I am sort of interested in the mini-trend (this and Oppenheimer) of movies about the Cultural Front made by directors with no trace of political commitment. If you're looking for an interpretation of where Dylan fits into the breakdown of that formation and the rise of the new left, you won't find it here -- you'll have to subsist on scraps like Elle Fanning recommending Dylan Dwight MacDonald, or "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" standing in for all of his…
Favorite films
Recent activity
AllRecent reviews
More-
-
Chameleon Street 1989
Incredible to see Ann Arbor in the '80s! But very upsetting that it's supposed to be New Haven...
Translated from by
Popular reviews
More-
High School 1968
Everyone says it's about conformity, which of course is right, but I think it's more, and more specific, than that -- it's a portrait of white middle-class identity formation. The key scene is towards the middle, when a teacher tries to give a lesson on Michael Harrington's The Other America; it just seems impossible for him to communicate the experience of crushing poverty so it's talked about in this very detached, academic way. The wrinkle there is that the conversation…
Translated from by -
The Last Dance 2020
This is an infomercial with no insight into Jordan as either a player or a man. (It turns out he is a self-regarding dick... what a shocker.) At the risk of sounding like one of those guys who skimmed an interview with Noam Chomsky once and now is a self-appointed expert on politics and the media, there's really no need for a thoroughgoing critique when all you have to do to explain why this is so lifeless is look at…
Translated from by
