Vietnam
All of the characters in Back to the Dirt are, in a sense, survivalists, people clinging onto what’s long gone, stockpiling karma for an apocalypse that is already upon them.
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Éric Vuillard’s method is to create an ironic rapport with the powerful: his vignettes dramatize how France’s elite delude themselves into thinking the colonial world order can be kept intact after World War Two.
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Eric Neudel and Alison Gilkey found a tremendous subject for a documentary, and have told his tale with urgency and compassion.
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Exuding a guerilla theater, agitprop vibe (with touches here and there of vaudeville and live sketch comedy), F.T.A. is a thrilling expression of pacifism and accountability directed at the military.
Read MoreContextualizing is everything. And that’s particularly true of Last Days in Vietnam, where the odious things Americans did there weigh down the ostensible heroics shown in our exiting the country.
Read MoreFar From Vietnam dared say what no American documentary, even the most radical, would insinuate for fear of being accused of treason: in Vietnam, the Americans were the new Germans.
Read MoreThis intriguing documentary, made up of first-hand footage about the Black Power movement, will air on WGBH’s Independent Lens this Thursday @ 10 p.m.
Read MoreBy Harvey Blume The major problem with these treatments of Timothy Leary and Daniel Ellsberg is that they portray their main characters as if there was no possible resonance between them, as if they came from different eras. The Harvard Psychedelic Club, by Don Lattin, HarperOne, 256 pages, $24.99. The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel…
Read MoreThe NY Times is running a series of articles about front-runners for the presidency. I’ve read the two about Hillary Clinton carefully, because I’m stuck about her. She’s someone I’d like to feel enthusiastic about but can’t. She always, to my mind, testifies strongly at first, then cancels herself out. She’s an enigma wrapped inside…
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Book Review: Cowboys and the Wild East — “In the Dragon’s Shadow: Southeast Asia in the Chinese Century”
Proceeding largely country by country, Sebastian Strangio penetratingly explores Southeast Asia’s multifaceted struggle with its behemoth Chinese neighbor.
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