The essence of the current cultural discourse is that everything we watch is at least latently political. And we, the people, are hungry for political art. This recurring column, The Politics of American Movies, will explore everything from racially progressive Westerns and anti-fascist comedies to documentaries about the working class and popcorn flicks with subversive bite.
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The Politics of American Movies
This recurring column explores everything from racially progressive Westerns and anti-fascist comedies to documentaries about the working class and popcorn flicks with subversive bite
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February 3, 2018
Why Oliver Stone’s ‘Any Given Sunday’ Never Gets Old
On the eve of Super Bowl weekend, a look back at the 1999 football movie that epitomized the brutal chaos of a sport full of flawed, broken men
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December 24, 2017
‘The Post’ Is Another Master Class From Steven Spielberg
The historical drama about the Pentagon Papers is a nerdy, civil, heartening pro-journalism movie with a stacked cast and a dash of political prescience
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November 22, 2017
How Spike Lee and Denzel Washington Turned ‘Malcolm X’ Into a Hollywood Epic
In the aftermath of the L.A. riots, a determined filmmaker and a brilliant actor overcame budget concerns and voices of dissent to transform the life story of a radical black thinker into a cinematic masterpiece
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September 5, 2017
On 'Blue Collar,' the Richard Pryor Classic About Race and the Working Class
In Paul Schrader’s unheralded gem, Pryor and Harvey Keitel play Detroit autoworkers who rob their own union in a plan that epitomizes the toil of the working man
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July 27, 2017
Tragic Queendom
Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film ‘Marie Antoinette’ was thought to be an anachronistic, apolitical look at the life and death of the infamous French queen. In fact, it was the movie’s study of style and privilege that made it a political statement.
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May 25, 2017
Love in the Time of Nuclear War
The year was 1988, a high point in American history for both nuclear fear and modern romance at the movies. In ‘Miracle Mile,’ romance collides with the apocalypse, setting the middle-class idealism of the Reagan era against its sense of chaos for a uniquely hopeful kind of disaster film.
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April 28, 2017
To Live and Die in L.A.
Twenty-five years after riots overtook Los Angeles, there are a slew of new documentaries that attempt to explain the events of that fateful week. But in addition to cold facts, it’s important to look at films from the early ’90s like ‘Menace II Society’ and ‘Boyz n the Hood’ to understand the mood and context that begat the violence.