Reel Review

Ava DuVernay's film A Wrinkle in Time has met with mixed reviews. The book the film adapts is both classic and beloved and also one of the most banned books in American schools and libraries due to Madeline L’Engle’s deeply Christian views on how faith and science can exist together. Not only does the film re-imagine those views from a lens of humanism, but in a first for Disney, the casting is color conscious. Our panel asks what is the importance of inclusion, self-awareness, and gender on audiences and critics? Our panel also discusses how the film portrays the nature of evil and asks - does the film has something to say about how to do good in the world given the polarization dominate in the current climate?

Find out what our panelists think, featuring host Jonathan Schwartz and guests Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, Anita Dashiell-Sparks, and Eshan Zaffar.

Let us know what you think of the film and our conversation at Facebook or Twitter.

To listen to the Price Projection Room discussion of A Wrinkle in Time click the arrow in the player at the top of this post. Or download and subscribe through Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, or Google Play.

Follow us on Twitter!  

@BedrosianCenter, @AngeMarieH, @Ezaffar

For links and more, check out the showpage.

This podcast is sponsored by Price Video Services and USC Bedrosian Center, and continues ongoing efforts to bring policy and its impact into the public discourse.

Special thanks to Dean Jack Knott, USC Price; Dean David Bridel, USC School of Dramatic Arts; and Dean Elizabeth Daley, USC Cinematic Arts for their support of this interdisciplinary conversation. 

This podcast was produced by Aubrey Hicks and Jonathan Schwartz, recorded and mixed by The Brothers Hedden, Ryan & Corey Hedden.

Steven Spielberg's most recent film - The Post - has been wildly anticipated by audiences - especially considering the current challenges in our media and news landscape. Chronicling The Washington Post’s publishing of The Pentagon Papers during the tail end of the Vietnam War and starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep - does the film accurately portray this important time in American History where the very nature of the First Amendment and National Security were in direct contrast? What takeaways or parallels can we draw to today?

Find out what our panelists think, featuring host Erroll Southers and guests Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro,  Jonathan Schwartz and Aubrey Hicks.

Let us know what you think of the film and our conversation at Facebook or Twitter.

To listen to the Price Projection Room discussion of The Post click the arrow in the player at the top of this post. Or download and subscribe through Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, or Google Play.

Follow us on Twitter!  

@BedrosianCenter, @esouthersHVE, @AngeMarieH, @AubreyHi

This podcast is sponsored by Price Video Services and USC Bedrosian Center, and continues ongoing efforts to bring policy and its impact into the public discourse.

Special thanks to Dean Jack Knott, USC Price; Dean David Bridel, USC School of Dramatic Arts; and Dean Elizabeth Daley, USC Cinematic Arts for their support of this interdisciplinary conversation. 

This podcast was produced by Aubrey Hicks and Jonathan Schwartz, recorded and mixed by The Brothers Hedden, Ryan & Corey Hedden.

Our nerd quotient is rising with the discussion of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

The latest installment of the Star Wars series brings with it controversy. How well does The Last Jedi fit into the Star Wars franchise? How does this new film show how culture has changed since the first film (A New Hope, 1977)? Our talented panel discuss these questions and more in their nerdy discussion of the continuing saga of Luke, Leia, Kylo, Rey, Poe, Finn, and new characters we meet along the way. How might our own biases distort the way we view the storytelling? 

Find out the journey our panelists took, featuring host Erroll Southers and guests Alessandro Ago, Carla Della Gatta, and Lt. Col. Olivia Nelson.

Let us know what you think of the film and our conversation at Facebook or Twitter.

To listen to the Price Projection Room discussion of Star Wars: The Last Jedi click the arrow in the player at the top of this post. Or download and subscribe through Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, or Google Play.

Follow us on Twitter!  

