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Lula: Blame It on Brio

Ed Rampell: This stylish, stirring, poignant picture follows Luis Inacio Lula da Silva from his birth and humble origins in Brazilian hinterlands to his migration to the urban squalor of São Paolo’s favelas.

Lula: Blame It on Brio Lula: Blame It on Brio

Evolution of Nomenclature: Negro to African-American

H. Scott Prosterman: One day, I was having a thoughtful conversation with a black college student and described someone as a “colored guy.” He quickly responded, “What color?”

Evolution of Nomenclature: Negro to African-American Evolution of Nomenclature: Negro to African-American

Million Download Campaign: Open Source Music

Derrick N Ashong: I don't know that Open Source music will necessarily supplant the music industry as it currently exists. Rather, I think these concepts will ultimately expand and help to redefine what we think the music industry "is."

Million Download Campaign: Open Source Music Million Download Campaign: Open Source Music

The Gingrich Who Stole South Carolina

Dan Pasley: Let’s face it Mr. Gingrich, there’s really no dispute, you’re just a mass of toxic gas trapped in a fat man’s suit!

The Gingrich Who Stole South Carolina The Gingrich Who Stole South Carolina

Roger Ebert: Life Itself

Jim Cullen: The days of the professional reviewer like Roger Ebert seem numbered in a fractured media culture where everybody's an expert and nobody can really expect to make a living as a critic.

Roger Ebert: Life Itself Roger Ebert: Life Itself

Racism in “The Descendants”

Michael Haas: The Descendants deliberately fails to inform filmviewers how the land in the Islands has been repeatedly carved up to make money for landowners, while Native Hawaiians have increasingly seen their homeland turned into golf courses, hotels, urban highrise offices, and suburban sprawl.

Racism in “The Descendants” Racism in "The Descendants"

Awake and Sling

Ed Rampell: Combining the Theatre of the Absurd with agitprop Awake is a cross between Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot and Clifford Odets’ Waiting For Lefty.

Awake and Sling Awake and Sling

2012 PROGIE Nominations for Best Progressive Films & Artists

The James Agee Cinema Circle announces the 5th annual “Progie” Award nominees for 2012’s Best Progressive Films and Filmmakers. Nominees this year include: George Clooney; Viggo Mortensen; a documentary featuring Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael and other Black activists; and the Iranian film A Separation.

2012 PROGIE Nominations for Best Progressive Films & Artists 2012 PROGIE Nominations for Best Progressive Films & Artists

Miss Bala: Coronation of a Sexy Citizen Above Suspicion

Ed Rampell: Miss Bala is one of the best, most exciting crime pictures I’ve seen since last year’s Congo-set Viva Riva! Mexico’s cinema has become so hot that even gringo Will Ferrell is getting into the act

Miss Bala: Coronation of a Sexy Citizen Above Suspicion Miss Bala: Coronation of a Sexy Citizen Above Suspicion

Ethnic Studies, MLK and Great Men

Sikivu Hutchinson: As my twelfth grade students prepare for the next phase of their lives, many of them express outrage over “just having learned” that women like them, from communities like theirs, organized against white supremacist patriarchal systems of so-called democratic “opportunity.”

Ethnic Studies, MLK and Great Men Ethnic Studies, MLK and Great Men