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| A scene from Milk. |
Milk leads the pack of progressive films
By Ed Rampell and John Esther
Awarded the day after the Academy Awards ceremonies the Progies are the “un-Oscars” annually awarded by the James Agee Cinema Circle – an international group of left-leaning critics and historians -- for the best progressive films and filmmakers of conscience and consciousness.
The Trumbo for Best Progressive Picture: Milk.
The Garfield for Best Actor: Sean Penn
The Karen Morley for Best Actress: Melissa Leo.
The Renoir for Best Anti-War Film: Waltz with Bashir.
The Gillo for Best Progressive Foreign Film: Waltz with Bashir.
The Dziga for Best Progessive Documentary: Body of War and Trouble the Water.
The Adrienne Shelly Award for Opposing Violence Against Women: Changeling.
The La Passionara Award for Positive Female Images: Frozen River.
The Our Daily Bread Award for Positive and Inspiring Working Class Images: Battle in Seattle.
The Robeson Award for Positive Images of People of Color: Trouble the Water.
The Brando for Best Progressive Film Activist: Sean Penn.
The Tomas Gutierrez Alea Award for Depicting Mass Popular Uprising: Che.
The Sergei for Best Progressive Lifetime Achievement Award: Paul Newman.
The Lawson for Best Anti-Fascist Film: Defiance.
The Modern Times for Best Progressive Film Satire: Religulous and War, Inc.
The Orson for Best Overlooked Film: The Real Great Debaters.
The Lorentz for Best Environmentalist Film: Wall-E.
The Pasolini for Best Pro-Gay Rights Film: Milk.
The Lennon for Best Progressive Musical: Cadillac Records.
ELIA KAZAN HALL OF SHAME 2008.
Citations for the worst anti-working class and right wing movies of the year.
Slumdog Millionaire: For its reinforcement of the status quo on mass-es and un-Critic-call levels. And for its colonialist mentality, including refusal to honor or recognize for awards the Indian co-director Tandan Loveleen, and for not compensating the still impoverished Indian children playing impoverished Indian children in Slumdog Millionaire, while the movie amasses millions in profits.
Che: Patronizing and exploitive artsy distortion of the real life and struggle of Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution. Cultural imperialism, alive and well at the movies.
The Life Before Her Eyes: Orthodox family values in fake free spirit female coed Columbine comeuppance clothing. Or in other words, a woman's place is in the delivery room. Not exactly a road movie, but certainly an anti-abortion mandatory teen motherhood guilt trip. All that's missing are the pamphlet tables in the theater lobbies.
House of Sleeping Beauties: A movie that might have been more aptly titled, Sexually Desirable When Drugged, the film allows lewd elderly director Vadim Glowna to star himself as molester and rapist of a series of nude adolescent slumbering sex slaves, in what may or may not be a fantasy brothel for necrophiliacs. Nothing less than a romanticized and lusty aesthetic portrayal of date rape.
Doubt: African-American mom (Viola Davis) confesses that she does not mind if her son is being molested by a pedophile priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman), as long as he gets to graduate. Will all the mothers in the audience who have ever heard such an idea even hinted at from the lips of a fellow female parent, please raise your hands.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: For those black mammies still showing up on the screen, even when they are men.
By Ed Rampell and John Esther
Awarded the day after the Academy Awards ceremonies the Progies are the “un-Oscars” annually awarded by the James Agee Cinema Circle – an international group of left-leaning critics and historians -- for the best progressive films and filmmakers of conscience and consciousness.
The Trumbo for Best Progressive Picture: Milk.
The Garfield for Best Actor: Sean Penn
The Karen Morley for Best Actress: Melissa Leo.
The Renoir for Best Anti-War Film: Waltz with Bashir.
The Gillo for Best Progressive Foreign Film: Waltz with Bashir.
The Dziga for Best Progessive Documentary: Body of War and Trouble the Water.
The Adrienne Shelly Award for Opposing Violence Against Women: Changeling.
The La Passionara Award for Positive Female Images: Frozen River.
The Our Daily Bread Award for Positive and Inspiring Working Class Images: Battle in Seattle.
The Robeson Award for Positive Images of People of Color: Trouble the Water.
The Brando for Best Progressive Film Activist: Sean Penn.
The Tomas Gutierrez Alea Award for Depicting Mass Popular Uprising: Che.
The Sergei for Best Progressive Lifetime Achievement Award: Paul Newman.
The Lawson for Best Anti-Fascist Film: Defiance.
The Modern Times for Best Progressive Film Satire: Religulous and War, Inc.
The Orson for Best Overlooked Film: The Real Great Debaters.
The Lorentz for Best Environmentalist Film: Wall-E.
The Pasolini for Best Pro-Gay Rights Film: Milk.
The Lennon for Best Progressive Musical: Cadillac Records.
ELIA KAZAN HALL OF SHAME 2008.
Citations for the worst anti-working class and right wing movies of the year.
Slumdog Millionaire: For its reinforcement of the status quo on mass-es and un-Critic-call levels. And for its colonialist mentality, including refusal to honor or recognize for awards the Indian co-director Tandan Loveleen, and for not compensating the still impoverished Indian children playing impoverished Indian children in Slumdog Millionaire, while the movie amasses millions in profits.
Che: Patronizing and exploitive artsy distortion of the real life and struggle of Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution. Cultural imperialism, alive and well at the movies.
The Life Before Her Eyes: Orthodox family values in fake free spirit female coed Columbine comeuppance clothing. Or in other words, a woman's place is in the delivery room. Not exactly a road movie, but certainly an anti-abortion mandatory teen motherhood guilt trip. All that's missing are the pamphlet tables in the theater lobbies.
House of Sleeping Beauties: A movie that might have been more aptly titled, Sexually Desirable When Drugged, the film allows lewd elderly director Vadim Glowna to star himself as molester and rapist of a series of nude adolescent slumbering sex slaves, in what may or may not be a fantasy brothel for necrophiliacs. Nothing less than a romanticized and lusty aesthetic portrayal of date rape.
Doubt: African-American mom (Viola Davis) confesses that she does not mind if her son is being molested by a pedophile priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman), as long as he gets to graduate. Will all the mothers in the audience who have ever heard such an idea even hinted at from the lips of a fellow female parent, please raise your hands.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: For those black mammies still showing up on the screen, even when they are men.
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