Summer of the Superhero
Adam Howard : Arts, Culture, & Entertainment
Superhero-themed films are dominating the summer box office. Is it just about the bottom line or our national longing for genuine heroism?
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Torturing Iron Man
Nick Turse : Afghanistan
The Pentagon does a star turn in Iron Man, and the summer blockbuster turns the realities of the war in Afganistan upside down. Will anyone notice?
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Why War, Inc. Works
Jeremy Scahill : Iraq War
John Cusack's War, Inc. takes on a seldom-discussed aspect of the occupation: the corporate dominance of the US war machine.
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Guantánamo Ain't No Joke
Shayana Kadidal : Civil Rights & Liberties
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantánamo Bay is very funny. Nothing about the real place is.
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Her Good Thing
Nathaniel Friedman : Music
The versatile vocalist Mable John, now a novelist and minister, has come a long way since the 1960s soul era that made her (almost) famous.
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Phil Donahue's War
John Nichols : Iraq War
His new documentary is breaking the taboo that says Americans cannot stomach the reality of the Iraq War.
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Un Ballon Est un Ballon
Stuart Klawans
In Flight of the Red Balloon, filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien takes on an unmistakably Parisian story with unbridled creative abandon.
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Fitna's Hateful Crusade
Aziz Huq : Islam & Muslims
The new film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders is the latest in a series of stunts aimed at humiliating and scapegoating Muslims.
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Tracing Slavery's Past
Te-Ping Chen : History
On the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade, a documentarian tries to come to grips with her family's history in the trade.
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The Film We Dreamed
Charles Taylor : Books
In Zeroville, Steve Erickson explores New Hollywood's promise and doom and the dissolution of cinema into spectacle.
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Charlie Wilson's War--and Ours
Robert Scheer : Pakistan
Unlike the plot of the latest Tom Hanks film, the blowback price of our incessant meddling could prove quite high. And even Hollywood can't put a pretty face on that one.
2007
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Amnesia at the Multiplex
Lakshmi Chaudhry : Islam & Muslims
Two films address US adventures in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with a big dose of historical amnesia, political pandering, moral superiority and outraged innocence.
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Chaos, Clocks, Juxtapositions
With the release of the Dylan pastiche I'm Not There, Todd Haynes revises our cultural memory by adjusting familiar clichés.
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Love by a Thousand Cuts
Museums can't get enough of Kara Walker, whose silhouettes of the history of slavery seem to be a nightmare she's trying to enjoy.
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Carter Speaks His Mind
John Nichols : Israeli/Palestinian Conflict
A conversation with the former President on Jonathan Demme's new film, Jimmy Carter Man From Plains, and the difficulty of talking about Israel and Palestine.
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The Cinema of Terror
Christine Smallwood : Terrorism Targeting the US
Three new films--Rendition, The Kingdom and Redacted--take on the clash of civilizations. How does the "war on terror" look on the big screen?
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Strange Culture
Patricia J. Williams : Civil Rights After 9/11
Federal authorities are prosecuting Steve Kurtz under the Patriot Act for using harmless bacteria in his artwork. A new film examines his ordeal.
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The Making of No End in Sight
Charles Ferguson answers questions about his gripping new documentary that takes aim at those who took us to war in Iraq.
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A Hard Look at Hard Time in Israel
Shimon Dotan's documentary Hot House takes a candid and compelling look at Palestinians serving life terms in Israeli prisons.
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Michael Moore's Sicko
Christopher Hayes : Labor Organizing & Activism
Michael Moore's healthcare documentary is less partisan, less outrageous--but more real--than anything he's done before.
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Scary Movie: Captivity's Ad Campaign
Annabelle Gurwitch : 1st Amendment
I joined the protest of a terribly offensive poster for the horror flick Captivity, which resulted in its being taken down. Was that a good thing?
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Desire and Its Discontents
Reviews of Syndromes and a Century, Private Fears in Public Places, Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis and Stephanie Daley.
