickings (March 17, 2014)
Gazzaniga, Riccardo. "The white man in that photo." Griot (October 3, 2015)
Besné, Viviana Garcia and Alistair Tremps. "Fascinating Eye on the Border." On Film (April 11, 2015) ["The Calderón brothers were Viviana's & Monica's great grandfathers, and the brothers' reputations as theater owners and film producers is renowned across Mexico and the borderland. Besné's film "Perdida" explores the Calderón family history. In this online-only extended interview, Viviana & Alistair also talk about the upcoming film "Shadow Collectors," which explores the efforts to preserve original film prints after they have been digitized. Many of the original prints are either left to decay or thrown out altogether."]
Major, Aaron. "Media spin on violence against police." Sociological Images (September 14, 2015)
Popova, Maria. "Salvador Dalí Illustrates Don Quixote: The art of fighting surrealist windmills." Brain Pickings (October 9, 2013)
Bridges, Tristan and Tara Leigh Tober. "Mass Shootings in the U.S. are on the Rise. What Makes American Men So Dangerous?" Sociological Images (July 27, 2015)
Mass Shooting Tracker (Ongoing Archive)
Jørgensen, Lisbeth Nannestad. "Dreyer's Jesus - A Jew Among Jews." Carlthdreyer (July 5, 2013)
Popova, Maria. "George Lucas on the Meaning of Life." Brain Pickings (March 17, 2014)
Gazzaniga, Riccardo. "The white man in that photo." Griot (October 3, 2015)
Besné, Viviana Garcia and Alistair Tremps. "Fascinating Eye on the Border." On Film (April 11, 2015) ["The Calderón brothers were Viviana's & Monica's great grandfathers, and the brothers' reputations as theater owners and film producers is renowned across Mexico and the borderland. Besné's film "Perdida" explores the Calderón family history. In this online-only extended interview, Viviana & Alistair also talk about the upcoming film "Shadow Collectors," which explores the efforts to preserve original film prints after they have been digitized. Many of the original prints are either left to decay or thrown out altogether."]
Major, Aaron. "Media spin on violence against police." Sociological Images (September 14, 2015)
Popova, Maria. "Salvador Dalí Illustrates Don Quixote: The art of fighting surrealist windmills." Brain Pickings (October 9, 2013)
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Resources for October 10, 2015
Jeff Jeffries comedic bit on "guns in America":
"After Oregon." On the Media (October 3, 2015) ["Searching for answers after a tragedy like the shooting at Umpqua Community College can be difficult. But some laws have made searching for even the most basic answers - such as how many concealed weapons owners live in a state - just as difficult to find. In 2011, Michael Luo of The New York Times was writing a series of articles about gun laws across the country. He requested data from Oregon officials about the state's gun license holders, but when pro-gun rights groups learned he was trying to get the information they lobbied the state legislature to shield the data. Within months a new law had passed: all of the records, formerly in the public domain, were now private. Bob talks with Luo about why the data is important and why shielding it can making searching for answers after a tragedy so difficult. Bob also revisits his conversation with Tom Teves, whose son Alex was killed in the shooting rampage in Aurora, Colorado, about his efforts to keep the press from turning mass killers into media icons with his group, NoNotoriety."]
"Quotes From Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015) on Detroit, Rebellion and Revolutionary Strategy." Democracy Now (October 5, 2015) ["Longtime Detroit activist and philosopher Grace Lee Boggs died this morning at the age of 100. Grace was involved with the civil rights, Black Power, labor, environmental justice, and feminist movements over the past seven decades. She appeared many times on Democracy Now! over the years in wide-ranging interviews. Here are some excerpts from our conversations."]
Hanh, Thich Nhat, Cheri Maples and Larry Ward. "Mindfulness, Suffering, and Engaged Buddhism." On Being (January 22, 2015) ["The Vietnamese Zen master, whom Martin Luther King nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, is a voice of power and wisdom in this time of tumult in the world. We visited Thich Nhat Hanh at a retreat attended by police officers and other members of the criminal justice system; they offer stark gentle wisdom for finding buoyancy and “being peace” in a world of conflict, anger, and violence."]
