Today on TAP: Deaths of despair in Frank Capra’s—and our—America
Movies
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Disney Launches a Blitzkrieg in the Streaming Wars
And it’s doing so by leveraging its market power in extreme, perhaps illegal ways.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
How the Disney Monopoly Influences What You Can See
‘The Sound of Music’ and hundreds of Fox films are out; a propaganda map used by the Chinese Communist Party is in.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
It’s Time to Break Up Disney
The company known for Mickey Mouse is now a sprawling conglomerate in entertainment and beyond, and that’s a big problem.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
The Hacked States of America
Netflix’s ‘The Great Hack’ director Karim Amer discusses how stolen personal data are manipulated to advance demagoguery and disinformation.
Posted inAmerica and the World
Official Secrets: A Conversation With Director Gavin Hood
The story of Katharine Gun, a whistle-blower who exposed NSA spying in the lead-up to the Iraq War, gets the Hollywood treatment.
Posted inTAP
How We Should See ‘The Irishman’
The current kerfuffle over Martin Scorsese’s forthcoming picture, The Irishman, raises a lot of questions about the future of movies. As described in today’s New York Times, it pits Scorsese and theater owners against the film’s producer and funder, Netflix, over the question of how the picture is to be distributed: widely on screen, or, […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ Is a Rumination on Fake News
“People, they need to believe. And nowadays, they’ll believe anything.”
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
The Writers Guild’s Dispute Had a Prequel. Lew Wasserman and the Feds Were the Stars.
But this time around, the Justice Department isn’t interested in challenging antitrust violations.
Posted inEconomic Policy
Remaking 9 to 5? What Today’s Working Women Want to See
After viewing the 1980 film, a cross section of women recognized the persistent sexism—but noted a host of newer problems a remake would have to address.