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Don’t Cry, Resist! Movies From a Female Revolution

Manohla Dargis The New York Times
“Before, I was my father’s Janie,” says this determined woman, who with grit and welfare checks is raising her six children alone in an abject corner of Newark. “And then I was Charlie’s Janie,” she says of her abusive husband. “Now I’m Janie’s Janie.”

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“The Death of Stalin” Captures the Terrifying Absurdity of a Tyrant

Masha Gessen The New Yorker
In January Russia banned “The Death of Stalin". This may have been the first time in post-Soviet history a movie that had already been granted permission to screen was pulled from theatres by order of the government. What made the film so dangerous?

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Natalie Portman Acknowledges Annihilation Whitewashing is ‘Problematic’

Jordan Crucchiola New York Magazine
Portman and her co-star Jennifer Jason Leigh say they only learned about the race of the characters in the film’s source material this week. When asked to comment on the controversy, Portman said, “Well, that does sound problematic, but I’m hearing it here first.” Leigh added, “It’s probably a valid criticism. I didn’t know that.”

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The Young Marx

Scott McLemee Jacobin
The Young Karl Marx is a nuanced and surprisingly accurate portrait of the revolutionary as a young man.

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"In the Fade": Lone Wolf Antifa in New Anti-Neo-Nazi German Film

Ed Rampell Hollywood Progressive
Diane Kruger is superb portraying a tortured character with her own “Subterranean Homesick Blues” who is “thinking about the government.” Kruger won the Best Actress Award at 2017’s Cannes Film Festival for her depiction of the anguished Katja who decides to take direct action against the neo-nazi assassins of her husband and child.

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Donald Trump Goes to the Movies

Frank Bruni The New York Times
"I can’t think of a previous batch of statuette-season contenders so politically on point and of the moment, and I credit — although that’s not quite the right word — Donald Trump. His rise and presidency have brought so many of the cancers of American life to the surface, where we can no longer avoid them, and the movies reflect that. He’ll be at the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards not just as the butt of a gazillion jokes. He’ll be there as an inspiration."

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Film Review: 'All the Money in the World'

Randolf Shannon Portside
"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force." The German Ideology, Karl Marx

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Steven Spielberg’s Ode to Journalism in “The Post”

Anthony Lane The New Yorker
Starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep as Ben Bradlee and Katharine Graham, this drama about the Washington Post is squarely aimed at our current moment. The movie, written by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, sprouts from this rift between the true state of affairs and the alternative facts that are presented to the public. As is common knowledge, it was Ellsberg’s conscience about the rift that led him to steal—or, if you prefer, to liberate—a hulking stash of incriminating documents, which came to be called the Pentagon Papers.
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