Clik here to view.
Challenging the Corporate Lords of Film and TV
Hollywood writers and actors are on strike, the first time both unions have been on strike at the same time since 1960. It’s thrown the industry into an uproar, as both groups are subverting some of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Livestreaming Genocide: With Ads, or Genocide Plus With No Ads
This summer, writers and actors were marching on picket lines trying to save their jobs and secure at least a working wage in ever more expensive Los Angeles. With no new product in sight, streaming...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The TV Season of Our Discontent: Streaming and Striking in 2023
Dennis Broe reports on the ups and downs of the U.S. streaming industry in 2023. Image above: SAG-AFTRA members join WGA members on the picket lines outside of Hollywood studios, courtesy of Jason...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Putting the ‘Who Dun It?’ back at the centre of hard-boiled crime fiction
In the Anglo world, things generally get lumped together, but in the Francophone world the two kinds of crime fiction are worlds apart. One branch of French crime fiction is called le policier, one...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Frugality and austerity trump creativity: the top 25 global TV series in 2023
Dennis Broe reviews this year's TV series from around the world. Above image: Kenneth Branagh as Boris Johnson’s Churchill without the statesmanship American TV series, which had led the world in both...
View ArticleClik here to view.
One more just war or just one more war? The New York Times and all the...
The so-called 'Biden Neocons' are part of the Uniparty of Democrats and Republicans who have minor quibbles but one major agreement. That is their unequivocal support for the American military, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mr. Bates Goes to London: The Post Office scandal and the series that exposed...
A simple four-part television series, Mr. Bates vs The Post Office, has prompted the head of that agency to give back her title as a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) for her part in wreaking havoc...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Vienna: city of contrasts and contradictions
Dennis Broe gives us a brief tour of Vienna: its history, museums and galleries. Above image: the restored Wien Museum, site of a city grappling with its past What to say about Vienna? A divided city,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“When I make a movie, all I think about is the profit”: Alec Baldwin's Magic...
Dennis Broe explains how profit-making has cut corners in movie-making, especially since the pandemic. Image above: Grizzled outlaw Alec Baldwin One of the more hilarious moments of the Warren...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Can’t Get You Out of My Head: An elite gaze on populism and revolution
There are always calls from the right to defund the British Broadcasting Company but they are now being joined by calls from the left as well, as one of the casualties of the genocide in Gaza is the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Way: confused resistance rather than class consciousness, in a muddled...
Dennis Broe reviews The Way. Above image: Owen brandishing King Arthur’s sword - Mandalorian much? “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore,” about-to-be-fired news anchor Howard Beale...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Corporate and alternative media, now and in Los Angeles in the 1950s
Dennis Broe discusses the opposition between corporate and alternative media, now and in the 1950s. Image above: Charlotta Bass, editor of The California Eagle Today with the wars on Gaza, in the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
All Hail The Uni Party: Democans and Republicrats
All Hail the Uni Party: Democans and Republicrats As the range of debate between the two parties in the U.S. shrinks, election season becomes a time of distorting the differences to make it seem there...
View ArticleClik here to view.
'Zone of Interest' and Glazergate: The director’s challenge and the Zionist...
Jonathan Glazer is the Academy Award and BAFTA winning director of Zone of Interest, a film that highlights the “dehumanization” going on outside the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, where the carnage...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The imperialist problem of '3 Body Problem'
Dennis Broe outlines 3 Body Problem’s imperialist problem. Image above: the Chinese Cultural Revolution as a moment of chaos In Culture and Imperialism, Palestinian scholar Edward Said details how the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dark Stories for Dark Times: The 2024 Crime Novel
This year the Quais du Polar in Lyon, the largest European festival of crime novels and one of the largest in the world, in celebrating its 20th season, was marked by the intrusion into the spine of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Decline of Streaming Services and the Exploitation of AI for Profit
Dennis Broe explains the decline in the quality as well as quantity of streamed series, and the exploitative use of Artifical Intelligence by the industry. Photo above: SORA’s “artificial” creation of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Good, the Bad and the (possibly) Interesting: Previews of some Spring...
Dennis Broe previews some upcoming TV series. Image above: Machine, now streaming on Arte What follows are a few global series worth watching in the coming months, along with a few not worth watching,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
'The Sympathizer': Not Sympathetic Enough
HBO’s The Sympathizer, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen, opens with a quote: “All wars are fought twice, once on the battlefield and the second time in memory.” It’s not...
View Article
