World Culture
2000 to present

Media

Brother Takeshi Kitano (Japan) 2000. Kitano takes the yakuza film global. Harsh, effective crime drama.

The Day I Became a Woman Marzieh Meshkini (Iran) 2000. Outstanding meditation on the life-cycle of women in childhood, maturity and old age.

Grand Theft Auto 3 Rockstar Games (US) (GTA3 2000; GTA3: Vice City 2002; GTA3: San Andreas 2004). The best run-and-gun crime thrillers ever made. Drive through an entire city, whack your gangster opponents, play the radio -- you can do it all in this game. Vice City shifts the action to a lightly fictionalized version of Miami in the 1980s, where tremendous voice acting, an all-star 1980s sound-track, terrific weather effects, and a gripping storyline all add up to a glorious burn on a certain unelected thievish war-mongering petro-fundamentalist regime we could all name. San Andreas is set in lightly fictionalized versions of LA, San Francisco and Las Vegas.

They Hunger, Neil Manke (Canada), 2000-2001. (They Hunger, They Hunger II: Rest in Pieces, They Hunger III: Rude Awakening). Neil Manke’s magnificent add-on mod for Half Life transforms the 3D shooter into a multinational art-form. Mapping, textures, voice acting, and game-play shine thanks to Manke and a team of some of the best game designers in the world (http://www.planethalflife.com/manke).

Yi Yi Edward Yang (Taiwan) 2000. Sparkling drama, about postmodern Taiwan searching for its own identity in a post-Cold War Pacific Rim.

Love's a Bitch [Amores Perros] Alejandro González Iñárritu (Mexico) 2000. Three interconnected stories throw a harsh spotlight on neoliberalized Mexico. Like a cross between Tarantino and Kieslowski. Watch for the brilliant closing reference to A Boy and His Dog.

Blackboards Samira Makhmalbaf (Iran) 2000. Outstanding drama set in the harsh environs of the Iran-Iraq border.

Amelie [Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain] Jean-Pierre Jeunet (France) 2001. After a fruitless sojourn in Hollywood, Jeunet makes up for lost time with this visually stunning, delightful Euro-romance.

Devil May Cry Shinji Mikami and Hideki Kamiya (Japan) 2001. Hugely entertaining occult action-thriller from Capcom's Shinji Mikami, the mastermind behind the Resident Evil series.

The Fast Runner [Atanarjuat] Zacharias Kunuk (Canada) 2001. An Inuit legend comes to life in this sweeping epic of romance, exile and return.

Final Fantasy 10 Yoshinori Kitasi (Japan) 2001. Epic, sprawling RPG adventure. Square Enix shows how it's done.

Max Payne Remedy (Finland) 2001. Double-barreled action thriller delivers the bullet-time body-slam to neoliberalism. Writer Sam Lake and the all-star talents at Helsinki-based Remedy do for the 3rd-person shooter what Nokia did for the cellphone. Bullseye!

Metal Gear Solid 2 Hideo Kojima. (Japan) 2001. Kojima's espionage masterpiece, solidly constructed from beginning to end.

Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson (New Zealand) 2001-2003 (The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001; The Two Towers, 2002; The Return of the King, 2003). Jackson's trilogy reinvents Tolkien's fantasy classic for the Information Age. Soaring, intelligent epic, whose secret byline is "R€SIST $AURON". Be sure to watch the extended, full-length versions of the films.

Millenium Actress Satoshi Kon (Japan) 2001. Terrific anime feature from Kon, about love, loss, and what 21^st century Japan owes to the 20^th century Japanese Left. Watch for the key symbolism of the red scarf.

Serious Sam Davor Hunski, Alen Ladavac and Davor Tomicic (Croatia) (The First Encounter, 2001; The Second Encounter, 2002; Serious Sam 2 2005). It's Central European Mind over semi-peripheral Mental, as Zagreb-based Croteam unleashes the finest pure 3D shooters since Doom. Terrific gameplay, epic outdoor scenery, thrilling monsters, non-stop carnage, all at playable frame-rates. Heeeeere comes trouble!

