Black Panther, Adam Rippon, and Plastics
Past Present Episode 120
In this episode, Niki, Neil, and Natalia debate the blockbuster film Black Panther, the ascendancy of Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon, and the preponderance of plastics in contemporary life.
Film review: Champ of the Camp
The first ever feature-length documentary filmed in the UAE's controversial labor camps
Hooray for Schlock: the Coen Brothers’ “Hail Caesar!”
(Caution: mild spoiler alert)
The films of Joel and Ethan Coen are very attentive to mood – plot, characterization, setting, all seem to be geared toward establishing a strong mood that commands and demands our attention more than anything else. Fargo and No Country for Old Men …
Pizzas for the People
Directed by Hwang Kim and produced by Festival Bo:m
In the course of a long running ideological conflict North Korea is one of the most culturally isolated countries in the world, which rejects any foreign influences through a tight control of media and communication equipment. To protect the North Korean identity from potential damaging western influences, short wave radios, for example, are banned, while TV receivers are locked to tune only to the 3 official channels. …
Palestinian Cinema and the Lived Experience of Occupation
“One thought alone preoccupies the submerged mind of Empire: how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era. By day it pursues its enemies. It is cunning and ruthless, it sends its bloodhounds everywhere. By night it feeds on images of disaster: the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation.”
– J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
The world is falling apart in Gaza. There is nothing more banal than that statement. There is also nothing truer. “Operation Protective Edge” has claimed close to 2,000 lives in its month long bombardment of Gaza. …