Ed Rampell

Ed Rampell is an LA-based film historian/critic, author of "Progressive Hollywood: A People’s Film History of the United States," and co-author of "The Hawaii Movie and Television Book." He has written for Variety, Television Quarterly, Cineaste, New Times L.A., and other publications. Rampell lived in Tahiti, Samoa, Hawaii, and Micronesia, reporting on the nuclear-free and independent Pacific and Hawaiian Sovereignty movements.

LATEST ARTICLES BY Ed Rampell

Culture

Brecht’s ‘The Mother’: The Revolution will not be dramatized
February 16, 2023 By Ed Rampell
Brecht’s 'The Mother' is a 1932 adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s 1906 novel of the same name about the 1905 Russian Revolution, which has been called “the dress rehearsal” for 1917’s Bolshevik Revolution.
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Culture

‘Southern Girls’: A ‘woke’ play suitable for banning in today’s Florida
February 1, 2023 By Ed Rampell
“The playwrights who wrote this absolutely lived it. The play is very authentic.”
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Culture

‘Ubu the King,’ a raunchy play from 1896, revived in Culver City
November 23, 2022 By Ed Rampell
Its fanciful lunacy won me over and I ended up quite enjoying this 40th anniversary revival and tribute to one of L.A.’s greatest theaters.
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Culture

Commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Hollywood Blacklist
October 13, 2022 By Ed Rampell
Members of the motion picture industry who refused to “cooperate” by informing on themselves and others about their leftist politics were forbidden from working in the movies.
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Culture

‘Three Thousand Years of Longing’: Still dreaming of Genie
August 25, 2022 By Ed Rampell
The beautiful-looking Longing is for fans of fantasy productions, such as HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon.
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News

Life of the party: Portrait of L.A.’s perpetual progressive Jan Goodman
August 1, 2022 By Ed Rampell
In The Tempest, Shakespeare mused “What’s past is prologue,” which is certainly true for Jan Goodman, whose radical roots set the stage for a lifetime of activism.
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Culture

‘A Love Song’: Gentle film asks, Is love ageless and color blind?
July 26, 2022 By Ed Rampell
With its simple, naturalistic style tinged by sly humor, A Love Song is a motion picture paean to the human condition, filled with yearning, grief, loss and the quest for meaningful (if not necessarily long-lasting) connection...
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Culture

‘Stratford-upon-Topanga’ opens summer season with ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’
June 22, 2022 By Ed Rampell
Act I of WGTB’s The Merry Wives of Windsor is mildly amusing, while the rollicking, uproarious Act II is highly entertaining.
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