Balthazar, finally at peace. This film by Bresson is probably the most haunting film ever made.

C L A S S I C F I L M

Movie Reviews \\\ Editors’ Note: At Cyrano we do not intend to reinvent the wheel. When we have a movie review written by one of our editors or associates, we run it. When we don’t, we still run the film and use a review in public distribution that we think does the job. The point is not ego but education of the public sensibilities, especially since we believe that all great art packs a strong moral message. This ecumenical approach is further suggested by the rise of the Net, and of citizens’ journalism, which provide a wealth of reviews from different quarters: readers’ commentary on films, professional evaluations by well-known critics, and so on. Cyrano’s reviews tap all of these sources without prejudice, as amateur reviews are often freer in their expression than commercial ones. But rarely does one single review capture all there’s to be said about an important film, so sometimes we run two or even three “takes” on a given title.

TAKE ONE
An engrossing view of sin, sainthood
By Ty Burr, Globe Staff

First Published: 04/09/2004

For my money, the most Christ-like figure now appearing on movie screens isn’t in “The Passion of Movie Review the Christ” or “The Gospel of John.” He isn’t even human.

He’s a donkey named Balthazar, and he suffers mightily for the sins of man in an out-ofthe- way French village in Robert Bresson’s 1966 classic “Au Hasard Balthazar. ” A new print opens for revival run today at the Kendall Square; a pilgrimage to absorb this quietly devastating, nearly perfect allegory is very much recommended. Read the rest of this entry »

BY SUSAN ROSENTHAL July 07, 2007

Times of transition are very difficult.

In good times, people are more open to new ideas and more willing to organize. The fight for civil rights of the 1950s fed the anti-war movement of the 1960s. Both fueled movements for workers’ rights and for women’s, gay and Black liberation. As millions of people moved into struggle, there was widespread belief that we could change the world. Read the rest of this entry »

BY SUSAN ROSENTHAL Dateline: July 21, 2007

Alienation and dissociation reinforce each other to create a cycle of social powerlessness. In The Hidden Injuries of Class, a worker ponders this dilemma.

“The more a person is on the receiving end of orders, the more the person’s got to think he or she is really somewhere else in order to keep up self-respect. And yet it’s at work that you’re supposed to ‘make something’ of yourself, so if you’re not really there, how are you going to make something of yourself?” Read the rest of this entry »

BY LISA FAGER
Dateline: Wednesday, 03 October 2007

There can be no doubt that much Hip Hop product is pathological. But whose product is it? Industry activist Lisa Fager went to Capitol Hill to school lawmakers on the real purveyors of audio and video mayhem: the music and communications corporations that control the destructive content that saturates the market. Pathology is not limited to musical product; it oozes into the public discourse in the form of racist speech and images that defame the powerless - all for the sake of corporate profit margins. Under relentless media consolidation, music playlists have become uniform indicators of massive payola - “an organized corporate crime.”

Read the rest of this entry »

The poisoner in chief, for an already repugnantly poisoned nation.
By Black Agenda report (BAR) editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Dateline: Wednesday, 03 October 2007

A famous old English song is titled, “The World Turned Upside Down.” Such appears to be the insane vantage point through which the Bush regime, and many ordinary citizens, view reality: in reverse. U.S. media and politicians behave as if they are already at war with Iran, a nation that has been brutalized over generations by Americans, but whose president spoke of world peace and an end to “dark plots” during his visit to this country. Deafened and blinded by arrogant, ignorant, unthinking hatred, Americans responded with venom in quantities toxic to all rational thought. The Poisoner-in-Chief, George Bush, has made great strides in turning much of the nation into a Cuckoo’s Nest. Read the rest of this entry »

“We have established a global presence and provide training and tactical solutions for the 21st century. Our clients include federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Defense, Department of State, and Department of Transportation, local and state entities from around the country, multinational corporations and friendly nations from all over the globe.”

Blackwater corporate website

“I would like to have the largest, most professional private army in the world.”

