'Borgen' Is Denmark's 'West Wing' (But Even Better)

February 4, 2014, 9:48 am

≫ Next: For A Rabbi Who Worked With The Nazis, Is Judgment 'Unjust'?

≪ Previous: Three Protesters, One 'Square': Film Goes Inside Egypt's Revolution

$

0

0

I've spent most of my life being fascinated by politics, but Washington has grown so stridently dysfunctional, I can barely stand to watch the news. And though I enjoy shows like Veep and House of Cards, they're so devoutly cynical they almost feel like part of the problem.

As an antidote to this, I highly recommend Borgen, the crest of the current wave of Danish TV that's given us The Killing and The Bridge.

---

For A Rabbi Who Worked With The Nazis, Is Judgment 'Unjust'?

February 19, 2014, 11:11 am

≫ Next: Remembering Harold Ramis, Master Of The 'Smart Dumb-Movie'

≪ Previous: 'Borgen' Is Denmark's 'West Wing' (But Even Better)

$

0

0

When you're faced with something as heinous as the Holocaust, it's tempting to turn it into a simple morality play. This isn't to say one can't pass moral judgments — Hitler and his cohort were undeniably evil. But judging can become a form of lazy evasion, a way of closing the book on the tricky realities of failure, guilt and complicity.

Those complexities lie at the heart of The Last of the Unjust, the new documentary by Claude Lanzmann, the prickly Frenchman whose 1985 work Shoah is often called the best film about the Holocaust.

Remembering Harold Ramis, Master Of The 'Smart Dumb-Movie'

February 27, 2014, 11:36 am

≫ Next: 'Redeployment' Explores Iraq War's Physical And Psychic Costs

≪ Previous: For A Rabbi Who Worked With The Nazis, Is Judgment 'Unjust'?

$

0

0

Best known for Animal House, Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day, Ramis died Monday at 69. Critic John Powers says Ramis was like a favorite uncle who spices up the family reunion by spiking the punch.

'Redeployment' Explores Iraq War's Physical And Psychic Costs

March 26, 2014, 11:50 am

≫ Next: Exploring Life's Incurable Soiledness With The Father Of Italian Noir

≪ Previous: Remembering Harold Ramis, Master Of The 'Smart Dumb-Movie'

$

0

0

Here's an old joke you may have heard: "How many Vietnam vets does it take to screw in a light bulb?" Answer: "You wouldn't know, you weren't there."

This joke gets told in Redeployment, a stingingly sharp short story collection that itself addresses the gap between the American soldiers who've fought in Iraq and those of us back home. It was written by Phil Klay who does know because he was there. After graduating from Dartmouth, he enlisted in the Marines and served as a public affairs officer in Anbar province during the 2007 troop surge.

Exploring Life's Incurable Soiledness With The Father Of Italian Noir

April 16, 2014, 12:33 pm

≫ Next: Two Italys Take A Road Trip In 'Il Sorpasso'

≪ Previous: 'Redeployment' Explores Iraq War's Physical And Psychic Costs

$

0

0

Although there's no rigid dividing line, fans of the crime genre generally fall into two camps. There are those who prefer stories which, after titillating us with dark transgressions, end by restoring order — the show Law & Order is an aptly named example. And then there are those who prefer stories which, even after the mystery is solved, leave you swimming in the murk — think Chinatown.

Two Italys Take A Road Trip In 'Il Sorpasso'

May 8, 2014, 10:26 am

≫ Next: 'Violette' Evokes Exasperating Self-Pity, A Trait The French Like

≪ Previous: Exploring Life's Incurable Soiledness With The Father Of Italian Noir

$

0

0

If the road movie has a home, it's surely the United States. After all, the settling of America was itself a kind of humongous road picture — all those wagons rolling across the new continent's spectacular vastness. And with our ceaseless love of movement, we became the first people to be transported — in every sense — by the automobile.

'Violette' Evokes Exasperating Self-Pity, A Trait The French Like

July 8, 2014, 2:17 pm

≫ Next: 'A Hard Day's Night': A Pop Artifact That Still Crackles With Energy

≪ Previous: Two Italys Take A Road Trip In 'Il Sorpasso'

$

0

0

Americans put a lot of stock in being likable. Pollsters take surveys of the president's likability. Test screenings check whether we like the characters in movies. And when a literary novelist like Claire Messud mocks the notion that fictional characters should be someone we'd like to be friends with, writers of popular fiction attack her for snootiness.

You rarely find such disputes in France, which finds our fetish of likability charmingly simple, rather like our shock at politicians committing adultery.

