The Return of George A. Romero’s ‘The Amusement Park’ Provokes Sympathy for the Nearly Dead
George A. Romero’s The Amusement Park (1973), showing at Salem Horror Fest, terrifies with what the future brings to all who dare to live.
satire
What’s So Funny About Tragic Things?
Scepanski’s Tragedy Plus Time takes a serious look at how comedy and satire in American media make light of dark matters.
Silent Classic ‘The City Without Jews’ Wavers Between Satire and Grim Prophecy
It's the privilege of satire to apply one's opponents' "logic" towards a reductio ad absurdum, as we see in The City without Jews.
Randy Newman’s ‘Born Again’ Is His Best Critique of Toxic Masculinity
Randy Newman's satirical narrators lack self-reflection. This makes Newman the ideal songwriter to dismantle what would come to be called toxic masculinity.
Nazis, Nostalgia, and Critique in Taika Waititi’s ‘Jojo Rabbit’
Arriving amidst the exhaustion of the past (21st century cultural stagnation), Waititi locates a new potential object for the nostalgic gaze with Jojo Rabbit: unpleasant and traumatic events themselves.
Political Cartoonist Art Young Was an Aficionado of all Things Infernal
Fantagraphics' new edition of Inferno takes Art Young's original Depression-era critique to the Trump White House -- and then drags it all to Hell.
Claude McKay’s ‘Romance in Marseille’ Is Ahead of Its Time
Claude McKay's Romance in Marseille -- only recently published -- pushes boundaries on sexuality, disability, identity -- all in gorgeous poetic prose.
Great Scots: ‘Whiskey Galore!’ and ‘The Maggie’
Two Scottish comedies from Alexander Mackendrick, Whiskey Galore! and The Maggie, were part of Ealing Studios movies meant for a depressed postwar England to "let off steam".
Is Solipsism Art? On ‘The Exhibition of Persephone Q’
Jessi Jezewska Stevens' debut novel, The Exhibition of Persephone Q, is filled with exciting ideas and quirky characters, but the book's surfeit of style can't make up for a lack of personality or perspective.