I had the pleasure this morning of interviewing Stefan Forbes on my radio program, Uprising, about his new documentary, Boogieman: The Lee Atwater Story. I had only heard vague mentions of the name Lee Atwater but really had no idea how influential to American political campaigning he was, until I watched the film. This young Republican upstart from South Carolina, wrote the script-book for today’s GOP election tactics. Not surprisingly he …

The newest indie film, Take Out, about an undocumented Chinese worker and his struggle to make ends meet, is proof positive that telling a good story is far more crucial to the success of a film than props, set design, or even quality of film used. Shot entirely on a digital hand-held camera, writers and directors Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou have made Take Out‘ a winning combination of perfectly sparse writing and powerful acting. …

I didn’t think Marjane Satrapi’s coming-of-age-in-Iran memoir could be much improved by animating it, but having just seen the Oscar-nominated film Persepolis, I realize I was wrong. I described it to a friend interested in viewing it thus: a black-and-white, animated film in French with English subtitles about a young girl growing up in revolutionary Iran. That description sets up a number of obstacles to a mainstream American audience. But Persepolis is absolutely worth watching. …

Enemies of Happiness is not The Beauty Academy of Kabul. It is not about a Western woman traveling to a war-torn country to save brown women. It is about an Afghan woman, Malalai Joya, who has chosen to risk her life to fight for her own people.

Eva Mulvad’s award-winning film opens with footage of Joya’s dramatic public denunciation of the criminal warlords who dominated the 2004 loya jirga (constitutional …

Film Review: The Battle of Algiers Criterion Collection DVD
Any time you’re in somebody else’s land, in their country, and they don’t want you there, you weren’t invited: I think that you can just look at The Battle of Algiers and see what you’re in store for.-Spike Lee

I spent from about 6PM to midnight Saturday evening watching the 3 DVDs in the Criterion Collection release of Gillo Pontecorvo’s film The Battle of …