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books

The Left Should Defend Classical Education

Liza Featherstone Jacobin
The great books aren’t just a collection of “dead white males,” and teaching or reading them isn’t elitist or Eurocentric. On the contrary, they are a treasure that should be made available and accessible to working-class people everywhere.

film

‘Justice’ Review: Brett Kavanaugh Doc Should Compel FBI To Reopen Investigation

Christian Blauvelt IndieWire
Doug Liman’s “Justice,” a breathtaking documentary about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s silenced sexual assault accusers, goes a long way to proving the reality of the fears at the heart of this particular case. Mainly, that there was such a desire at several levels of government to see Kavanaugh on the bench that due diligence wasn’t followed, and barely even attempted. A compelling piece of journalism.

film

The Netflix Hit “RRR” Is a Political Screed, an Action Bonanza, and an Exhilarating Musical

Richard Brody The NewYorker
“RRR” -“Rise Roar Revolt”- turns history into legend by way of heightened visual rhetoric. It’s based very loosely on the real-life stories of two Indian revolutionaries of the early twentieth century, Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem, who joined forces and contested the oppression of British colonial power. The film is currently streaming on Netflix and will be theatrically released again in March 2023. The Oscar-Nominated Song "Naatu Naatu" from "RRR" will be performed at the Academy Awards.

food

How Product Placement Gets Wine Bottles Into Shows

Esther Mobley San Francisco Chronicle
The appearance of a wine bottle in television and film is almost never an accident; it’s a carefully brokered deal between the wine brand and the production’s prop master.

tv

Party Down: Charmingly Low-Budget Workplace Satire From the Makers of Veronica Mars

Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen The Guardian
The show never leaves the workplace. The complexities of these characters’ lives and relationships are teased out within the confines of their job, blurring the boundaries between personal and professional to create an almost claustrophobic intimacy. It’s also strangely prescient of the current, increasingly precarious gig economy.

poetry

Occoquan’s Nights of Terror

Philip C. Kolin
In this week of International Women’s Day, poet Philip C. Kolin remembers the courage of US women in demanding the right to vote.
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