It’s often said that one of the greatest injustices of American movies is that Wendell B. Harris Jr. failed to become one of the legendary progenitors of the indie cinema renaissance of the late 1980s and early ’90s. Or, rather, that a craven industry failed him. While it’s certainly true that he and so many other Black filmmakers of his generation deserved more than they were given, Harris’s reputation needs nothing more than Chameleon Street to secure his place among the greats. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival, the film is a fleet, nimble, and knowingly slippery portrait of infamous con artist William Douglas Street Jr. (dazzlingly played by Harris), who at the height of his gamesmanship posed as a surgeon and, so legend has it, performed three dozen successful hysterectomies before being found out, and has spent large swaths of his...
- 10/26/2023
- by Eric Henderson
- Slant Magazine
Imagine someone in the news business, a television producer, who wasn’t concerned about truth. That apparent anomaly describes Roger Ailes, the late Fox News chief, according to filmmaker Alexis Bloom.
“He never said truth was important to him, in terms of Fox News. It was all about entertainment and messaging,” Bloom tells Deadline. “He never said ‘factual accuracy is what we’re all about.’ He didn’t.”
Bloom delved deeply into Ailes’ life and impact on news media and politics for her Emmy-contending documentary Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes. The film from A&e is nominated for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking, an exclusive category determined by select members of the TV Academy’s Nonfiction Peer Group.
To understand Ailes’ conservative worldview, Bloom dialed back to his childhood in small town Warren, Ohio.
“Growing up where he did inculcated in him a sense of patriotism and American...
“He never said truth was important to him, in terms of Fox News. It was all about entertainment and messaging,” Bloom tells Deadline. “He never said ‘factual accuracy is what we’re all about.’ He didn’t.”
Bloom delved deeply into Ailes’ life and impact on news media and politics for her Emmy-contending documentary Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes. The film from A&e is nominated for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking, an exclusive category determined by select members of the TV Academy’s Nonfiction Peer Group.
To understand Ailes’ conservative worldview, Bloom dialed back to his childhood in small town Warren, Ohio.
“Growing up where he did inculcated in him a sense of patriotism and American...
- 8/15/2019
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Sometimes, in politics, truth is stranger than fiction.
As a cub reporter at Mother Jones in the late Nineties, I wrote an article about novels by American politicians called “Don’t Quit Your Day Job,” reviewing a noir thriller by former Republican Gov. Bill Weld of Massachusetts. Called Mackerel by Moonlight, the page-turner features hard-boiled prose that still make my ribs hurt from laughing: “They turned around like deer in the headlights. Deer who had also been shot.”
Today, Weld himself is the protagonist in a plot that 20 years ago...
As a cub reporter at Mother Jones in the late Nineties, I wrote an article about novels by American politicians called “Don’t Quit Your Day Job,” reviewing a noir thriller by former Republican Gov. Bill Weld of Massachusetts. Called Mackerel by Moonlight, the page-turner features hard-boiled prose that still make my ribs hurt from laughing: “They turned around like deer in the headlights. Deer who had also been shot.”
Today, Weld himself is the protagonist in a plot that 20 years ago...
- 4/15/2019
- by Tim Dickinson
- Rollingstone.com
President Donald Trump used Twitter to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment in a video that brazenly ties migrants fleeing poverty in Central America to a cop-killer smirking as he brags about his crimes.
The president has spent the final weeks ahead of the midterm election attacking the thousands of migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador heading for the U.S. border, a group he has dubbed a “caravan” of invading hordes.
Last week, Trump amplified his anti-immigrant statements at campaign rallies with a video that reached more than 6 million viewers on Twitter, and offered a preview of one of the most racially charged political attack ads to appear on television in decades.
The minute-long social media video begins with an unsettling image of a bald man smirking under the headline: “Illegal immigrant Luis Bracamontes killed our people!”
As Bracamontes can be heard profanely bragging about the murders and threatening to commit...
The president has spent the final weeks ahead of the midterm election attacking the thousands of migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador heading for the U.S. border, a group he has dubbed a “caravan” of invading hordes.
