Social Justice Magazine
Bran Nue Dae and Neshoba, The Price of FreedomI recently reviewed two plays that had Civil Rights themes, The Good Negro and Carry It On! Now two films have opened on the same day in L.A. that both deal with Black liberation struggles. The two works are stylistically and geographically poles apart but united by a common theme.Neshoba, The Price of Freedom is a straightforward documentary … [Read more...]
LA Filmfest EndangeredI was introduced this year to the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, which shines the limelight on Latino filmmakers and cinema, but according to LALIFF Chairman and co-founder, actor Edward James Olmos (Zoot Suit , Stand and Deliver ), the filmfest may be taking its final curtain call this year. Olmos, who presented each screening I attended during … [Read more...]
The controversy over building an Islamic community center near Ground Zero shows that in America, you have constitutional rights – until the second you try to use them. Then you find out exactly how many rights you really have, and how free you truly are. Use them you lose them. Especially if you’re espousing a dissenting, unpopular and/ or minority point of view.Critics of efforts by … [Read more...]
Art emerges out of our collective psyche to reflect our times, and it’s fascinating to see how L.A. theatre is responding to the current attack on our civil, human and constitutional rights and liberties. Radio talk show host Randi Rhodes calls this “the Summer of Hate.” This month Republican Congressman Mike Rogers publicly condemned “the culture of disclosure,” declaring that Private … [Read more...]
Jews ask, "Is it good for Israel?"During the 1980s a longtime family friend, who was part of Brooklyn’s Democratic Party machine and appointed to serve on the bench, shocked us by voting for Ronald Reagan, instead of the Democratic presidential candidate. His explanation to my parents – who like many American Jews were liberal Democrats – was: “Reagan would be better for Israel.” … [Read more...]
General Sherman, who burned Atlanta to the ground, rather famously and pithily said, “War is hell.” Stephen Marshall’s new documentary about religious fanaticism, Holy Wars, turns Sherman’s quote on its head with the clever tagline, “War is Heaven.” With its Orwellian panache, this is the perfect slogan for holy warriors who dream with relish of nothing better than jihad or apocalypse, … [Read more...]
Countdown To Zero is brought to you by Lawrence Bender, the same producer who brought you the Oscar winning Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth. The two docs are companion pieces; nuclear winter, like global warming, is ecologically devastating. Blowing up the Earth is simply not good for the environment. Through Atomic Age archival footage, news clips and talking head interviews, Zero … [Read more...]
The new musical 40 is the New 15 has the distinction of being the first musical produced by the Academy for New Musical Theatre, while a workshop presentation of it was, deservedly, nominated for a GLAAD Media Award. The play features an outstanding ensemble cast in an entertaining, insightful look at not only the aging process, but at gay issues. 40’s concept is that the mid-life crisis … [Read more...]
The circus is in town, and to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of P.T. Barnum, a star was unveiled (by an elephant, but of course) at Staples Center’s Star Plaza, honoring “the Great American Showman.” Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s 130 clowns, acrobats, trapeze artists, stilts and tightrope walkers, weightlifters, contortionists, plus pachyderms, tigers and other … [Read more...]
It’s ironic that I saw Thurgood -- starring Laurence Fishburne as the civil rights titan and first Black Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall -- in an L.A. theater on July 8. Not only because the next day Predators , the action pic co-starring Fishburne opened, but because that Thursday night a jury in an L.A. courthouse found Oakland police officer Johannes Mehserle guilty of involuntary … [Read more...]
Freakonomics is a great documentary adaptation of Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt’s bestselling book that applies statistical and economics theory to various phenomena, finding extraordinary explanations and insights. Master documentarians direct various segments linked to interviews with the co-authors, including:Morgan Spurlock of 2004’s Super Size Me fame puts down the Big Macs to … [Read more...]
The radical movements of the 1960s/1970s provides great grist for the creative mills, but far too few filmmakers have, to mix metaphors, drawn from this well. Writer/director Tanya Hamilton has in Night Catches Us, a sort of Black Power version of John Sayles’ 1979 Return of the Secaucus Seven and Lawrence Kasdan’s 1983The Big Chill. Set in 1976 Philadelphia after the heyday of the Black … [Read more...]
Lisa Leeman’s documentary One Lucky Elephant is similar to the 1990s fact-based features Buddy and Gorillas in the Mist starring, respectively, Rene Russo and Sigourney Weaver, as humans living closely with wild animals. All three films study the paradigm of inter-species relationships. In Lucky David Balding, who is childless, adopts a baby African elephant named Flora, and makes her the star … [Read more...]
Swiss filmmaker Christian Frei’s documentary Space Tourists is about rich Americans who are privatizing the former Soviet Union’s much-vaunted outer space program, which in the 1950s launched Sputnik and the space race. Today, due to the collapse of the USSR, the industry that put the first creatures and human into the cosmos has largely been reduced to providing Yankee billionaires with an … [Read more...]
Jennifer Arnold’s A Small Act is a genuinely heartwarming documentary that could be subtitled “Karma.” As a small boy growing up in rural Kenya in the 1970s, Chris Mburu had plenty of brains but few shillings with which to pay for his school fees. Enter his benefactor from Sweden, Hilde Back, whose monthly $15 donations enabled Mburu to not only go on to high school, but to university and … [Read more...]
PCL offers monthly Open House Events on the 2nd Saturday at 2pm and 3rd Thursday at 6pm. Click here to learn more.
Loading ...
Recent Comments