Among the more prominent objects of systemic and structural critique is “the military industrial complex.” The phrase “military industrial complex,” popularized by President Eisenhower during his farewell address in 1961, refers to an economic system that is inextricably connected to the military industry. This economic system is beholden to the private fiscal agreement between military lobbyists and political figures that necessitates escalating annual stimulus into military expenditure using public monies commensurate to the expanding productive benchmark of the industry. The product of this iniquitous alliance is clear. It breeds an economic incentive to engage in militarized behaviour and to pursue…

21 in 21 is an essay series considering 21 movies from the past 21 years, one from each year, beginning with 2000. The series is a reflection upon the movies themselves, and hopefully, in aggregate, film in the twenty-first century. The essays are not meant to be reviews. More than anything, this series is an excuse for me to watch movies and to credibly claim that I’m “doing work.” Which movies do you hate that I’ll claim are good? Which movies do you love that I’ll claim are bad? Probably all of them!

The first time I watched Lost in…

Each brutal truncheon-blow, gleefully delivered from behind riot gear, results in mirrored fractures in the physical and in the symbolic. Every “discharge” of “non-lethal ordnance” used to disfigure protestors and travelling journalists is an exacerbation of those fractures. Any dispensation of weapons-grade tear gas issued as a display of flagrant disdain for the right to freedom of association and protest compounds the fractures. The barbarities inflicted by Oakley-wearing psychopaths proudly flouting “Punisher” iconography — thereby communicating their interpretation of the phrase “to serve and protect” — are a breaking point. The summation of each of these escalating cracks to the…

21 in 21 is an essay series considering 21 movies from the past 21 years, one from each year, beginning in 2000. The series is a reflection upon the movies themselves, and hopefully, in aggregate, film in the twenty-first century. The essays are not meant to be reviews. More than anything, this series is an excuse for me to watch movies and to credibly claim that I’m “doing work.” Which movies do you hate that I’ll claim are good? Which movies do you love that I’ll claim are bad? Probably all of them! Let’s go back to the movies!

Obvious…

In his accompanying essay to the New York Times’ greatest works of fiction published in the last 25 years event (itself published in 2005), A.O. Scott correctly noted that the vast majority of the authors on the list were born during or before the Roosevelt administration. If NYT had conducted a similar list in the 1960s or the 1970s it would have been populated by a litany of young radicals, dappled with middle-aged stalwarts (i.e. Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, and Gore Vidal) comprising the august contingent of that imaginary cohort. Authors in their sixties dominated the 2005 “competition” (many of…

“During the day, you have these ‘in-between’ moments. Ten minutes here, fifteen minutes there, where you want to see something great.” With this statement Meg Whitman, CEO of the new cellphone-optimized streaming service Quibi, succinctly describes the contours of the platform and its market-position relative to its established competitors. Quibi is predicated upon the deconstruction of the traditional strictures governing the consumption of streaming commodities, generally relegated to the home-viewing of Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime. The platform promises ten-minute “quick bites” of “prestige” television programming, formatted and filmed for cellphones, that are intended to absorb the nooks and crannies…