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That's the Way of the World
Reviews of U-Carmen, Offside and Killer of Sheep, arguably one of the best films of 2007.
2006
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Battleground Cinema
Joseph Huff-Hannon : Peace Activism
Video activists and independent filmmakers are on the ground in war zones from Iraq to Lebanon and Gaza, using documentaries as instruments of peacemaking.
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Mad Mel and the Maya
Earl Shorris : Native Americans
Mel Gibson's violent new film Apocalypto exploits Maya culture and perpetuates racist stereotypes.
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Puerto Rico, On Drugs
Alberto Morales : Arts, Culture, & Entertainment
Ricardo Mendez Matta and Poli Marichal answer questions about their new film, Ladrones y Mentirosos (Thieves and Liars), which takes a hard look at the price Puerto Ricans are paying for the drug trade.
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When Soldiers Shoot a War
The War Tapes, a documentary shot by US soldiers and sanctioned by the military, may turn out to be the most powerful statement against the war to date.
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News of a Kidnapping
Stuart Klawans : Activism & Organizing
Reviews of The Road to Guantanamo and Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul.
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Typecast as a Terrorist
The detainment of two actors from The Road to Guantánamo reveals a legal apparatus that is no longer able to distinguish between real and invented threats.
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The Dream Life
In The Power of Movies, Colin McGinn asserts that films are the medium best suited to imitate the workings of the dreaming mind.
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Life Is Sweet
Federico Fellini: His Life And Work effaces nearly everything written about the great Italian director, offering a distinct critical analysis and an absorbing account of his private life.
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Compromising Positions
David Bromwich : Film Industry
Richard Schickel's biography of Elia Kazan is a laudatory postscript to a life marked by social turmoil, political strife and artistic intensity.
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Of Queers and Kong
Richard Goldstein : Gay & Lesbian Issues & Activism
From Brokeback Mountain's closeted cowboys to King Kong's embrace of Anne Darrow, Hollywood has queered cherished icons of masculinity. But the two films paint a bleak picture: Love that falls outside the norm must struggle to be something more than self-destructive.
2005
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I Act, Therefore I Am
Admired from a distance and reviled up close, Laurence Olivier could establish a relation with his audience that was like an infection. His official biography chronicles a personal life of an actor who altered the cultural compass of a nation.
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Over My Dead Body
New biographies of Benito Mussolini and Marilyn Monroe contemplate exploitation of the body--in life and after death.
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Requiem for a Dream
Daniel Fuchs's The Golden West is best read as an author's requiem for the Hollywood he loved.
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Spectacle
Richard Goldstein : Cultural Criticism & Analysis
Recent movies including War of the Worlds and Land of the Dead reflect today's political landscape.
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Spectacle
Richard Goldstein : Arts, Culture, & Entertainment
The progressive and regressive politics of Star Wars.
2004
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Everybody's Talking About the Weather
Jeremy Varon : Global Justice Movement
The last few years have seen renewed interest in the Weathermen.
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A Passion for Hatred That Mocks Christ's Message
Robert Scheer : Catholicism & Catholics
Mel Gibson's movie is a blood libel against the Jewish people.
2003
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Left Coast Notes
Anticipation over what would or would not be said about the war during the Oscars had reached near hysteria in the days before the broadcast.
2002
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Quiet in Hollywood
The Quiet American illustrates how far Hollywood self-censorship has gone in the year since 9/11.
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We've Gotta Have It
Gene Seymour : African-Americans
The historic Oscar wins by Halle Berry and Denzel Washington suggest a fertile moment for blacks in film. Last year five African-American filmmakers took part in a Nation forum.
2001
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Lights! Cameras! Attack! Hollywood Enlists
The Taliban may have met its match: the American Dream Machine.
This week: A look at the advocacy group MoveOn.org at 10. Plus: Controversy in Africa over the indictment of the Sudanese President; Amy Alexander and Chris Rabb on the challenges facing minority journalists in their transition to the web; and The Nation's new sex column. (13mb mp3)
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