government

Chris Marker Centennial Trio: Berlin Ballade, Blue Helmet, Prime Time in the Camps
Chris Marker Centennial Trio: Berliner Ballade, Blue Helmet, Prime Time in the Camps

Politically charged and historically conscious, Chris Marker’s fertile imagination makes him one of the cinema’s most transcendent artists.

City, State and Town: Exploring Frederick Wiseman’s U.S.A.
City, State and Town: Exploring Frederick Wiseman’s U.S.A.

State Legislature, Monrovia, Indiana, and City Hall may each look at different levels of governance, they all present the importance of public service.

NYFF 2020: City Hall
NYFF 2020: City Hall

While City Hall has it’s ups and downs, it gives viewers a unique experience and perspective into the inter workings of Boston’s city officials.

NYFF 2020: MLK/ FBI
NYFF 2020: MLK/ FBI

MLK/FBI is damning of the behaviors of the FBI and its treatment of not only the leader of a revolution and the deeply rooted racism that still lingers.

Film Culture and Covertly Militarized Cinema
Film Culture and Covertly Militarized Cinema

As film viewers and critics, it is more important than ever for us to be aware of this invisible governmental and militarized bias in film and TV.

A Theory of Conspiracies: What Paranoid Cinema Tells Us About Ourselves
A Theory of Conspiracies: What Paranoid Cinema Tells Us About Ourselves

Blake Collier examines how an understanding of conspiracies in film speaks more about ourselves than the puppeteers behind them.

WHAT WE LEFT UNFINISHED: Live Ammunition
WHAT WE LEFT UNFINISHED: Live Ammunition

While it might sound dense and only appealing to a niche demographic, Ghani’s immersive record is a curiosity that will satisfy any inquiring cinematic mind.

LONERS: Political Satire? Kinda.
LONERS: Political Satire? Kinda.

Frivolous in treatment and a trailer more impactful than the film itself, Loners never understands its true potential.

DARK MONEY: A Must See Around The US Midterm Election
DARK MONEY: A Must See Around The US Midterm Election

Dark Money does provide some hope, but the film falls short in helping the viewer to understand how he/she can be empowered to make a difference.

WHAT HAPPENED TO MONDAY: An Uneven Attempt To Fill Orphan Black’s Shoes
WHAT HAPPENED TO MONDAY: An Uneven Attempt To Fill Orphan Black’s Shoes

While full of plot holes and shakes characters, What Happened to Monday is still a weird, yet perfect movie for a night in.

Godzilla As Metaphore For Climate Change In SHIN GODZILLA
Godzilla As Metaphore For Climate Change In SHIN GODZILLA

Like all Godzilla films, Shin Godzilla criticises how governments respond to disasters – but in this film, it’s not nuclear, but natural disaster.

I, DANIEL BLAKE: A Wake Up Call To Right-Wing Britain

In 2013, Ken Loach seemed destined to enter the pantheon of filmmakers who bow out with a movie that was, at best, inconsequential to the hard hitting filmography that came before. His proposed final film was 2014’s Jimmy’s Hall, a film about the tensions between the Catholic Church, local government and the vibrant youth culture of 1930’s Ireland. For one of the most important British filmmakers of all time, bowing out with a period piece that paid more than a little narrative debt to Footloose ensured underwhelming results.

13TH: Contextualizing A Movement

Ava DuVernay returns to the documentary format with 13th, a look at the amendment of the United States Constitution that simultaneously abolished slavery and established a loophole for denying rights to targeted groups. The troubling wording in the amendment has to do with convicted criminals, who are the only people exempt from the abolishment of slavery and involuntary servitude. That exemption, while small at the time, has snowballed into a huge issue thanks to America’s system of mass incarceration.

UNDER THE SUN: Pulling Back A Corner Of The Curtain
UNDER THE SUN: Pulling Back A Corner Of The Curtain

Despite frequently being labeled the most reclusive country in the world, in the past half decade or so there have been a preponderance of documentaries about North Korea. TV shows, websites and documentary filmmakers have all offered their own spin on what is colloquially referred to as “The Hermit Kingdom”. Though told in different ways, all of these pieces have generally come to the same conclusion:

VIKTORIA: The Intersection Of History And Motherhood
VIKTORIA: The Intersection Of History And Motherhood

People often tend to demarcate their lives by coordinating them with macro-narratives. For instance, the segment of your life that took place during the George W. Bush administration, or the Vietnam war.