Spare Change News

Category: TV & Movies

  • ‘Obvious Child’ Tackles a Taboo Subject with Humor and Grace

    By Marissa Giambelluca Gillian Robespierre’s “Obvious Child” is, at heart, the tale of a young woman falling in love while also getting an abortion. I was going to say she considers getting an abortion, but her immediate response to hearing the doctor say she’s pregnant is, “I would like an abortion please. I know that…

  • Before Trayvon Martin

    “Fruitvale Station” directed by Ryan Coogler Significant Productions, 85 min., in theaters now The award-winning film “Fruitvale Station” shows the true story of 22-year-old Oscar Grant III on the day of his death. The timing of this movie could not have been better. Following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the murder of Trayvon Martin,…

  • When Art Imitates Life and Gets It Right

    “Orange is the New Black” created by Jenji Kohan Netflix, 51–61 min., 13 episodes The moving Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black” is based on a memoir of the same name by Piper Kerman—the fictional Piper Chapman on the show—a highly-educated woman in her 30s who was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison…

  • Free for All?

    “Free For All!” Directed by John Wellington Ennis freeforall.tv, 1:36:36, free online (streaming) The controversial presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 angered many Americans, who believed their ballots were stolen. The investigative documentary “Free For All!” (2008) lifts the veil of secrecy. In this film, director John Ennis investigates unsettling problems such as disfranchisement of…

  • LGBTQ Youth Adrift

    LGBTQ Youth Adrift “Outside” Directed by Natalie Avery KUED, 55:58, free online (streaming) There are over 1.4 million homeless youth in the United States today and forty percent of them are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ). The independent documentary Outside is a microcosm of their lives adrift in an anchorless world, addressing the…

  • Gut Feeling

    “In the Body of the World: A Memoir” by Eve Ensler Metropolitan, 232 pp., $25 (hardcover) Eve Ensler’s new memoir “In the Body of the World” encapsulates the very physical nature of grieving as experienced through the journey of the author’s transcendent deliverance through cancer. The book convincingly proposes a parallel between the ills that…

  • Bahrain Uncensored

    “Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark” directed by May Welsh Al Jazeera, 50:56, free online (streaming) The award-winning documentary “Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark” consists of eye-opening images, interviews, and testimonies of members of the opposition who overcame their fear and sacrificed their security for the sake of their democratic rights. In a country ruled by…

  • Django Unchained: A Review

      Django Unchained directed by Quentin Tarantino (Weinstein Company, $29.99) I expected the epithet “nigger” to be overused in Django Unchained. It is a Quentin Tarantino film after all, and Tarantino is proficient in hyperbole. I was not prepared, however, for the countless eruptions of laughter following those scenes — and there were many — in which “nigger” was used…

  • Argo and the Roots of U.S.-Iran Tensions

      News in November 1979 that U.S. diplomats had been taken hostage in Tehran shocked the United States. Students stormed the U.S. embassy, blindfolding 52 Americans and threatening them at gunpoint. The hostages, held captive for 444 days, immediately became the nation’s top news story and dogged President Jimmy Carter’s unsuccessful re-election campaign. Argo traces the…

  • F the #'s: Writer J. Marechal Argues that Poverty Is More than Statistics

    F the #’s. I’m not giving you any. One doesn’t have to look far to see poverty wide. It’s not about numbers. It is about having to give in to tears when officers are summoned to oust a homeless mother and her three year old from a shelter. It is two, three people sharing a…