Capturing the horror of war in Beanpole
Beanpole Kantemir Balagov Non-Stop Production, 2019 Opening at the Film Forum in New York City Beanpole is a Russian film set in Leningrad just after the Second World War has…
Louis Proyect
Marx at the Movies
The Young Karl Marx Raoul Peck Diaphana Films, 2017 Raoul Peck’s The Young Karl Marx opened on Friday, February 23 at the Metrograph in N.Y. and the Laemmle Royal in…
Flint’s poisoned water and capital’s second contradiction
Flint River, circa 1979 • Photo by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers In recent days Flint, Michigan has been in the news because the city’s water has not only become…
Naomi Klein, Jodi Dean and ‘Green Keynesianism’
Naomi Klein • Photo by Ben Powless Leftist critics of Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything need to answer a question she posed: ‘History is knocking at your door: will you…
Informant
In early 2009 the anarchist movement in Austin was shocked to learn that Brandon Darby was an FBI informant who had helped entrap David McKay and Bradley Crowder, two young…
The myth of Vladimir Putin’s progressivism
For that segment of the left that thinks more in terms of hegemonic blocs and geopolitical chess games between imperialism and “anti-imperialist” states than classes, Putin is something of an…
We are Legion
Like its name, and unlike Wikileaks that is known mostly through its founder Julian Assange, the hactivist group Anonymous is not easily tied to any particular individual. Operating in semi-clandestine…
The Forgotten Space
Directed by Allan Sekula and Noël Burch, The Forgotten Space, is a probing examination of modern-day transportation systems like container ships that make global trade possible—their impact on workers, the…
Lula: Son of Brazil
In the press notes for “Lula: Son of Brazil,” screenwriter Denise Paraná, upon whose biography (originally a PhD dissertation) the script is based, advises: “This is not a political film…
The Company Men
I shied away from “The Company Men” in 2010 because it sounded too much like “Up in the Air,” the repellent George Clooney vehicle about corporate downsizing. Both films were…
Random notes on television comedy
August 11, 2011 On July 29, an article titled “Curb Your Racism” appeared on the widely read Mondoweiss, a blog devoted to “the war of ideas in the Middle East”.…