Sickness and the cure: The great pandemic films, and the greatest

By Michael Berkowitz

With the onslaught of the coronavirus, viewers and reviewers have flocked to their screens to look back at popular pandemic films. The best of them, like Contagion, Outbreak or 28 Days Later, may entertain. But what do they tell us about how we have and should relate to mass disease or even our tenancy on this planet? Have we learned from them? Can we?

Netflix’s ‘How to Fix a Drug Scandal’ will anger you, and rightly so

By Chauncey K. Robinson

At just close to four hours of television, the documentary only scratches the surface about the topic. How to Fix a Drug Scandal should make viewers angry about systemic injustice and government cover-ups, and hopefully that anger fuels more calls for progressive change.

Fascist admirers and collaborators: New book exposes Hitler’s American friends

By Tony Pecinovsky

One of the best-known domestic fascist hate groups in the late 1930s/early 1940s was so-called America First, partly led by Charles Lindbergh. The aviator, mostly known for piloting the first solo flight across the Atlantic, and who became Time magazine’s Man of the Year, was patently anti-Semitic.

What does a hero look like? See ‘El Pepe: A Supreme Life’

By Michael Berkowitz

He’s talking slowly, but thoughtfully, to Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica, two-time Cannes Palme d’Or Prize Winner. “One has to try to live as the majority does, not like the minority does,” he explains. José “Pepe” Mujica lives like the majority.

‘A Threat of the First Magnitude’: A history of FBI counterintelligence and infiltration

By Tony Pecinovsky

During the 1960s and 1970s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation infiltrated, spied on, and harassed progressive and radical organizations and individuals across the country, often employing informants and provocateurs to disrupt, disorganize, and discredit leftist movements and groups.