Gary Jackson, president of Blackwater USA

“Blackwater . right now has contracts that [Gary Jackson] says are so secret that he is not able to tell one branch of the Feds that he’s working for a different branch of the Feds.. Much of the interview I had with them was couched in this — this almost cowboy-like secrecy. They were very proud of being on these top secret missions.”

Barry Yeoman, author of “Soldiers of Good Fortune,” on Democracy Now

Read the rest of this entry »

President Hugo Chávez interviewed by Marta Harnecker, Monthly Review, Sept. 2005

This article is excerpted from Understanding the Venezuelan Revolution: Hugo Chávez Talks to Marta Harnecker published by Monthly Review Press. The book covers a wide range of topics, including Chávez’s political formation, the transformation currently taking place in Venezuela, and its place in the global context. In what follows, Chávez recounts the events of the failed coup d’etat of April 11, 2002.—Eds.

Read the rest of this entry »

Nader, a tireless crusader for an America that might one day live up to its promise.

Who Will Confront the Unprecedented and Unconstitutional Concentration of Executive Power?

BY RALPH NADER

The rogue regime of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney — so widely condemned for its unconstitutional, criminal Iraq war, its spying on Americans illegally, its repeated illegal torture practices, its arrests and imprisonment of thousands in this country without charges and its
pathological secrecy and corporate corruption — still has not felt the heat of the 800,000 practicing lawyers and their many bar organizations. Read the rest of this entry »

Considering what a repugnantly amoral opportunist Chris Matthews is, he got off easy with Jon Stewart, who remains a voice for serious morality camouflaged in comedy. Stewart is to be commended for not being afraid to tackle these systemic topics. But being, after all, a corporate media figure, his is indeed a highwire act and the men behind the curtain, the top corporadoes, could easily tire of his jabs at the system and suddenly pull the rug from under him.

BY GREG MITCHELL

If you have ever bemoaned the turn Matthews — a former newspaperman — has taken in recent years, you have to check out what happened on “The Daily Show” on Tuesday night. Matthews called it “the worst interview ever.”

(October 03, 2007) — You may find this hard to believe, but there was a time when TV gasbag Chris Matthews was a respectable hard news reporter. He worked in Washington, D.C. for the San Francisco Examiner from 1987 to around 2000, and also wrote columns for the San Francisco Chronicle and others. But if you have ever bemoaned the turn his career took as an interviewer/talk show host – or if you just hate the inside-the-beltway mentality of many of our leading press and TV pundits – then you would have loved Jon Stewart’s dismantling of Matthews on “The Daily Show” last night (Oct. 2, 2007). Read the rest of this entry »

Milton Friedman, best known for his free-market fundamentalism, and accordingly eulogized when not downright canonized by establishment apologists, was a shameless enemy of the people. Blessed with the kind of obscenely long life that apparently befits all scoundrels (dead at 94; Reagan at 84; Ed Bernays, 104) this contemptible mystifier of social science and intellectual prostitute for the plutocracy lived long enough to preside over criminal applications of his fraudulent “economic science”, most notably in Chile, where his vulturish “Chicago Boys” created a model of capitalist “development” with the usual lopsided traits of a nation deeply divided in terms of wealth distribution and political power, with the poor, of course, bearing the brunt of Friedman’s “free society.”

BY STEVEN LENDMAN
Dateline: Thursday, October 04, 2007

AN ERA ENDED on November 16, 2006 when economist Milton Friedman died. A torrent of eulogies followed. The Wall Street Journal mourned his loss with the same tribute it credulously used when Ronald Reagan died saying “few people in human history have contributed more to the achievement of human freedom.” Economist and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers called him a hero and “The Great Liberator” in a New York Times op-ed; the UK Financial Times called him “the last of the great economists;” Terence Corcoran, editor of Canada’s National Post, mourned the “free markets” loss of “their last lion;” and Business Week magazine noted the “Death of a Giant” and praised his doctrine that “the best thing government can do is supply the economy with the money it needs and stand aside.” Read the rest of this entry »