The Tax [Lagaan] Ashutosh Gowariker (India) 2001. Epic Bollywood tale of Indian nationalism. Dazzling performances and sound-track.

The Wind Will Carry Us Abbas Kiarostami (Iran) 2001. Wondrous, deceptively simple parable of what can be filmed (and what can't). Watch for the delightful homage to Heiner Müller's skull-seller.

Spirited Away Hayao Miyazaki (Japan) 2001. Awe-inspiring anime epic, and one of the touchstone documents of the East Asian media culture.

Warm Water Under Red Bridge Shohei Imamura (Japan) 2001. Yet another quirky, radiantly subversive and life-affirming romance from the ageless Imamura.

City of God Fernando Meirelles (Brazil) 2002. Harsh, stylish, power-packed drama about young kids growing up in Brazil's favelas.

Deserted Station Alireza Raisian (Iran) 2002. Fine and subtle film, based on a short story by Abbas Kiarostami.

Maarooned in Iraq Bahman Gohbadi (Iran) 2002. Powerful drama of a Kurdish musician and his two sons, who set off on a journey into Iraqi Kurdistan, during the ghastly Iran-Iraq War. Tremendous sound-track.

Tokyo Godfathers Satoshi Kon (Japan) 2002. Terrific anime drama, set in a Tokyo full of drifters, homeless and outcasts.

Ali Zaouna Nabil Ayouch (Morocco) 2003. Tough, ferociously honest drama about homeless street kids growing up in Morocco. Watch for the enchanting animated sequences.

City of Men Fernando Meirelles (Brazil) 2003. One of the greatest TV series ever made, about the lives and struggles of Afro-Brazilian teenagers growing up in Brazil’s shanty-towns, called favelas. Grittily realistic, deeply endearing, and refreshingly critical about race and gender in contemporary Brazil.

Zatoichi Takeshi Kitano (Japan) 2003. Superb action epic based on the legendary blind warrior and righter of wrongs, Zatoichi.

Fahrenheit 9/11 Michael Moore (US) 2004. Stunning documentary expose of the criminal lies and lying criminals behind the Terror War.

Hero Zézé Gamboa (Angola) 2004. Touching and honest tale about an orphaned young boy and a wounded war veteran, both victims of Angola’s bitter civil war, who cross paths in postwar Luanda and eventually learn to stand on their own two feet. Watch for the stunning sequences of family members publicizing their missing relatives on Angolan television.

Howl's Moving Castle Hayao Miyazaki (Japan) 2004. Another triumph from Miyazaki, who turns his eye on Europe in this powerful allegory of the rise of the EU.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Hideo Kojima. (Japan) 2004. Kojima ups the ante, with stunning game-play and a subversive dig into Cold War archeology. Be sure to get the "Subsistence" edition of the game, which includes a cut-scene theater and greatly improved camera system.

Night Watch Timur Bekmambetov (Russia) 2004. Richly inventive, pulse-pounding fantasy-sci-fi which reinvents the vampire thriller.

Paranoia Agent Satoshi Kon (Japan) 2004. Mellow out with Maromi while tuning your global radar to station KON. Twisty, intelligent anime thriller, and one of the greatest TV series ever made.

R-Point Su-chang Kong (Korea) 2004. Outstanding horror film about a group of Korean soldiers on a secret mission in 1960s Vietnam. Truly flesh-crawling.

Social Genocide Fernando Solanas (Argentina) 2004. Searing documentary on how thirty years of neoliberalism ravaged Argentina.

Black Sanjay Leela Bhansali (India) 2005. Superlative performances and drama about a deaf and dumb girl and her teacher. Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee deliver performances of a lifetime.

Devil May Cry 3 Hideaki Itsuno (Japan) 2005. After a medium-grade sequel, comes this excellent prequel -- a worthy continuation of the original DMC, with fleshed-out characters and a power-packed storyline.

Kung Fu Hustle Stephen Cheow (Hong Kong) 2005. Stylish, entertaining martial arts tale from Cheow.

