Louis Proyect
Tomatometer-approved critic
| Biography: |
I am a long-time socialist with a an interest in the problems of developing countries. Therefore, films made in Latin America, Africa and Asia are of great interest to me. I am also the moderator of a Marxism mailing list at www.marxmail.org.
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| Favorites: |
1. Burn2. Strawberry and Chocolate3. Battle of Algiers4. Moolaade5. Sargeant Shakespeare
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| Publications: | rec.arts.movies.reviews, Counterpunch.org |
| Critics' Group: | New York Film Critics Online |
| Location: | NYC |
Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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| 100% | Communion (Komunia) (2019) |
In an epoch when billionaires like those in "Crazy Rich Asians" get fannies in the theater seats, thank god for a film like "Communion".‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2019
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| 75% | Genesis 2.0 (2019) |
Like Moby Dick, film is not just about marketable commodities though mammoth tusks are the whale oil of our epoch. Director Frei questions our epoch just like Melville did his. A documentary masterpiece.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Dec 30, 2018
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| No Score Yet | That Way Madness Lies... (2018) |
A courageous and compelling documentary about how American society casts the mentally ill and their families adrift. ‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Dec 14, 2018
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| 83% | The Quake (Skjelvet) (2018) |
Costing fifteen times less to make than Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's "San Andreas", it is a hundred times more thrilling.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Dec 12, 2018
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| 86% | The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018) |
A film that graphically describes the damage done to the psyches of gay people by a barbaric "therapy" endorsed by Vice President Mike Pence.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Dec 7, 2018
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| 80% | Boy Erased (2018) |
A film that graphically describes the damage done to the psyches of gay people by a barbaric "therapy" endorsed by Vice President Mike Pence.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Dec 7, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Piripkura (2018) |
Given the genocidal disposition toward indigenous peoples by Brazil's Donald Trump, this film is both timely and breathtaking.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Nov 28, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Kinshasa Makambo (2018) |
A courageous documentary showing the difficulties faced by activists in what amounted to the Congo Spring.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Nov 28, 2018
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| 100% | The Panama Papers (2018) |
A close and inspiring look at the network of investigative reporters who made the Panama Papers a historic breakthrough against the plutocrats who rule the world.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Nov 27, 2018
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| 95% | Dark Money (2018) |
A refreshing reminder that Montana has never lost the anti-corporate ethos that enabled it to pass a law in 1912 banning Koch brothers type campaign funding.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Nov 27, 2018
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| 98% | Free Solo (2018) |
A breathtaking portrait of a man engaged in arguably the most dangerous sport in the world.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Nov 20, 2018
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| 100% | The Dawn Wall (2018) |
Spectacular cinematography married to a compelling personality with an amazing life story makes this one of the best documentaries of 2018.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Nov 20, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Resistance at Tule Lake (2018) |
Outstanding documentary on American nativist hysteria that makes Donald Trump look benign by comparison‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Nov 7, 2018
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| 88% | Under the Wire (2018) |
A perfect companion piece to "A Private War", the biopic of Marie Colvin opening this month as well. She and her photographer Paul Conroy were two of the most important journalists of the 21st century. This film shows why.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Nov 2, 2018
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| 89% | A Private War (2018) |
An inspiring tale marked by brilliant acting and close attention to the details of the hellish places Colvin reported on. Painful in places but essential.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Nov 2, 2018
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| 84% | Monrovia, Indiana (2018) |
A close look at Red State people but with a compassion at odds with the conventional liberal take on churchgoing, gun-owning people.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Oct 26, 2018
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| 100% | A Bread Factory, Part Two: Walk with Me a While (2018) |
A film that defies conventional expectations with the same dedication to artistic integrity as the two women in featured roles.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Oct 26, 2018
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| 100% | A Bread Factory, Part One: For the Sake of Gold (2018) |
A film that defies conventional expectations with the same dedication to artistic integrity as the two women in featured roles.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Oct 26, 2018
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| 94% | Life and Nothing More (La Vida y Nada Más) (2018) |
A neo-realist treatment of Black life that suggests how Africans endure conditions not unlike the postwar Italy that inspired De Sica et al.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Oct 24, 2018
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| 82% | Fail State (2018) |
A powerful investigative report on for-profit schools that are exploiting working people while enriching Wall Street investors in the same way as bundled mortgages in 2007 and likely leading to the same kind of financial crash.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Oct 19, 2018
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| No Score Yet | The Lost Village (2018) |
Ignore the "rotten" reviews on this double-barreled attack on how NYU and NYC real estate potentates are turning the Village into CVS-land. An important documentary on the Trumping of NYC from Democrats and Republicans alike.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Oct 19, 2018
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| 90% | The Price of Everything (2018) |
A wise and witty examination of the commodification of art.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Oct 10, 2018
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| 92% | The Great Buster: A Celebration (2018) |
A well-deserved tribute to a star of the silent era whose films will be enjoyed centuries from now while today's Cineplex comedies will be forgotten months after they have been shown.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Oct 5, 2018
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| 79% | 22 July (2018) |
An understated, documentary-like treatment of a theme that easily could have lent itself to purple melodrama. Paul Greengrass's aesthetic works most effectively in confronting the biggest question of our age: how to resist fascism.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Sep 26, 2018
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| 81% | Fahrenheit 11/9 (2018) |
Entertaining film, crappy politics.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Sep 21, 2018
