Conspiracy | SpoutBlog

10 Worst Environmental Offenders of the Past 20 Years

By Christopher Campbell posted 7 months ago

Imagine, on this Earth Day, that solving the problem of global warming and other environmental concerns was as easy as defeating one main villain. Unfortunately, there are and have been millions of bad guys in the story of our planet’s health, so there’s no easy solution involving the killing or imprisonment of a single threat, as is often the case in the movies. Some films, such as WALL-E, do point the finger at the human race in general, but for purposes of narrative closure, environmentalist plots typically close the door on their specific issues by punishing an individual character responsible for that issue.

In our list of the worst of these environmental offenders, we decided to stick to films of the last twenty years, because they were made in more environmentally conscious times yet they still represent threats as being caused primarily by singular villains. We also excluded all non-fiction films, both documentaries and dramas based on true stories, because no real-life characters are/were as terrible as these ten baddies:
…Read more

0 Comments

Lists

Berlin Awards Controversy

By Karina Longworth posted 1 year ago

In his post on the Berlin Film Festiva’s jury prizes, the bulk of which were handed out on Saturday night, David Hudson predicted that some of the selections “will not sit well with many of the people I spoke with or the critics I read throughout the festival,” and man, was he right. The Golden Bear went to The Elite Squad (or Tropa de Elite), Brazilian filmmaker Jose Padilha’s action drama about drugs and military police in mid-90s Rio, and to say that this film was not a critical favorite would be an understatement.

Noting that the “overwhelming ugliness of [The Elite Squad] has stayed with me,” Shane Danielson at indieWIRE was one of many to cite the film’s “genuinely fascist sensibility…Since when did Mike Huckabee start scripting action-thrillers?” And that was published before the award was announced––Jurgen Fauth’s post on the matter seems to sum up the thoughts of many in the wake of the announcement: “From where I’m sitting over a Hefeweizen, the Berlinale’s top award couldn’t have gone to a worse film.”

So why, and how, did it happen? Filmbrain is calling conspiracy:

3 Comments

Festivals