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The End Of Poverty? We're not even close according to Philippe Diaz's searing new documentary.
15 hours ago
By Terry Keefe
(This article is currently appearing in this month's Venice Magazine.)
And now we pause for some startling statistics: 20% of the planet's population uses 80% of its resources…and consumes 30% more than the planet can regenerate.
Those numbers are at the heart of filmmaker Philippe Diaz’s documentary, The End of Poverty?, which sets out to examine the actual root causes of global poverty, and the film is the antithesis of a feel-good capitalism love story. A major part of Diaz’s conclusion is that capitalism doesn’t work without free, or at least very cheap, labor. His argument follows that the conquest of poorer countries in the South, by wealthier ones in the North, began with slavery and colonization hundreds of years ago, but continues today, even though many of those countries technically now have their independence. According to the theories laid out in the film, servitude comes now in a different form, »
- The Hollywood Interview.com
Ross McCall: The Everyday Guy Amidst the L.A. Insanity of "Crash"
15 hours ago
(Ross McCall and Eric Roberts, left, in "Crash.")
By Terry Keefe
(This article is currently appearing in this month's Venice Magazine.)
It isn’t necessarily great news for an actor to hear that the television series they’ve been starring in is going to be “retooled” in its second season. Your character can be retooled right out the door. Or, it can develop significantly. The latter has fortunately been the case for actor Ross McCall, who has been playing Kenny Battalgia on “Crash” for both of its two seasons. Earlier in the year, veteran producer and writer Ira Steven Behr (“Deep Space Nine”) was brought on as the new show runner, and he merged Kenny’s storyline with that of billionaire Seth Blanchard, the billionaire played by Eric Roberts in the new season, and the major plot focus. Blanchard has a spiritual reawakening which causes him to forgo the building of a new L. »
- The Hollywood Interview.com
Gems of the 1980's: Susan Seidelman Remembers Desperately Seeking Susan
15 hours ago
(Filmmaker Susan Seidelman, above.)
by Jon Zelazny
In the early 80’s NYC cultural lull between Patti Smith’s retirement and Jay McInerney’s breakout, Nyu film school graduate Susan Seidelman did the scrappy shoestring indie film thing, resulting in her acclaimed feature debut Smithereens (1982).
Best known for her hit sophomore effort, Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Seidelman continues to direct movies and TV shows featuring female protagonists… including the pilot for “Sex and the City” and her Oscar nominated short film The Dutch Master (1994), about a shy dental technician who ventures “into” a museum painting for flights of erotic fantasy.
Susan Seidelman: My husband Jonathan Brett—who co-wrote and produced The Dutch Master—and I had committed to living in Paris for a year because I was set to direct a feature for Polygram, a company that unfortunately went bankrupt. So we were kind of in a funk over there, and »
- The Hollywood Interview.com
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