I was back in The Atlantic yesterday with a thinkpiece on the politics of Star Trek Into Darkness. Here’s an excerpt: “Kirk’s bravado stands out because we were supposed to have left this type of leadership behind. President Bush traded on the cowboy archetype in the days after 9/11—promising to capture Bin Laden “dead or…
Earlier this week, Jason Bailey of Flavorwire published a piece documenting the drop in speaking roles for women in successful Hollywood movies. He makes an important point: despite the attention paid to movies like Bridesmaids and The Hunger Games, the percentage of female speaking roles in the top 100 grossing movies of 2012 is a…
Here is an interesting twist in the complex relationship between government, gun violence, and Hollywood. There is a new approach to gun control – and it is inspired by the movies. All sensible people , even 90 percent of Americans, agree that individuals who suffer from mental illness should not be allowed to buy guns.…
Earlier this week, Fox announced that 24 will return next summer with a 12 episode run entitled 24: Live Another Day. Little is known about the show’s return, except that Kiefer Sutherland will be back, of course, as Jack Bauer. The storyline is still under wraps. But the timing of this announcement is interesting, as…
Check out this news out of Washington today: “The Supreme Court agreed with Monsanto on Monday that an Indiana farmer’s unorthodox planting of the company’s genetically modified soybeans violated the agricultural giant’s patent. The court unanimously rejected farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman’s argument that he was not violating Monsanto’s patent because the company’s pesticide-resistent “Roundup Ready”…
Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is a profound disappointment, but I guess we already knew that. Critics and audiences were lining up to criticize his adaptation of the classic American novel before it even opened. While any adaptation of a much-loved book is bound to suffer a few slings and arrows of public opinion, the…
At Any Price is a startling accomplishment: a deeply populist film about an issue affecting rural America and featuring a genuine movie star. Dennis Quaid may not be Hollywood’s hot young thing anymore, but he has improved with age, and he gives the performance of a lifetime as Henry Whipple, a fourth-generation Iowa corn farmer…
The trailer for The Butler is out. Having criticized the casting on several occasions already, I thought I should weigh in. First, watch the trailer: So this is one of those “Magical Negro” stories, huh? For the uninitiated, the Magical Negro is a stock black American character in film who exists only to help out…
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