"Pity the Billionaire" recounts hijacking of public opinion
Thomas Frank, ex-Wall Street Journalist turned liberal political savant, is currently the darling of the airwaves for NPR and Democracy Now fans.
“A Separation”: revelatory film about life in contemporary Iran
The movie deserves its Oscar buzz as best foreign film. As with any good artistic experience, moviegoers are transformed as they watch.
Media and power
Canadian sociologist Jeffery Klaehn has put together a penetrating collection of essays dealing with the political economy of the mass media spanning a broad range of topics.
Movies you might have missed: "Thieves' Highway"
One noir film that dealt with explicitly working-class issues was Thieves' Highway (1949) starring Richard Conte in perhaps his finest role.
Documentary shows a "different" side of Fidel
Oliver Stone interviews Fidel Castro on a wide range of issues.
Left on the bookshelf: "Blacks, Reds and Russians"
There is a much less known story of another group of immigrants who sought freedom and opportunity, but it wasn't to America but to the Soviet Union that they fled.
Movies you might have missed: "Mondays in the Sun"
Despite the often-depressing vignettes of the characters' plight, the story is ultimately one of the pride and dignity of the working class.
“Retirement Heist” shows how they stole the pensions
Three decades ago, prior to Reagan's "Republican Revolution," 40 percent of America's retirees were receiving real, defined benefit pensions.
Movies you might have missed: "I Am Twenty"
Soviet filmmakers were often criticized in the West for producing stories sneeringly termed "boy gets tractor, meets girl."
New film from China on the horrors of the "Rape of Nanking"
What the Japanese militarists did to China is a story that every Chinese person knows well, but, I think, not so much in the West.