Last week, Trump amplified his anti-immigrant statements at campaign rallies with a video that reached more than 6 million viewers on Twitter, and offered a preview of one of the most racially charged political attack ads to appear on television in decades.
The minute-long social media video begins with an unsettling image of a bald man smirking under the headline: “Illegal immigrant Luis Bracamontes killed our people!”
As Bracamontes can be heard profanely bragging about the murders and threatening to commit...
- 11/5/2018
- by Dawn C. Chmielewski
- Deadline Film + TV
Updated with Facebook pulling ad: Facebook has pulled a racially charged Donald Trump campaign commercial, which attempts to link a Mexican immigrant who murdered two sheriff’s deputies in 2014 to migrants leaving Central America. The move comes after NBCUniversal had a similar sharp change of heart Monday hours after airing the incendiary ad last night on Sunday Night Football.
The social network said the ad violates Facebook’s ban on sensational ad content. The ad began running today, equating the thousands of asylum-seekers approaching the U.S. border with Luis Bracamontes, who is seen in a video bragging about his crimes. It calls on voters to stop the “invasion” and vote Republican.
“This ad violates Facebook’s advertising policy against sensational content so we are rejecting it,” Facebook said in a statement. It reached as many as 50,000 people living in Florida, according to Facebook’s ad archive.
Airing on Sunday...
The social network said the ad violates Facebook’s ban on sensational ad content. The ad began running today, equating the thousands of asylum-seekers approaching the U.S. border with Luis Bracamontes, who is seen in a video bragging about his crimes. It calls on voters to stop the “invasion” and vote Republican.
“This ad violates Facebook’s advertising policy against sensational content so we are rejecting it,” Facebook said in a statement. It reached as many as 50,000 people living in Florida, according to Facebook’s ad archive.
Airing on Sunday...
- 11/5/2018
- by Dominic Patten and Dawn C. Chmielewski
- Deadline Film + TV
President Trump has provided America with yet another reminder to never underestimate how deep into the gutter he will crawl to win an election. On Wednesday afternoon, the president tweeted a new, deeply racist campaign ad in which he continued to drive the narrative that Democrats are pro-crime. It begins with footage of a Mexican man named Luis Bracamontes bragging about how he killed police officers. Bracamontes has been deported, but re-entered the United States illegally, and in February was convicted of killing two deputies in California. The Democrats are to blame,...
- 11/1/2018
- by Ryan Bort
- Rollingstone.com
President Donald Trump has pinned the Willie Horton-esque ad he tweeted on Halloween to the top of his Twitter page. (See it below.)
TV news outlets spent last night and this morning comparing the video to one used so effectively in 1988 by George H.W. Bush’s camp to kneecap Dem presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. But in ’88, Bush himself tried to distance himself from the ad made by a pro-Bush Pac and on which, coincidentally, former Fox News chief Roger Ailes was an adviser.
“Roger Ailes has died, but he was the mastermind behind Willy Horton and his acolytes are in the White House, and here we are again,” said Alisyn Camerota, former Fox News Channel host, now on CNN, this morning.
CNN political analyst John Avlon reminded her that former Rnc chair and George H.W. Bush adviser Lee Atwater had apologized for the race-baiting Willie Horton ad...
TV news outlets spent last night and this morning comparing the video to one used so effectively in 1988 by George H.W. Bush’s camp to kneecap Dem presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. But in ’88, Bush himself tried to distance himself from the ad made by a pro-Bush Pac and on which, coincidentally, former Fox News chief Roger Ailes was an adviser.
“Roger Ailes has died, but he was the mastermind behind Willy Horton and his acolytes are in the White House, and here we are again,” said Alisyn Camerota, former Fox News Channel host, now on CNN, this morning.
CNN political analyst John Avlon reminded her that former Rnc chair and George H.W. Bush adviser Lee Atwater had apologized for the race-baiting Willie Horton ad...
- 11/1/2018
- by Lisa de Moraes
- Deadline Film + TV
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