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satire

Film Review: “Sorry To Bother You” — Engaging Anti-Capitalist Satire

Sorry to Bother You is a doozy — vividly shot, morally vigorous, and consistently funny.

By: Matt Hanson Filed Under: Featured, Film, Review Tagged: Boots Riley, Matt Hanson, satire, Sorry To Bother You

Film Review: Satire As it Should Be — “Tickling Giants”

If you want to see what courageous political satire really looks like, see Sara Taksler’s engaging new documentary about Bassem Youssef.

By: Arts Fuse Editor Filed Under: Featured, Film, Review Tagged: Bassem Youssef, documentary, Sara Taksler, satire, Tickling Giants

Film DVD Review: 1931’s “The Front Page” — Restored

The improved viewing experience of the 1931 version of The Front Page enhances the stature of director Lewis Milestone as an early-talkie innovator and shows off the crack ensemble cast.

By: Betsy Sherman Filed Under: Featured, Film, Review Tagged: Adolphe Menjou, American Journalism, Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, Lewis Milestone, Pat O’Brien, satire, The Front Page

Book Review: “Look Who’s Back” — The Second Coming

The writing in this novel depends on winks and nods. You’re invited to be in on a big joke, assuming it is one.

By: Harvey Blume Filed Under: Books, Featured, Review, World Books Tagged: Adolf Hitler, fiction, German fiction, Look Who's Back, satire, translation

Film Review: “Welcome to Me” — Me and TV, The American Dream

It is Kristen Wiig’s committed performance, along with director Shira Piven’s skill at comic timing, that grounds the satiric comedy’s absurd premise.

By: Tim Jackson Filed Under: Featured, Film, Review Tagged: American satire, Kristen Wiig, narcissism, satire, Shira Piven, TV, Welcome to Me

Fuse TV Review: Political Satirist John Oliver — Viewers Are Responding, not Just Watching

Each John Oliver monologue takes a different weighty and urgent political issue and deconstructs it with wit, clarity and moral purpose.

By: Arts Fuse Editor Filed Under: Featured, Review, Television Tagged: John Oliver, Last Week Tonight, Matt Hanson, political, satire

Book Interview: S.T. Joshi on Ambrose Bierce — The Underappreciated Genius of Being Grim

Bierce proffers a satiric temperament gone wild and woolly, partly propelled by a revulsion at the criminal vulgarity of the Gilded Age. Given the current triumph of the 1%, his fury at power mad corporations is worth an admiring look.

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Featured Tagged: Ambrose Bierce, America, civil-war, Devil's Dictionary, S.T. Joshi, satire, short stories, The LIbrary of America

Book Review: Flann O’Brien at 100 — An Enduring Comic Genius

There is no way that The Arts Fuse was going to miss celebrating the 100th birthday of one of the greatest satirists of the 20th century — Irish genius Flann O’Brien.

By: Arts Fuse Editor Filed Under: Books, Featured, World Books Tagged: At Swim-Two-Birds, comedy, Cruiskeen Lawn, Dalkey Archive Press, Flann O'Brien, humor, Ireland, Myles na gCopaleen, satire, The Dalkey Archive, The Poor Mouth, The Third Policeman

Fuse Book Review: A Couple of Nihilists Ready for a Piece of the Action

Both of these novels about social corruption should be in every Occupy Wall Street library in the country: inequality is not a matter of fate but the result of an exhausted acquiescence to subterfuge.

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Featured, World Books Tagged: Albert Cossery, Alyson Waters, Cairo, Dalkey Archive Press, Exiled From Almost Everywhere, Juan Goytisolo, New Directors, satire, The Colors of Infamy

Fuse Theater Review: “Doctor Knock” — Medicine as Flim-Flam Farce

Anyone who has sat through a commercial for one pill or another will recognize and acknowledge the satiric thrust of this enjoyable 1920’s French farce.

By: Jim Kates Filed Under: Books, Theater, World Books Tagged: Doctor Knock, french, Gus Kaikkonen, Jules Romains, medical, Peterborough Players, satire

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