Lewis, John. "The Art & Discipline of Nonviolence." On Being (January 15, 2015) ["We take in the extraordinary wisdom of Congressman John Lewis, on what happened in Selma on Bloody Sunday and beyond — and how it might inform our common life today. A rare look inside the civil rights leaders’ spiritual confrontation with themselves — and their intricate art of nonviolence."]
Major, Aaron. "Media Spin on Violence Against Police." Sociological Images (September 14, 2015)
Borenstein, Seth. "Those Who Reject Mainstream Climate Science." On the Media (September 25, 2015) ["This week, the Associated Press announced a change to their Stylebook entry on global warming: journalists should avoid the use of the terms "climate change denier" or "climate change skeptic." Instead, use "doubter" or "those who reject mainstream climate science." Bob speaks with AP science reporter Seth Borenstein about where the change comes from and what it says about the state of climate change consensus."]
Keene, John. "Every Story Has a Twin." On the Media (September 25, 2015) ["John Keene's new book, Counternarratives, conjures the voices of people at the margins of history and puts them at the center. His stories cover sprawling historical and geographical ground, from an 18th century Parisian circus to early 20th century Harlem. Brooke talks with Keene about his collection, and we bring a few of his stories to life."]
Fernandes, Ricky. "200 Greatest Horror Films: 31 Days of Horror." Poptiq (October 2015)
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Resources for October 6, 2015
"No Home Movie: In Warm Memory of Chantal Akerman 1950-2015." Film Studies for Free (October 6, 2015)
Davidson, Alex. "Chantal Akerman for beginners." Sight and Sound (June 2015) ["An introduction to one of the most significant and enigmatic directors in world cinema."]
Inglourious Basterds." (USA/Germany: Quentin Tarantino, 2009: 153 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
"Mad Detective." Masters of Cinema (April 10, 2013)
"Thirty-seven European films submitted to the Oscars." Cineuropa (October 1, 2015)
Morena, Carolina. "Junot Diaz On Why It's So Important To Read Authors Who Don't Look Like You." The Huffington Post (October 2, 2015) [""You look at this country and you look at this world and you need to understand it in complex ways."]
Larris, Rachel. "A Comprehensive Guide To The Deceptively-Edited Videos Used Against Planned Parenthood." Media Matters (August 31, 2015)
Rosin, Hannah. "The Overprotected Kid." The Atlantic (April 2014)
ENG 102: Books and Writers Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
Martin, Courtney and Parker Palmer. "The Inner Life of Rebellion." On Being (January 8, 2015) ["The history of rebellion is rife with excess and burnout. But new generations have a distinctive commitment to be reflective and activist at once, to be in service as much as in charge, and to learn from history while bringing very new realities into being. Journalist and entrepreneur Courtney Martin and Quaker wise man Parker Palmer come together for a cross-generational conversation about the inner work of sustainable, resilient social change."]
Davidson, Alex. "Chantal Akerman for beginners." Sight and Sound (June 2015) ["An introduction to one of the most significant and enigmatic directors in world cinema."]
Inglourious Basterds." (USA/Germany: Quentin Tarantino, 2009: 153 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
"Mad Detective." Masters of Cinema (April 10, 2013)
"Thirty-seven European films submitted to the Oscars." Cineuropa (October 1, 2015)
Morena, Carolina. "Junot Diaz On Why It's So Important To Read Authors Who Don't Look Like You." The Huffington Post (October 2, 2015) [""You look at this country and you look at this world and you need to understand it in complex ways."]
Larris, Rachel. "A Comprehensive Guide To The Deceptively-Edited Videos Used Against Planned Parenthood." Media Matters (August 31, 2015)
Rosin, Hannah. "The Overprotected Kid." The Atlantic (April 2014)
ENG 102: Books and Writers Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
Martin, Courtney and Parker Palmer. "The Inner Life of Rebellion." On Being (January 8, 2015) ["The history of rebellion is rife with excess and burnout. But new generations have a distinctive commitment to be reflective and activist at once, to be in service as much as in charge, and to learn from history while bringing very new realities into being. Journalist and entrepreneur Courtney Martin and Quaker wise man Parker Palmer come together for a cross-generational conversation about the inner work of sustainable, resilient social change."]
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