@BedrosianCenter, @esouthersHVE, @AlessandroAgo ‏, @CarlaDellaGatta 

What to read/watch next …

Planet of the Apes: 50th Anniversary Exhibit and Film Retrospective

Interview with Rian Johnson @ USC 

Interview with Rian Johnson @ USC - working with Carrie Fisher

Interview with Rian Johnson @ USC - working with Mark Hamill

How Star Wars was saved in the edit

The Star Wars Holiday Special (Complete Movie)

Tales from The Mos Eisley Cantina

This podcast is sponsored by Price Video Services and USC Bedrosian Center, and continues ongoing efforts to bring policy and its impact into the public discourse.

Special thanks to Dean Jack Knott, USC Price; Dean David Bridel, USC School of Dramatic Arts; and Dean Elizabeth Daley, USC Cinematic Arts for their support of this interdisciplinary conversation. 

This podcast was produced by Aubrey Hicks and Jonathan Schwartz, recorded and mixed by The Brothers Hedden, Ryan & Corey Hedden.

Gary Oldman is Winston Churchill in the new WWII film, Darkest Hour.

The first month of Churchill's historic time as Prime Minister, he faced a great decision; one that would lead either to war or to a negotiated peace with Hitler. The compressed timeline of the film drops the viewer in the midst of the "darkest hour" of British history. The decisions made during these days could have changed the course of history.

Find out what our panelists think, featuring host Erroll Southers and guests Lt. Col. Olivia Nelson, Jonathan Schwartz, and David Warshofsky.

Director Dee Rees' new film, Mudbound, follows two southern families before, during, and after World War II. One family is white, one black. Centering on the complex relationships between the two families, the film explores how different generations dealt with societal changes which inevitably followed the war. The multiple narrators bring a sense of both internal and external character development as the events unfold. Of the novel, Barbara Kingsolver said, "Her characters walked straight out of 1940s Mississippi and into the part of my brain where sympathy and anger and love reside, leaving my heart racing. They are with me still." 

Strong female characters ground the story as it tells of the challenges returning soldiers with different world views as they return to family and a small Mississippi community that hasn't weathered the storms and triumphs they have seen half a world away. Listen to this conversation on this ensemble film about war at home and abroad.

Warning: *spoilers!*

Find out what our panelists think, featuring host Erroll Southers and guests Alex Ago, Lt. Col. Olivia Nelson, and Rodney To.

For links to some of the things we talk about and further reading - please visit our showpage.

Is Blade Runner 2049 the sequel we didn't know we needed? Set in a dystopian future Los Angeles, Ryan Gosling's K is a replicant who hunts down dis-loyal replicants: a Blade Runner. When a secret is uncovered, he sets out on a quest. The journey becomes one to not only find the secret but to answer some of the fundamental questions. What does it mean to be alive, to be human?

Did the film live up to its hype?

Find out what our panel thinks, featuring host Erroll Southers and guests Leo Braudy, René Bruckner, and Aubrey Hicks.

Let us know what you think of the film and our conversation at Facebook or Twitter.

For more, check out the showpage.

Director Michael Cuesta brings the fictional hero of Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp novels to the big screen in the new film,American Assassin. The all-star cast includes Dylan O'Brien, Michael Keaton, and Taylor Kitsch as a threesome tied together through the specter of betrayal and revenge, set upon a backdrop of international espionage and nuclear threat. 

We discuss the level of violence in the film, its portrayal of U.S. black-ops and anti-terrorism efforts, the film's space within the spy thriller genre, the motivations of the studio, the acting, the gender themes, how millennials may be viewing it, and so much more.

Host Erroll Southers is joined by spectacular guests Alessandro Ago, Lt. Col. Olivia Nelson, and veteran actor David Warshofsky.

Let us know what you think of the film and our conversation at Facebook or Twitter.