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| 91% | Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco (2018) |
A loving and accomplished tribute to a neglected icon of the 60s and 70s fashion scene whose drawings of models were as rebellious in their own way as campus sit-ins.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Sep 17, 2018
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| 97% | Rodents of Unusual Size (2018) |
Fascinating study of the ecology of invasive species and their impact on Louisiana wetlands as well as loving tribute to Cajun survival instincts, comparable ironically to those of the rodent.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Sep 17, 2018
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| 97% | I Am Not a Witch (2018) |
A film that badly misrepresents what happens to women accused of witchcraft in Zambia in a bid to exploit the film festival/art house circuits.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Sep 8, 2018
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| 76% | Five Fingers for Marseilles (2018) |
A failed attempt to use South Africa as a place to recycle Sergio Leone when social reality cries out for a new Ousmane Sembene instead.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Sep 8, 2018
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| 60% | Operation Finale (2018) |
A film that concedes too much to Hannah Arendt's portrait of Eichmann in The New Yorker in the view of rightwing Zionists but not enough. Still worth seeing for its defiance of official Zionist ideology.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Sep 7, 2018
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| 65% | The Little Stranger (2018) |
The story of a decaying aristocratic family in post-WWII Britain using the conventions of Gothic fiction. Those expecting lurid Stephen King effects might be disappointed even if King named the novel it is based on as the best he read in 2009.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Aug 31, 2018
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| 59% | Memoir of War (La douleur) (2018) |
Subtle but heartbreaking tale of life in Vichy France that incorporates elements of Marguerite Duras's aesthetic. First-rate screen adaption of a 1985 semi-fictional work that has its #MeToo aspects.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Aug 17, 2018
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| 100% | King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen (2018) |
Larry Cohen is lauded throughout this film, as well he should be. "King Cohen" is a labor of love by a filmmaker and interviewees who "get" what he was about. So will you after seeing this great documentary about the greatest of b-movie makers.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Aug 4, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Prairie Trilogy (2018) |
North Dakota--when a Red state was really Red. Documentaries that are both historically unparalleled but thrilling.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Jul 27, 2018
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| 82% | Milford Graves Full Mantis (2018) |
This joins "I Called Him Morgan" as the greatest films ever made about a jazz musician. Unlike Lee Morgan, who died tragically too young, Milford Graves is still going strong at the age of 76. You will wear a smile during the entire film.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Jul 12, 2018
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| 90% | The Citizen (Az Allampolgar) (2018) |
Both topical and dramatically vivid, this is a work of Hungarians who are facing a brand of nativism even more toxic than we Americans face now.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Jul 6, 2018
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| 92% | A Skin So Soft (Ta peau si lisse) (2018) |
A brilliant take on a sport that has the surface appearance of machismo. The film reveals a much more feminine side, complete with hair removal and posing.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Jul 5, 2018
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| 100% | The Silence of Others (2018) |
Imagine going to Germany and seeing that there were still statues of Hitler. That was what Spaniards faced after the death of Franco. The film documents the need to bring his torturers to justice.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Jun 9, 2018
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| 100% | The Distant Barking of Dogs (2018) |
A pacifist film urgently needed in light of the ongoing and senseless war in Ukraine. It is also a film about childhood as moving as "The Florida Project".‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Jun 9, 2018
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| 100% | Naila and the Uprising (2017) |
In light of Israel's depraved indifference to Palestinian life in the border with Gaza recently, this film is not only timely but powerful cinema.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Jun 9, 2018
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| 40% | The Last Witness (2018) |
A reminder of how England helped to suppress reports about Stalin's murder of 22,000 Poles in 1940 when it was politically expedient.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Jun 1, 2018
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| 93% | First Reformed (2018) |
A visionary film about the most urgent question facing humanity: ecological ruin. Schrader has made the greatest American film of the decade.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted May 18, 2018
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| 93% | Angels Wear White (2018) |
A striking resemblance to "The Florida Project" for its motel locale, its class consciousness and above all its cinematic mastery.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted May 4, 2018
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| No Score Yet | American Socialist: The Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs (2018) |
A timely documentary for the period we are living in now: a new gilded age.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Apr 30, 2018
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| No Score Yet | Stranger Fruit (2017) |
A documentary that proves that Michael Brown was the victim of a lynching but by someone in a blue uniform rather than a hood.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Apr 27, 2018
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| 100% | The Judge (2018) |
A valuable insight into Palestinian society and a great antidote to Islamophobic hysteria over sharia law.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Apr 13, 2018
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| 95% | Sweet Country (2018) |
A visually striking film undone by its obsequious indigenous characters. Australia needs a film about native resistance. This, unfortunately, is not one.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Apr 6, 2018
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| 100% | The Heart of Nuba (2018) |
A most down-to-earth saint presented in the most refreshingly candid manner.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Apr 6, 2018
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| 86% | A Bag of Marbles (Un sac de billes) (2018) |
Emotionally draining tale of two Jewish boys forced to hide their identity in Vichy France. Although conventional in cinematic terms, its succeeds through its story-telling.‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Mar 23, 2018
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| 86% | The Workshop (L'atelier) (2018) |
Brilliant work from a director who makes great political films. "The Workshop" features a character who has an affinity with Camus's Meursault, the murderous anti-hero of "The Stranger", and a disturbing similarity to most French youth today. ‐ Counterpunch.org
Read More | Posted Mar 23, 2018
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