I don’t think of network television as a place where we can learn about our political values – but there are exceptions. Because “Parks and Recreation” leans center-left in its politics and consistently works to incorporate topical political subjects into its stories, it can be seen as an excellent barometer of mainstream progressive politics. In…
Hollywood has always been known as a bastion of liberalism, but after the relative success of “Obama 2016”, the anti-Obama documentary that made a surprising $32 million at the box office (making it the 4th highest-grossing documentary ever), people have begun to wonder if things will change. Maybe Hollywood will see that there is an…
The time-travel movie is a genre unto itself, and in order to satisfy the fan base, each one must address a very specific set of paradoxes. What happens if you meet your future self? When you change the past, how do you experience that in the present? Of course, in the end the biggest question…
A summer movie and a presidential campaign have at least one thing in common: it is the job of each to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Neither is trying to push the envelope or engage us in creative discussion; they are both trying to sell us on a narrative that reflects a…
“The Master” opens on a shot of the marbled blue-white wake of a battleship, and director Paul Thomas Anderson returns to that image several times throughout the film. Soon, it becomes clear why; the image embodies the film’s subject, the muddled and mysterious history that we leave behind us, specifically the history of one sailor…
One of my favorite movies about American democracy in action is “Election,” Alexander Payne’s 1999 dark comedy on the making of a high school president. Tom Perrotta, the author of the novel on which the movie is based, has cited the 1992 presidential election as inspiration, and it makes sense. The movie follows the same…
This is an introduction to the politics of “Parks and Recreation,” and it marks the first post of “Parks and Rec” Week here at Reel Change. Check back later this week for more analysis of the show, the fifth season of which premieres this Thursday at 9:30 on NBC. My wife and I celebrated our…
Richard Gere has built a long career out of playing a very specific type of role: men who are successful and corrupted by power but with enough latent virtue to be worth rooting for (see “Pretty Woman,” “Chicago,” “Primal Fear” for examples). “Arbitrage,” the muddled new thriller from first-time writer/director Nicholas Jarecki, gets the first…
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