'A Hard Day's Night': A Pop Artifact That Still Crackles With Energy

July 23, 2014, 12:15 pm

≫ Next: Werner Herzog's Audacious Early Films Showcased In New Boxed Collection

≪ Previous: 'Violette' Evokes Exasperating Self-Pity, A Trait The French Like

$

0

0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHas50cupCA

---

Werner Herzog's Audacious Early Films Showcased In New Boxed Collection

August 22, 2014, 12:51 pm

≫ Next: 'My Golden Days,' An Heir To French New Wave

≪ Previous: 'A Hard Day's Night': A Pop Artifact That Still Crackles With Energy

$

0

0

There are lots of good filmmakers, but only a handful are always, unmistakably themselves. One of these is Werner Herzog, the 71-year-old German director who now lives in L.A. Herzog has done things nobody else would do for a film — like trying to tug a 350-ton steamship over a small mountain. This has made him notorious as a wild, love-him-or-hate-him monomaniac — an image he's been canny enough to milk.

Herzog rose to fame as part of the New German Cinema, a '70s boom that also included Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders and Margarethe von Trotta.

'My Golden Days,' An Heir To French New Wave

March 28, 2016, 11:26 am

≫ Next: In 'Neon Bull,' A Strange, Dreamy Road Movie Reveals A Vanishing Way Of Life

≪ Previous: Werner Herzog's Audacious Early Films Showcased In New Boxed Collection

$

0

0

Copyright 2016 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air .

In 'Neon Bull,' A Strange, Dreamy Road Movie Reveals A Vanishing Way Of Life

April 6, 2016, 11:23 am

≫ Next: A Thrilling TV Adaptation Of John Le Carré's 'Night Manager'

≪ Previous: 'My Golden Days,' An Heir To French New Wave

$

0

0

Brazil has been in the news a lot these days, but not for happy reasons. As it prepares to host the Olympics this August, the economy is tanking, the president is heading toward impeachment and the country has become ground zero for the Zika virus. All this is enough to make one recall Charles de Gaulle's famously dismissive remark, "Brazil is not a serious country." He was, of course, wrong. Brazil is one of the world's greatest and most exciting cultures, one in which the drama of modernity plays out every single day. This drama is masterfully caught by Neon Bull , a remarkable feature by Gabriel Mascaro that's set amid Brazil's version of rodeo, the vaquejada . Mascaro plops us into a back-country reality most of us have never seen and reveals it to be stranger and dreamier than we might think. Shot in Northeast Brazil, Neon Bull is a road movie about a vanishing way of life. It follows the itinerant crew looking after the bulls that the cowboys chase on horseback during the show.

A Thrilling TV Adaptation Of John Le Carré's 'Night Manager'

April 19, 2016, 10:23 am

≫ Next: An Emotional Storm Breaks In Paradise In 'A Bigger Splash'

≪ Previous: In 'Neon Bull,' A Strange, Dreamy Road Movie Reveals A Vanishing Way Of Life

$

0

0

Copyright 2016 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air .

An Emotional Storm Breaks In Paradise In 'A Bigger Splash'

May 16, 2016, 11:03 am

≫ Next: 'The Witness' Exposes The Myths, Misconceptions Of Kitty Genovese's Murder

≪ Previous: A Thrilling TV Adaptation Of John Le Carré's 'Night Manager'

$

0

0

'The Witness' Exposes The Myths, Misconceptions Of Kitty Genovese's Murder

June 16, 2016, 10:46 am

≫ Next: 2 Brilliantly Written Novels From Mexico Head Up A Wave Of Literary Talent

≪ Previous: An Emotional Storm Breaks In Paradise In 'A Bigger Splash'

$

0

0

Copyright 2016 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air .

2 Brilliantly Written Novels From Mexico Head Up A Wave Of Literary Talent

July 11, 2016, 11:10 am

≫ Next: 'Zero Days' Documentary Exposes A Looming Threat Of The Digital Age

≪ Previous: 'The Witness' Exposes The Myths, Misconceptions Of Kitty Genovese's Murder

$

0

0

To judge from our media coverage, you'd think that Mexico isn't so much a country as a problem. But if you look beyond the endless talk of drug wars and The Wall , you discover that Mexico has a booming culture. In recent years, there's been an explosion of literary talent — from the sly provocateur Mario Bellatin to the brainy and funny Valeria Luiselli . This writing makes most American literary fiction feel pale and cannily packaged. Much of this work is now appearing in English thanks to today's heroic small presses. In fact, I've just read new novels by two rising Mexican writers whose work you really ought to know. While their books have some qualities in common — both are brief, brilliantly written, and kissed by a sense of the absurd — their different approaches hint at the range of today's Mexican fiction. Among Strange Victims , from Coffee House Press, is the first book to appear in English by 32-year-old Daniel Saldaña París. Translated with great verve by Christina

---

'Zero Days' Documentary Exposes A Looming Threat Of The Digital Age

July 18, 2016, 10:54 am

≫ Next: Dystopian Novel Challenges Misogyny As 'The Natural Way Of Things'

≪ Previous: 2 Brilliantly Written Novels From Mexico Head Up A Wave Of Literary Talent

