Film Review: Take Out
Take Out, a 2004 movie by Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou, follows one day in the life of a delivery worker at a Chinese takeout restaurant in upper Manhattan. In only 90 minutes the film takes us into the world of immigrant workers and the harsh work and constrained environments that they struggle through day […]
Mickey 17: A Sci-Fi Satire of Capitalism, Colonialism, and Cloning
Bong Joon-Ho, the visionary South Korean filmmaker behind Parasite, Snowpiercer, and Okja, is back with another sharp critique of capitalism – this time in space. His latest film, Mickey 17, is a thrilling, darkly funny sci-fi adventure that exposes the horrors of billionaire rule, unethical colonization, and the dehumanizing effects of advanced technology in the wrong hands. True to […]
Book Review – Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right
In her many books, sociologist Arlie Russell-Hochschild has emphasized the role that human emotions play as people interact with the larger world around them. Whether bringing to light the effects that work and economic necessity have on the family and gender roles or connecting human feelings of loss to the rise of the political right, […]
Book Review – If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution
In If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, published last year, journalist Vincent Bevins attempts to explain how a decade of massive protests led to few changes, and in some cases brought about almost the opposite of what participants in the movements originally wanted. To do so, he takes us around […]
Film Review: Radical (2023)
Radical (2023) is a film based on the true story of Sergio Juárez Correa, a grade school teacher in the border town of Matamoros in Northeastern Mexico. Known by the locals as a “school of punishment,” the students live in poverty amid drug cartel violence. After losing faith in the education system, Sergio arrives with a plan to try a radical new way of teaching. He challenges […]
Reseña de la película: Radical (2023)
Radical (2023) es una película basada en la historia real de Sergio Juárez Correa, un maestro de escuela primaria en la ciudad fronteriza de Matamoros, en el noreste de México. Conocida por los lugareños como una “escuela de castigo”, los estudiantes viven en la pobreza y rodeados por la violencia de los cárteles del narcotráfico. […]
Book Review – A People’s Guide to Capitalism: An Introduction to Marxian Economics
Many of us would like to understand what it is about capitalism that makes it so destructive, both for us and our planet. We also want to understand why it is that capitalism and capitalists continue to do the same things over and over, even when they are completely aware of the damage they’re doing. […]
Love Island USA: Capitalism’s Idea of Love
In its 6th season, the Peacock reality show Love Island USA has become the most-watched series in the United States. Millions have witnessed the ridiculousness of a highly choreographed presentation of romance under a system that works overtime to find profit in every aspect of life. Capitalism erodes genuine feelings of love by making us […]
Kindred by Octavia Butler
“I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery…” Kindred is a 1979 novel by Octavia Butler (1947-2006), an African American science fiction author. The story focuses on Dana, the main character, who is forced to travel through time between her home in the 1970s in Southern California and the early 1800s […]
Kehinde Wiley’s “An Archeology of Silence”
Review of Kehinde Wiley’s “An Archeology of Silence,” an art exhibit about the violence committed against Black people.
Film Review: Oppenheimer
Christopher Nolan’s latest film has been a box office hit, an adaptation of the biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, American Prometheus, written by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin. Oppenheimer provides a perspective on the intertwined technical, political, and moral issues confronting the scientists who developed the first atomic bomb. The film follows the life of […]
Film Review: Barbie
Barbie is a film about a pink-studded plastic doll from a surreal land where everything seems perfect so long as you don’t question it. When she ventures into the human world, namely Los Angeles, she comes face to face with the equally surreal nature of this society. In Barbieland, everything is possible if you’re Barbie. […]
Obama’s “Working” on Netflix: Why Now?
Former President Barack Obama stars in a recent 4-part Netflix miniseries called Working: What We Do All Day. He tells us in the first episode that it was inspired by the oral history Working, by Studs Terkel, first published in 1974, in which Terkel interviewed dozens of workers about the jobs they did and how they […]
Mo TV Series – What it Means to be Undocumented in the U.S.
Mo is a Netflix series that captures the struggles endured by undocumented people in the U.S. Palestinian comedian, Mohammed Mustafa Amer, drew inspiration for the sitcom from his nearly 20-year journey seeking legal refugee status. He exposes the failures of the U.S. immigration system in between jokes and touching moments with family and friends. The sitcom […]
Film Review: 9 to 5: The Story of a Movement — Working Women Organized to Fight Back
“9 to 5” is a phrase that will remind some people of the 1980 movie with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton or the Dolly Parton song that accompanies it. While that movie is worth watching, there is another one that you shouldn’t miss. The documentary, 9 to 5: The Story of a Movement, […]
For Sama, a Documentary that Gives a Candid Look at Civilians in War
The people of Syria and Turkey continue to endure the devastation from the earthquakes that have killed over 47,000 people and made millions homeless in the middle of a freezing winter. And this March 15 will be the 12th anniversary of the start of the horrific Syrian civil war. It’s important to learn from the […]
Netflix Movie “Moxie” Provides Example of Youth Organizing against Sexism
Moxie is a movie on Netflix about a group of high school women who stand up to sexism at their school. The main character, Vivian, is inspired by a new student at her school whose response to a discussion in class on the novel The Great Gatsby is to question why they are reading a […]