Film and TV
“Poor Things” Floats Like a Butterfly and Stings Like a Butterfly
Poor Things is a fantastical comedy with beautiful set design and costumes and an Oscar-winning performance from Emma Stone. So why did it leave me feeling so empty? Despite juggling feminist and socialist ideas, the film is ideologically muddled and often self-contradictory.
Basil Rozlaban
March 16, 2024“Oppenheimer” Shows the Betrayals of Stalinism and the Dangers of Lesser Evilism
Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" is a striking tale of a man who leaves the Left because of the betrayals of Stalinism. The film is also a warning about where lesser evilism in the face of the Far Right can lead us.
Sybil Davis
March 10, 2024Berlinale: Filmmakers Say What the Rest of the World is Saying
At the Berlinale film festival, Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers called for equality and peace. German politicians want to ban such hateful talk.
Nathaniel Flakin
February 28, 2024The Hollywood Strikes Showed That a New Kind of Class Consciousness Is Growing
The SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes showed a new type of solidarity in the labor movement and reflected a growing class consciousness around labor. We must build on these lessons as the labor movement heads into 2024.
Sybil Davis
December 21, 2023Turning the Greatest Anti-war Novel Ever into Bourgeois Propaganda
All Quiet on the Western Front won four Oscars, and it’s not hard to see why. The production — depicting the horrors of World War I — is spectacular. Yet the producers did not at all understand Erich Maria Remarque’s novel. Spoilers follow.
Nathaniel Flakin
March 16, 2023Glass Onion: Liberalism’s Dream
Netflix’s new movie, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, is the ruling class’s dream about itself.
Jason Koslowski
January 4, 2023One Way Out: The Revolutionary Hero of Andor
Not just another Star Wars story set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Andor is a mature science fiction series about radicalization and rebellion against fascism and imperialism.
Doug Enaa Greene
December 2, 2022Selling Suffering and the Spectacle of Blackness in Nope
In his new movie, Jordan Peele examines the ways in which the capitalist system forces us to place our lives in jeopardy and sell our own suffering. Spoiler alert!
Emma Boyhtari
October 14, 2022Aftershock: How a Racist System Turns Childbirth into a Death Sentence
Aftershock exposes the disastrous effects of the for-profit medical industry on Black pregnant people and a capitalist system that puts profit before human lives — whether they desire to become parents or not.
Shain Slepian
September 16, 2022Women Directors Have Made Some of the Greatest Films Ever. Here Are 11 You Might Not Know.
Women have been important contributors to the development of cinema from the beginning, but films by women directors have often been underappreciated and overlooked. Here we present some of the greatest films made by women from around the world to enjoy during Women’s History Month and throughout the year.
Shalon van Tine
March 3, 2022