ReelPolitik

The Top 11 Political Movies of 2011

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.
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Articles

UPDATED: Is San Francisco's Castro Theatre Finished as a Movie Venue? Not So Fast?

By Anthony Kaufman
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December 9, 2011 9:42 AM
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4 Comments

News

Earlier this week, it was reported the famous Castro Theatre, long a cinematic home for the queer community, art-house gems and one of San Francisco's classic movie palaces (built in 1922), was finished as a movie theatre, according to the blog, the Petrelis Files. Many staffers were fired, it was suggested, and next year, it would no longer regularly book films. But according to a new report at BayCitizen.org, the Castro isn't fading to black. Or is it?

By Anthony Kaufman
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December 6, 2011 8:21 PM
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0 Comments

News

While speaking in Ann Arbor at the Michigan Theater to promote his new book, "Here Comes Trouble," Michael Moore told a crowd they could take part in the Occupy Wall Street movement without getting their hands too dirty, by moving funds from established banks to local credit unions, or pirating Moore's film "Capitalism: A Love Story" and handing it out on the street, according to a story in Heritage Media.

By Anthony Kaufman
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November 30, 2011 4:37 PM
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2 Comments

News

With the announcement of the Sundance competition on Wednesday, the documentary program -- as usual -- is newsworthy: 16 nonfiction films representing some of the most respected filmmakers of the form. As with past Sundance docs, there is a real chance to influence the national discussion on important topics, ranging from American healthcare to nuclear power. I'll never forget trailing Al Gore through the snowy parking lot at the Library before the premiere of "An Inconvenient Truth" some years back. Docs can make a difference, and nowhere is that more apparent than at Sundance.

By Anthony Kaufman
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November 14, 2011 10:06 AM
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2 Comments

News

So far, Occupy Wall Street has inspired a dozen prominent filmmakers, from Haskell Wexler to Jonathan Demme to Jem Cohen, to document the rising protest movement. And a handful of Hollywood and indie films, produced after the rebellion's rise, from "Margin Call" to "Tower Heist," have capitalized on the coincidental timeliness of their stories. But is there a definitive #OWS movie out there? And what would it look like?

By Anthony Kaufman
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November 8, 2011 9:23 AM
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0 Comments

News

Over the weekend, the British celebrated Guy Fawkes Day. which honors the execution of the controversial figure who led a plot to blow up the House of Parliament, and was then caught, summarily tortured and killed in 1605. Fawkes is making a comeback in the U.S., of course: a mask of the man, made for the Wachowski's "V for Vendetta," has become ubiquitous at Occupy Wall Street protests, which aim not to vilify Fawkes, but celebrate him as a revolutionary.

By Anthony Kaufman
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November 4, 2011 1:18 PM
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0 Comments

The number of filmmakers documenting the Occupy Wall Street is growing. After recent efforts by Jonathan Demme and Jem Cohen, veteran avant-garde luminary Ken Jacobs -- father of Azazel Jacobs -- has uploaded a 6-part series of videos to YouTube (part one is embedded below). Like many of videos to come out of OWS, the footage is verite observations of the activities of the protesters. But Jacobs goes one step further in trying to put viewers into the lively environs, by putting the footage in 3D. (Glasses not included.)

By anthony
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November 2, 2011 5:20 AM
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0 Comments

In the last few weeks, the media has made mountains out of the economically topical movies to hit movie theaters, from "Margin Call" (obviously set during Wall Street's collapse) to "In Time" (Andrew Niccol's more sci-fi vision of haves and have-nots, battling it out for more time to survive). With their critical examinations of the corruption of wealth and power, some are arguing that there's never been a more socialist agenda at work in the movies.

By Anthony Kaufman
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October 19, 2011 5:31 AM
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0 Comments

By Anthony Kaufman
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July 18, 2011 1:33 AM
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0 Comments

By Anthony Kaufman
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July 14, 2011 11:50 AM
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0 Comments

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