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Feral Scholar
Making the Connections
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When the sexual self is represented by the sensual capacities of the whole body, when the totality of space between, outside, and within our bodies becomes the site ofpleasure, then desire escapes the borders of the imperial phallus and resides on the shores of endless worlds.
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Archive for the ‘Friday Film Reviews’ Category.
[Because DeAnander is still trying to figure out which way is up in Canuckistan [editorial note: this was intended as a satire on US wingnut usage, but I now realise it may give real offence, so apologies from DeAnander — see thread below] we have been rather short of Friday Film Reviews. This […]
(excerpted from Sex & War, 2005 which is slightly cheating, but we haven’t had a FFR for a while)
On September 24, 2004, CNN reported charges brought against three US Navy SEALS in the death of an Iraqi detainee, part of a much larger damage control investigation in the wake of the Abu Ghraib photo crisis […]
What do you think of when you hear the words “Viet Nam AntiWar Movement” or “AntiWar Movement of the Sixties”?
The odds are that you think of a peaceful, colourful, noisy demonstration of hippies and college kids confronting the uniformed forces of State power — peace signs and tie-dye, protesters placing flowers into the barrels of […]
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Fast Food Nation (2006) directed by Richard Linklater, written by Eric Schlosser and Richard Linklater, starring Greg Kinnear, Luis Guzman, Catalina Moreno, Ashley Johnson, cameo appearances by Ethan Hawke, Avril Lavigne, Bruce Willis and Kris Kristofferson. A fictional film based on a non-fiction book, Eric Schlosser’s best-seller in the investigative journalism tradition, also called Fast Food Nation. |
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Strange Days (1995) directed by Kathryn Bigelow, starring Angela Bassett, Ralph Fiennes, Juliet Lewis, et al. Story and screenplay by James Cameron. This is a sci-fi noir thriller, made in 1995 and set in 1999 on the eve of Y2K. The movie sometimes awkwardly grafts some serious themes — police brutality, racism, corruption and pornography — onto a stock Hollywood thriller format. The result is uneven and sometimes self-indulgent but memorable, engaging, and offers some provocative radical memes not commonly found in mainstream film. Some subversive feminist and antiracist messages come through pretty clearly despite the adherence to box-office formula. [The Friday Film Review is late again this week due to another bad case of Lazy Reviewer Syndrome… it must be an epidemic] |
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‘Classified X’ is a documentary film by Black American writer/director Melvin van Peebles (perhaps best known for Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) which he not only wrote and directed — he plays the title role). In Classified X (1998) the ageing cineast raids the film archives to build an historical account of racism in American cinema, and puts his own ‘greatest hit’ into context in the continuing story of white supremacy and Black resistance in America. [The Friday Film Review is slightly late this week due to a bad case of Lazy Reviewer Syndrome.] |
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To some he is a champion of the poor and the powerless; to others he is a ruthless dictator. He is often dismissed as a relic, yet many revere him as a saviour. He is Cuban President, Fidel Castro.
FIDEL covers forty years of the Cuban Revolution and provides a unique opportunity to consider the life of one of the most influential and controversial figures of our time.
(from the web site of film-maker Estela Bravo) . . . the Friday Film Review is Back |
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It’s the Friday Film Review again — boy, it’s amazing how fast a week goes by. [BTW unless someone else steps in there will be no Friday Film Review on the 15th or the 22nd, so this may be it until late September.] This week it’s an old favourite of mine, Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames (1983) — starring ‘Honey’, Jean Satterfield, Florence Kennedy, Adele Bertei. Born in Flames is set in a near-future America (as seen from the early 80’s) ten years after the mostly-peaceful American Socialist Revolution. It addresses the persistent habit of male leftists (and their loyal female cohorts) of relegating women’s concerns to secondary status (a “secondary contradiction”); and this time, instead of walking away from a left movement or formation, the feminist women start a second revolution within a “mainstream” socialist nation. This review is going to be all spoilers, so if you wish to view the film with a fresh and unbiased mind, do not read on! [DVD available from video stores and Netflix.] |
Just got around to watching the HDnet documentary “The Smartest Guys in the Room,” about the rise and fall of Enron. Quick synopsis and some comments follow — hoping some other folks have seen it and are interested in comparing notes.
Control Room, (IMDB) the 2004 documentary by Jehane Noujaim: available through Netflix and most video rental and sales outlets in the US. DVD edition runs 84 min, in colour. A wry and sympathetic portrayal of ‘business as usual’ for the Arab-language TV network Al Jazeera during the early days of the American conquest and occupation of Iraq. On a scale of 1 to 10… a solid 9 in this reviewer’s opinion. My off the cuff comments follow below the fold — curious to see what others thought of it.