Paradise Now Hany Abu-Assad (Belgium/Palestine) 2005. Stark, churning tale of two would-be suicide bombers, showcasing the desperation and violence which Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestine has spawned. Stay with it until the spine-chilling final frame.

Bamako Abderrahmane Sissako (Mali) 2006. A court holds a trial of neoliberalism (represented by the IMF and World Bank) in a small courtyard of Bamako, capital city of Mali. The charge: crimes against humanity. Scathing satire and marvelous performances.

Final Fantasy 12 Hiroyuki Ito and Hiroshi Minagawa (Japan) 2006. Stirring drama, terrific gameplay, world-class voice acting, direction and sound, powerful female characters, savvy micropolitics and anti-imperialist geopolitics combine to make this Final Fantasy one of the touchstone works of the 21st century.

Offside Jafar Panahi (Iran) 2006. A deceptively simple tale of women fans trying to attend a World Cup soccer game. A crackerjack script, tremendous performances, and a suspenseful story arc create a Persian mirror of Eurasian geopolitical integration. Pay attention to the concluding sound-track!

Okami Hideki Kamiya (Japan) 2006. Stunning, Zelda-esque adventure game from Capcom. Outstanding animation and inventive game-play.

Paprika Satoshi Kon (Japan) 2006. Socialist dreams (suitable spiced with paprika!) struggle against the waking nightmare of neoliberalism in this fabulous anime from Kon. Simply astounding.

When the Levees Broke Spike Lee (US) 2006. Scathing, searing, heartbreaking four-part TV documentary on the Katrina disaster of New Orleans in 2005.

Chak De! India [Go India!] Shimit Amin (India) 2007. Based on a true story, tells the tale of how the Indian women’s field hockey team rose from ne’er-do-wells to world champions. Outstanding performances, nail-biting suspense, and a smart and savvy script about the politics of gender, sports and ethnicity.

God of War 2 Cory Barlog (US) 2007. Barlog's pirate programmers take the scintillating God of War franchise to the next level. Look closely at the action-adventure heroics, and you'll find a subtle meditation on the demise of the US Empire, and the titanic insurrection of the anti-neoliberal Resistance.

Sicko Michael Moore (US) 2007. Moore’s funniest and smartest documentary yet. Takes aim at the positively murderous inequities of the US health care, and shows how it doesn’t have to be this way.


Texts

Lifting the Veil Ismat Chughtai (India) 2001. Anthology of Chughtai's short stories.

The Cave Jose Saramago (Portugal) 2002. Moving parable of the Europroletariat learning to find its way in the informatic jungles of the European Union.

In the Walled Garden Anahita Firouz (US) 2002. A doomed romance during the last years of the Pahvlavi monarchy of Iran serves as the backdrop of this powerful indictment of neocolonialism.

Pattern Recognition William Gibson (US) 2002. After the Sprawl trilogy and the Bridge novels comes Airbus storytelling. Gibson tunes our aesthetic antenna to the upper reaches of the eurosphere, in this Information Age allegory of the EU.

Rosalie l'Infame [Rosalie the Infamous] Evelyne Trouillot (Haiti) 2003. One of the great neo-slave novels, which tells the tale of a young slave girl growing up on a Haitian sugar-cane plantation in the late 18th century. Extraordinary characters, nailbiting suspense, and a vivid focus on women's lives and experiences.

The Freedom Christian Parenti (US) 2004. One of the great documents of war journalism, and the best single account of the monstrous, criminal and catastrophic US war on Iraq.


Theory

The Many-Headed Hydra Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker (US) 2000. Excellent analysis of the early Atlantic radicalisms.

Cinema and Desire: Feminist Marxism and Cultural Politics in the Works of Dai Jinhua Ed. Jing Wang and Toni Barlow. (China) 2002. Ground-breaking essays on Chinese mass culture in the 1980s and 1990s.

Early India Romila Thapar (India) 2002. Magisterial history of Indian subcontinent from one of the world's greatest historians, covering prehistory to 1300 AD.

After the New Economy Doug Henwood (US) 2003. The definitive postmortem of the Wall Street Bubble, and an indispensable critique of information capitalism.