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ReelPolitik
A blog about film and politics, and the politics of filmmaking.
Anthony Kaufman is a film journalist and critic, who has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Village Voice and Slate, and contributes regularly to Variety, indieWIRE, the Wall Street Journal Online and the Utne Reader.
[Email Me]
Articles
- "Piracy May Be an Indie Filmmaker's Best Friend" (Indiewire, October 2011
- "The Decline of Indies on Netflix" (indieWIRE, Sept, 2011)
- "Secretariat" Isn't Hollywood's Only Secretly Conservative Blockbuster" (IFC News, October 2010)
- "Absurdistan: The New Iraq War Cinema" (Village Voice, April 2008)
- "Is Foreign Film The New Endangered Species?" (New York Times, January 2006)
ReelPolitik
Andrew Breitbart and the Hypocrisies of Rightwing Docs
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- May 1, 2013 9:33 AM
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- 0 Comments
When I first re-launched this blog as ReelPolitik, I came face to face with the wrath and contradictions of the ring-wing after a series of posts criticizing the Sarah Palin documentary "Undefeated." I expect more of the same with a story I've written on "Hating Breitbart," a new film about the late conservative advocacy journalist Andrew Breitbart, in my weekly Docutopia column.
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Provocative Nuclear Power Doc "Pandora's Promise" Drops On Theaters This Summer
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- April 30, 2013 11:13 AM
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- 2 Comments
Director Robert Stone's controversial doc "Pandora’s Promise," which challenges environmentalists’ assumptions on the dangers of nuclear power, will be released in theaters on June 12, followed by a November broadcast on CNN, it was just announced. With the film, Stone, the acclaimed doc-maker who has examined issues of environmentalism ("Earth Days") and nukes ("Radio Bikini") before, suggests that nuclear power may be an important tool in the fight against climate change
Is Gael Garcia Bernal the Most Progressive Force in World Cinema?
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- April 30, 2013 9:25 AM
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- 2 Comments
Will Participant's Latest Spanish Coproduction Expose Corporate Pollution?
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- April 29, 2013 3:37 PM
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- 0 Comments
Last week, it was announced that Julia Stiles and Scott Speedman would star in Lluis Quilez's "Out of the Dark," a supernatural thriller presented by Participant Media, the company known for producing films with a political bent, such as "An Inconvenient Truth" "Food, Inc," and "Lincoln." While Participant's Jonathan King said, “This is not your average ghost story," the company wasn't clear as to what political position the film would be taking on. But there is some evidence to suggest that the family may be haunted by corporate or ecological corruption.
New Doc: Ex-Con Detectives Fight to Exonerate Wrongfully Convicted
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- April 29, 2013 11:01 AM
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- 1 Comment
Jamie Meltzer, the director of "Informant," a recent favorite doc of mine which I called "a 'Fog of War' for the age of Occupy" about anarchist turned informant Brandon Darby, has a new project, looking for funds on Kickstarter, which seems worthy of our attention. Called "Freedom Fighters," the new doc focuses on a Dallas-based detective agency started by a group of exonerated men who have all spent decades in prison.
"At Any Price": Zac Efron and The Decline of America's Heartland
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- April 26, 2013 9:17 AM
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- 0 Comments
Is the most politically thought-provoking film of the season a drama starring Zac Efron as an aspiring racecar driver? Seems so. Directed by Ramin Bahrani, "At Any Price" stars Efron as a young farmer's son from the Heartland with big dreams of escaping his small-town life. On the surface, it could be another watered-down piece of Americana (think "Secretariat" meets "Charlie St. Cloud"), but Bahrani is too smart for that, and the film becomes a searing and forceful reflection of failure and personal reckoning amid the overwhelming pressures of the multinational marketplace.
Race, Class and Warfare at Tribeca
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- April 25, 2013 10:33 AM
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- 0 Comments
One of the most powerful new documentaries at this year's Tribeca, Dan Krauss’s well-crafted and compelling investigative
expose "The Kill Team," hits all the right buttons: political injustice, moral outrage, and emotional catharsis. Of all the films I've previewed from this year's festival, Krauss's is one of the most important; for the purposes of political heft, "The Kill Team"--along with the upcoming release "Dirty Wars"--provides some of the most damning evidence of the atrocities and injustices of the U.S. military that we've seen on screen since America's War on Terror began.
"Black" Films Face Obstacles Abroad; Are Foreign Film Markets Still Racist?
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- April 24, 2013 9:43 AM
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- 2 Comments
Why You Shouldn't Be Surprised by the Muddled Politics of "World War Z"
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- March 30, 2013 2:40 PM
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- 4 Comments
Some folks around the web are shocked and astonished -- astonished! -- that word comes from Brad Pitt that the political subtext of "World War Z," the actor's upcoming apocalyptic epic, has been neutered. In an interview from Entertainment Weekly that has been oft-quoted, Pitt says, "I was really interested in a more political film, using the zombie trope as a kind of Trojan horse for asking, 'What would happen to sociopolitical lines if there was a pandemic like this?... But it was just too much. We got
bogged down in it.... It gutted the fun of what these films are meant to be." But come on, folks, aside from the occasional "V for Vendetta," when has Hollywood ever provided penetrating social critique?
The Risks of Indian Poverty Porn: "Revolutionary Optimists" vs "Blood Brother"
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- March 27, 2013 11:48 AM
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- 0 Comments
Ever since the success of Oscar-winning films "Born into Brothels" and "Slumdog Millionaire," India's slums and impoverished children have been a popular topic for Western filmmakers. Accusations of "poverty porn" are inevitable, however, and, when it comes to this former British colony, there's always a question of whether these films perpetuate age-old stereotypes of some backward "Orientalist" land, plagued with dirt, poverty and illness, all wrapped in exotic colors and bouncing music. Of course, huge portions of India, as revealed in "The Revolutionary Optimists" (opening Friday) and "Blood Brother" (this year's Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner) do lack basic services, but there are more and less responsible ways of conveying this predicament
Latest Tweets
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@x7o Yes, that is why I included the link to the annotation in my tweet.
Posted 11 hours ago -
@antkaufman Please update with our response for extra credibility http://t.co/WoxKkuRH53 + http://t.co/YOShV6iFVM #wikileaks
Posted 12 hours ago -
@antkaufman This, of course, contradicts your claim that it is "impressively researched" - it is either negligent or malicious.
Posted 13 hours ago -
@antkaufman See here: http://t.co/EkQOpKipi5 There are glaring factual inaccuracies. Just ask @carwinb
Posted 13 hours ago
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Recent Comments
I'm sorry, Domizianoa, your comment does not work in English, at all. You cannot use machine
When I read the book, I felt so out of touch with that world, being from a hard-working middle class
Other great point: Where does freedom really stand? Not by telling the truth, or telling it as an
My very compliments to Mr. Kaufman! I am becoming a huge fan of his incredibly profound, yet simple
To Claire, and, almost all other comments: Your answer to this exceptional, clever, and truly
If you tried to tone it down, you'd lose the essence of the book. Yes, the story might not
It all boils down to the fact that there's not a real market for "middle class angst"
Anthony sir, you're an idiot probably because you have a brain of a 5 year old kid... Thank you
C'mon---with all the critical hype that MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY got, Barry Jenkins should have
This is such an embarrassing article. "All this is to say, I guess, that white people can have