October 7, 2022
Movies
October 30, 2020
Forced Sterilizations Are America’s Best Kept Secret
July 16, 2020
Transhumanism in Film: Are Technologically-Enhanced Beings our Lesser or Equal?
July 13, 2020
‘Brave New World’ Arrives in the Future It Predicted
July 11, 2019
Midsommar’s Ableism Resurrects the Dark History of Eugenics-Inspired Horror
March 8, 2019
Review: In ‘The Inventor,’ You Can’t Know Elizabeth Holmes’s Secrets. And Yet You Can’t Turn Away
(STAT News) – In “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley,” we are treated to great expanses of curtain without learning much of the woman behind it. The film, airing on HBO later this month, comes from Alex Gibney, … Read More
February 19, 2019
Academy-Award Nominated Film ‘End Game’ Examines End-of-Life Care
(PBS News Hour) – The Academy Award-nominated documentary “End Game” looks at different approaches in palliative care for people with terminal illness. The film follows medical practitioners, patients, and their families, as they tackle the difficult questions that arise during … Read More
January 29, 2019
A Medical Hell Recounted by Its Victims
(Nature) – In the 1840s, the Alabama physician James Marion Sims conducted infamous experimental gynaecological surgery exclusively on black women, bound to the surgical table by chattel slavery, physical force and opium. The drug did not allay their pain, and … Read More
November 28, 2018
The Truth About Killer Robots: The Year’s Most Terrifying Documentary
(The Guardian) – The film distinguishes itself from other science documentaries thanks to its holistic approach: rather than speaking exclusively to the people behind the tech – CEOs, programmers, engineers – Pozdorovkin also interviewed members of the global labor pool … Read More
November 5, 2018
Addiction Often Begins with a ‘Beautiful’ Boy or Girl
(STAT News) – In the American mind, drug addiction happens only to people “born under a bad sign.” That’s just not true. Worse, it implies that success in life protects individuals from addiction. Throughout my 50-year career working on drug … Read More
October 25, 2018
‘Gosnell’ Filmmakers: Theaters Dropping Movie, Preventing People from Buying Tickets
(Christian Post) – The filmmakers behind “Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer” have questioned why hundreds of theaters have dropped the pro-life movie despite a strong opening performance. They also shared of various reports of moviegoers being misled … Read More
October 18, 2018
The Movie ‘Gosnell’ Has a Double Truth: We Ignore Poor Women and Abortion
(The Washington Post) – A new film out this past weekend highlights the horrifying 2009 death of Karnamaya Mongar, a 41-year-old refugee from Nepal who died shortly after leaving a Philadelphia abortion clinic called the Women’s Medical Society.
October 10, 2017
“Runnin”: A Preview of a New Documentary from STAT
(STAT News) – Almost a year ago I began thinking about how to tell the story of what happened to my circle of friends. I hoped that by examining how the drugs took hold in my hometown, I could illustrate … Read More
August 21, 2017
New Sci-Fi Film “Marjorie Prime” Is “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” Meets “Black Mirror”
(Quartz) – Marjorie Prime uses emerging technology as a window into our desire to self-select the past. Directed and co-written by Michael Almereyda and based on a play by Jordan Harrison, the movie’s focus is on a timeless question that … Read More
April 4, 2017
Ghost in the Shell Thrills but Ducks the Philosophical Questions Posed by a Cyborg Future
(The Conversation) – How closely will we live with the technology we use in the future? How will it change us? And how close is “close”? Ghost in the Shell imagines a futuristic, hi-tech but grimy and ghetto-ridden Japanese metropolis … Read More
October 25, 2016
Fatal Experiments: A Maverick Surgeon Strikes Back
(The Guardian) – At times, the language in Fatal Experiments: the Downfall of a Supersurgeon is far from clinical. The documentary, which sparked controversy in Sweden earlier this year and which airs on the BBC this week, slices open the … Read More
September 5, 2016
“Morgan,” “The Girls,” and the Beautiful Cyborg
(The New Yorker) – To achieve today’s desirable veneer of innocence, the industry recommends a practice of constant, self-diagnostic work. This is not new, of course. “We are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism,” Donna Haraway … Read More
June 6, 2016
Disability Advocates React to ‘Me Before You’: ‘Our Suicides’ Are ‘Tragedies’
(The Daily Signal) – Note: major movie spoiler alert. The lead, disabled character in the newly released movie “Me Before You” chooses to end his life, leaving the newfound love of his life instructions to “live boldly” and encourages her … Read More
June 6, 2016
This Medical Treatment Is Potentially Groundbreaking. So Why Isn’t It Available?
(New York Magazine) – In the future, transfusions of aborted fetal stem cells might help those suffering from debilitating illness. But at the moment, it’s illegal for doctors to perform stem-cell therapy in the United States — though that doesn’t … Read More
June 1, 2016
‘Me Before You’ Perpetuates Idea That the Disabled Should Consider Suicide
(Chicago Tribune) – Why is such questioning necessary? Shouldn’t life-saving be the default? Granted, it all worked out. Yet combining such hurdles with the blatant subtext of “Me Before You” — which is based on Jojo Moyes’ 2012 novel of … Read More
May 27, 2016
‘Me Before You’ Is Drawing Criticism for Its Representation of Disability
(Mic) – (Editor’s note: Spoilers for the plot of Me Before You below). Though the film has not been released yet, Me Before You is already drawing criticism from disability activists for its portrayal of one of the films leads, Will Traynor (Sam Clafin). … Read More
March 14, 2016
Trapped Review: Timely Abortion Documentary Makes a Compelling Case
(The Guardian) – Trapped, which premiered at Sundance, was directed by lawyer turned film-maker Dawn Porter (Gideon’s Army), and follows the ongoing struggles of abortion clinic workers in Texas, fighting against so-called Trap laws (hence the film’s title) to keep … Read More
February 26, 2016
Film Looks at Abortion as U.S. Top Court Takes Up Controversial Case
(Reuters) – When Dawn Porter started filming abortion clinic workers in the U.S. South three years ago, she was drawn by their dedicated struggles to stay standing amid an onslaught of laws aimed at restricting abortion access. Little could she … Read More
September 9, 2015
Kolkata Doctors Shoot Film to Bust Surrogacy Myth
(Times of India) – These five doctors were friends at the Calcutta Medical College who bonded not only through class lectures and practicals in the anatomy laboratory, but also on stage professionally. But now, they have decided to graduate beyond … Read More
July 24, 2015
Trade Involving Harvesting of Human Organs Transpiring under Chinese Communist Regime
(Times of India) – This is the framework for the 2014 Peabody Award-winning documentary, Human Harvest, by Canadian filmmaker Leon Lee. The film focuses on Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa) practitioners, who are said to be the main victims of … Read More
