News & Movie Review

From 1956 to 1971, the Federal Bureau of Investigation or FBI conducted surveillance of political organizations in the United States for the purpose of discrediting or disrupting them. These actions were taken under its Counter Intelligence Program or COINTELPRO. The recent Oscar-winning film Judas and the Black Messiah  (2021) documented one such operation of the FBI using COINTELPRO on the Black Panther Party and specifically one of its leaders, Fred Hampton. Based on documents that have been released detailing the FBI's activities, which support the claims, many believe the FBI facilitated the assassination of Hampton in 1969, as well as other illegal things against American citizens. A lot of the FBI's activities were also believed to be the result of racism and right-wing extremism within the Bureau. The FBI targeted various people under COINTELPRO. The most high-profile was likely Martin Luther King Jr. In the years leading up to King's death, the FBI wiretapped his p...

  Name - Mare of Easttown No. of Episodes - 7 Runtime - 55 mins each Creator - Brad Ingelsby Director - Craig Zobel Platform - HBO Max, Disney + Hotstar There are very few shows which perfectly encapsulate the feeling of living in a small town, knowing each and every member of the said locality, and the subsequent feeling of both a closeness as well as claustrophobia and exasperation. Mare of Easttown follows Mare Sheehan, a detective investigating the murder of a local teen, which causes old secrets of the inhabitants of the small Philadelphia town to spill over.  Mare is a character with a lot of baggage, which slowly gets revealed as the series progresses. She also is a person haunted by a similar case she had been unable to solve for over a year leading to people in the community doubting her detective skills. Her personal troubles include a divorce, her son lost to suicide, an ex-heroin addict daughter-in-law fighting for the custody of her grandson. All of the above issu...

  That film (The Cyclist) is a part of me….   -Hossain Sabzian (Close-up)     The Cyclist, a minor work that deals with major topics, is the fifth movie by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, one of the great filmmakers of the New Wave Moment of Iranian Cinema. He is known for his unpredictable substantial films on various subjects.     Nasim, a poor Afghan refugee, a well digger, and a roaming worker, tries many ways to earn ample money so he could pay hospital bills for the surgery of his seriously ill wife. The hospital continually threatens to stop her treatment if he fails to pay them. In one attempt, he tries to fake his suicide under the wheels of a truck. Finally, with the help of his friend, he finds a businessman hustler agent who offers him seven days and night bicycle marathon circus. It starts on one of the city’s squares, where he rides the cycle in a circle like an endless journey to nowhere. But with it, a vicious circle starts around him, of his expl...

Cruella (2021) Have you ever lost sleep wondering about the backstory of one Cruella de Vil? How did she ever become a maniacal fashionista, so roundly obsessed with spots and fur to dognap and then skin puppies? How did she meet her henchmen? And, above all, where did she get that cigarette holder? You think you know, but you have no idea. Not without conceptual intrigue, “Cruella” is the latest live-action refresh of Disney’s classic library. This time a revisionist origin story, it bends over backward to explore the pathology of the skunk-haired “101 Dalmatians” villain and make her misunderstood or vaguely sympathetic. While 2014’s “Maleficent” admittedly got away with softening the evil-horned fairy by seeing the story from her vantage point, some villains are probably just better left as villains and not demystified. This isn’t to say that there isn’t fun to be had in "the rise of Cruella de Vil," from two talented Emmas relishing their camped-up performances to Jenny ...