“That was better than it had any right to be.” A friend of mine said that after we departed the theater, having just seen the new film Overlord. He was quite right, but you might be reasonably asking yourself, “What’s up with the smug condescension? Aren’t you supposed to give each movie its day in court and approach it as a cinematic tabula rasa?”    Yeah, I know. You’re supposed to, but let’s be honest here. We all have our biases, especially when it comes to movies. Some people want to immediately take a suicide pill when they see a trailer for the latest Marvel movie. Others... Read More

What do we mean when we talk about whitewashing? It’s a practice that’s been around since the beginning of cinema, and it’s the practice of casting white actors in roles that were either originated by non-white actors or should have been played by non-white actors. Maybe when you hear that term, you think of older films from a less enlightened time.* Examples like whites in blackface in Birth of a Nation, Mickey Rooney’s breathtakingly racist portrayal of a Japanese man in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, or Natalie Wood playing a Puerto Rican teen in West Side Story.... Read More