Hulu has adapted The Handmaid's Tale,  the classic novel by Margaret Atwood, into a 10 episode saga of life in the dystopia of Gilead. Gilead is a totalitarian society in what was formerly the United States, ruled by a twisted Protestant fundamentalism in its ‘return to traditional values'. As one of the few remaining fertile women, Offred (played to much acclaim by Elisabeth Moss) is forced into sexual servitude as part of a caste of women called Handmaids. In this terrifying society, Offred must navigate between the men who rule with iron fists, the Commanders, as well as the deeply divided casts of women wealthy but bored Wives, domestic Marthas, and her fellow Handmaids. Her goal is to survive, and one day find the daughter that was taken from her.

Warning: *spoilers!*

Host Jonathan Schwartz is joined by three fierce women of USC to discuss the series' timeliness, its narrative of motherhood, the fear of religious fundamentalism, and the absence of a discussion on race.

Featuring host Jonathan Schwartz and guests Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, Melinda C. Finberg, and Tara McPherson.

Special thanks to Dean Jack Knott, USC Price; Dean David Bridel, USC School of Dramatic Arts; and Dean Elizabeth Daley, USC Cinematic Arts for their support of this interdisciplinary conversation.

The Price Projection Room (PPR) features engaging conversations about film and television with interesting folks and USC experts from across disciplines (public policy, governance, theatre, and cinema) to look at visual storytelling, media literacy, diversity, and the public good. 

Sponsored by:

USC Price Video Services
http://www.usc.edu/pvs

USC Bedrosian Center
http://bedrosian.usc.edu 

Content Partners:

USC School of Dramatic Arts
https://dramaticarts.usc.edu/ 

USC School of Cinematic-Arts
https://cinema.usc.edu 

Recorded at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy
http://priceschool.usc.edu

Peter Berg’s The Kingdom is an action procedural which tries to also be a lesson in cross-cultural tolerance. Released in 2007, we wonder if this film makes the same amount of sense ten years later. The film follows an FBI team which travels to infiltrate and find a terrorist cell in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia following an attack killing many American citizens (as well as fellow FBI agent). If art is an imitation of life, have we moved on in the last ten years, or does this remain salient?

Join us for a conversation on East/West cultural understanding, terrorism, FBI interaction with local law enforcement across the world, representation, and what remains universal in this film and how audiences have changed in the last 10 years.

Warning: *spoilers!*

Featuring Deirdre Fike (FBI), Ehsan Zaffar (DHS), Jeremiah O’Brian (USC School of Dramatic Arts), Alex Ago (USC School Cinematic Arts), and Erroll Southers (USC Price)

Wonder Woman is finally on the big screen! Raised on an island secluded from the world, Diana trained harder than any Amazon before her. Taught that the world of man was corrupted by Ares, the God of War, Diana sees an opportunity to kill Ares and set the world right after a pilot crashes on the island. She journeys into the world of man, accompanying Steve Trevor into the "war to end all wars." Soon, Diana learns that humankind is more complicated than the myths she knew.

After dozens of superhero films, has director Patty Jenkins revitalized the DC universe with this superheroine? Amid all the "rep-sweats," did the film do justice to this classic comic heroine? Why is this film so important? What do we think of the women-only showings at Alamo Drafthouse? Did we enjoy this film?

Warning: *spoilers!*

Featuring Lt. Colonel Olivia Nelson, Carla Della Gatta, Tara McPherson, and Erroll Southers

Special thanks to Dean Jack Knott, USC Price; Dean David Bridel, USC School of Dramatic Arts; and Dean Elizabeth Daley, USC Cinematic Arts for their support of this interdisciplinary conversation.

The Price Projection Room (PPR) features engaging conversations about film and television with interesting folks and USC experts from across disciplines (public policy, governance, theatre, and cinema) to look at visual storytelling, media literacy, diversity, and the public good. 

Sponsored by:

USC Price Video Services
http://www.usc.edu/pvs

USC Bedrosian Center
http://bedrosian.usc.edu 

Content Partners:

USC School of Dramatic Arts
https://dramaticarts.usc.edu/ 

USC School of Cinematic-Arts
https://cinema.usc.edu 

Recorded at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy
http://priceschool.usc.edu