The Romance of American Liberalism
Grading a century of liberal film presidents.
405 Article(s) by: Eileen Jones
Eileen Jones is a film critic at Jacobin, host of the Filmsuck podcast, and author of Filmsuck, USA.
Honoring the Real Nat Turner
The Birth of a Nation isn't up to capturing the brutal, prophetic justice of Nat Turner's rebellion.
Fake Controversy, Terrible Comedy
The new Ghostbusters isn’t a feminist triumph. It’s just a bad movie.
Back to the Free State
The Free State of Jones isn't very good entertainment, but it deserves credit for getting much of the story of the Civil War and Reconstruction right.
Nobody Wants Some
Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! assumes we'd all like to return to the days when the boys ruled campus.
Death to All Superheroes
Batman is a fascist. Superman is dead. I'm bored.
The Means of Escape
The communists in the Coen brothers' Hail Caesar! are silly caricatures, but the film upholds basic Marxist premises.
When Revenge Goes Wrong
Instead of a captivating revenge film, The Revenant quickly becomes an overwrought mess.
The Sixth Decade
M. Night Shymalan plays on our fears of growing old in his new movie The Visit.
The Cinematic Lost Cause
Why have so many films dealing with the Civil War embraced the Confederate struggle?
Dreams of the Fifties
Channeling Steven Spielberg, Jurassic World sets the “bad” forces of social upheaval against the “good” traditional values.
Selma and the Struggle
Selma isn’t just a great movie. Its sense of history and justice is deeply politicizing.
Thinking Serious Thoughts
We’re not saying we're on North Korea’s side this time around. But we’re definitely not on Seth Rogen's.
Reactionaries in Space
Interstellar celebrates American-style frontier expansion and retrograde masculinity. It’s an ideological monstrosity.
Horror for the Whole Family
David Fincher’s Gone Girl revels in the sickness of our culture by making it seem attractive.
No War but Ape War
Who doesn't want to watch armed chimpanzees ride horses?
The Genius of Silicon Valley
Despite his libertarianism, Mike Judge’s Silicon Valley tears apart tech elites with a ruthless precision we haven’t seen since Office Space
Wes Anderson and the Old Regime
With The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson has reached the dizzying point of fantasizing about feeling nostalgic for nostalgia itself.
Crocodile Tears of the Wolf
The Wolf of Wall Street's eleventh hour Hail Mary doesn't atone for the rest of the film's gleeful celebration of rich assholes.
Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967–2014)
To see Philip Seymour Hoffman even in films that you hated was to come away awed.