$

0

0

When most of us think about computer hacking, we picture Julian Assange leaking government secrets or a shadowy, bad-shave crook in some former Soviet republic hoovering up credit card info from a chain store. But while folks like these do stir up all manner of trouble, a much deeper danger lies elsewhere. That danger is the theme of Zero Days , a chilling new film by Alex Gibney , who sometimes seems to turn out documentaries as quickly as tweets. This latest one may be his finest and most important, for it doesn't merely tell an exciting story about using a computer virus to wage black ops against Iran. Filled with juicy historical tidbits, it keeps expanding its frame of reference to reveal one of the looming, but invisible threats of the digital age. Gibney begins in 2010 in Belarus, where a computer security guy comes across a highly infectious new kind of malware — dubbed Stuxnet — that is dazzling in its complexity. Soon, computer whizzes, journalists and even our Department of

Dystopian Novel Challenges Misogyny As 'The Natural Way Of Things'

July 26, 2016, 11:24 am

≫ Next: 'War Dogs' Puts A Satirical Spin On The Business Of War

≪ Previous: 'Zero Days' Documentary Exposes A Looming Threat Of The Digital Age

$

0

0

Novelists have always put their heroines through awful ordeals. But over time, these tribulations change. Where the 19 th Century was filled with fictional women trapped in punishing marriages — think of Middlemarch or The Portrait of a Lady — today's heroines face trials that are bigger, more political, and more physically demanding. They fight in hunger games. This fight takes a different form in The Natural Way of Things , a ferocious new novel by the Australian Charlotte Wood whose writing recalls the early Elena Ferrante — it's tough, direct, and makes no attempt to be ingratiating. Set in a dystopian backwater, her short, gripping book begins as an allegory of thuggish misogyny then evolves into a far stranger and more challenging feminist parable. The first chapters plunge us into a dusty, desolate prison camp deep in the outback. The prisoners, we learn, are 10 young women whose crime, so to speak, is to have been involved in sex scandals, from sleeping with a priest, to

'War Dogs' Puts A Satirical Spin On The Business Of War

August 19, 2016, 10:19 am

≫ Next: Kiefer Sutherland Takes Over The Oval Office As The 'Designated Survivor'

≪ Previous: Dystopian Novel Challenges Misogyny As 'The Natural Way Of Things'

$

0

0

Copyright 2016 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air . DAVE DAVIES, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. The new film comedy "War Dogs" takes a new angle on America's wars in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Directed by Todd Phillips, who's best known for "The Hangover," it stars Jonah Hill and Miles Teller as two unlikely arms dealers. Our critic at large John Powers says the movie's at its best when the characters are at their worst. JOHN POWERS, BYLINE: War may be hell, but it can be heaven for business. That's why for as long as there have been wars, there have always been people eager to make money from them. What makes America special is that the profits to be made are astronomical. This reality forms the backdrop of Todd Phillips' jauntily enjoyable new comedy "War Dogs." Just the latest movie to take it for granted, along with the majority of Americans, that our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been a real mess. Freely adapted from a 2011 Rolling Stone article by Guy Lawson, it tells the

Kiefer Sutherland Takes Over The Oval Office As The 'Designated Survivor'

September 21, 2016, 7:36 pm

≫ Next: Old West Gunslinging Meets Futuristic Androids In HBO's 'Westworld'

≪ Previous: 'War Dogs' Puts A Satirical Spin On The Business Of War

$

0

0

Television used to be careful when it told fictional stories about the presidency. It was bound by a sense of decorum. But things changed forever with the famous commercial for the movie Independence Day that wowed those watching the 1996 Super Bowl by blowing the White House sky high. Ever since, presidents have been fair game. You can portray them as thugs, schemers or murderers — or knock them off to boost ratings. The latest show to occupy the White House is Designated Survivor, a new ABC series created by David Guggenheim, best-known for writing thrillers like Safe House . To judge from its pilot, the show hopes to capitalize on current anxieties about everything from our divided government to the threat of cataclysmic terrorism. Kiefer Sutherland stars as Tom Kirkman, a lesser Cabinet member who, on the night of the State of the Union address, has been chosen as, well, the designated survivor. That is, he's the one sequestered away so the U.S. government still has a top official

Old West Gunslinging Meets Futuristic Androids In HBO's 'Westworld'

September 29, 2016, 12:04 pm

≫ Next: '13th' Maps The Road From Slavery To Mass Incarceration

≪ Previous: Kiefer Sutherland Takes Over The Oval Office As The 'Designated Survivor'

$

0

0

I have a friend in London who's at war with her car's GPS. Although she nearly always puts it on, she's driven mad by its voice, which is female, and refuses to follow its directions. She spends whole trips arguing with, barking at, and sometimes cursing this imaginary woman. She'd never be this rude to an actual human being. But, of course, a GPS doesn't have feelings. But what if it did? That's one of the many timely questions raised by Westworld , the darkly exciting new series that's HBO's biggest gamble since Game of Thrones . Developed by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, it's an ambitious reboot — and rethink — of the clever but clunky 1973 movie by Michael Crichton, who would go on to write the more popular but less provocative Jurassic Park . The show takes its title from the name of a futuristic theme park where visitors come to live out their Wild West fantasies. Inhabited by astonishingly life-like androids known as "hosts," Westworld lets guests ride the high-country, gun down