What Elizabeth Warren Needs to Win: A Makeover
The Politics of Fashion
It's a sad sexist reality, but optics and clothes matter more than anyone wants to admit. It's a lesson the TV-conscious Trump and his tummy-tuckers have mastered, and one Elizabeth Warren stands to benefit from the most if she surrenders her shapeless folksy rose upholstery for a sleek, Presidential style.
Widows buries thriller formula and finds female power
#OscarCheck2018
Movie Review - Widows
Steve McQueen's follow-up to 12 Years a Slave is a female-driven heist film based on a beloved British TV series. For most directors, making a genre thriller would put them out of Oscar contention. But the award-winning McQueen isn’t your average director, and in the wake of #MeToo, Widows could still blow things wide open.
The Front Runner circles lapse of judgment in a losing cause
Movie Review: The Front Runner
Jason Reitman recreates the late-80s political landscape to survey the moment when the sober Republic turned into All-American spectacle: Gary Hart’s soiled Presidential bid, spoiled by sex scandal and the rise of tabloid TV.
Outlaw King reimagines tribal history, bares Pine’s parts
New on Netflix/Movie Review: Outlaw King
Chris Pine plays national folk hero Robert the Bruce in David Mackenzie's blood sausage of a costume epic that rewrites a few historical details to serve its dramatic cause, and quench our thirst for more Game of Thrones.
The Protest Movie: Medium Cool Gets Medium Hot
On Film: Activist documentary, embedded journalism at DOXA 2018
An explosion of activist filmmaking means a variety of issues are getting their closeup on the big screen. But are these new forms of non-fiction “protest movies” changing our minds, or changing our understanding of truth? The answer seems to be both.
Beirut Blows Up Jon Hamm
Movie Review: Beirut
The star of Mad Men brokers his movie star stubble and complex male charms in Beirut, a big-screen thriller where human drama is perpetually pushed out of the frame by the bulldozer of political urgency.
Young Warriors Turning Young Adult Fiction Into Reality
Popular Culture: Generation Shift Hits the Fan - #marchforourlives
The March for Our Lives is a mission millennials have been training for their whole lives. Just look at the last 20 years of young adult fiction, says movie critic Katherine Monk. Whether it’s Harry Potter fighting the Ministry of Magic or Katniss Everdeen overthrowing President Snow, the next generation grew up with deeply moral role models who courageously confronted power.
“If desperate times call for desperate measures, then I am free to act as desperately as I wish.” - Katniss Everdeen in Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games
By Katherine Monk
They are expecting under half a million, but by the time the last bus empties onto the mall in D.C. Saturday morning, there’s a good chance “The March for Our Lives” to end gun violence will rival the numbers of the Million Man March in 1995, and the 1963 protest led by Martin Luther King Jr. Commentators on the Right will credit hacks from the Democrats for ...
Bidding Adieu to Dave Barrett
Tribute: Dave Barrett
Funerals for public figures can often be stuffy affairs with formal speechmaking and half-hearted appeals to emotion, but the recent ceremonies for B.C.’s former premier were rife with real affection.
By Rod Mickleburgh
So, farewell then, Dave Barrett. A month after the remarkable NDP leader passed away, it was time for the public to bid adieu, formally and informally. The official state memorial in Victoria came first, followed the next day by what was more a gathering of the clans at Vancouver’s Croatian Cultural Centre, not that far from where Dave Barrett grew up on the city’s rough-and-tumble east side. Both events were packed, befitting the immeasurable contribution he made to the province of British Columbia during his short 39 months as its first socialist premier. (Unlike today’s New Democrats, he never shied from using the term “socialist.”) Beyond his political legacy, there was an outpouring of real affection for someone who had ...
