“Illusion and Reality” Films: Genre and Apotheosis

By Brian Russell Graham. A great many of the most popular films of recent decades are characterized by a character’s struggle to separate illusory worlds from ordinary reality. Examples range from the Wachowskis’ The Matrix (1999) to Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of […]

America’s Acts of Killing: Robert Greenwald on Drone Wars

By Matthew Sorrento. Bizarre, shocking, yet filled with truth, Joshua Oppenheimer‘s The Act of Killing continues to gather acclaim. This Oscar-nominated record of routine killings of Communists in Indonesia during 1965-66 haunts viewers. As a filmed document about memory – the paramilitary gangsters (“free men”) discuss on camera how they […]