Ed Rampell

Ed Rampell is an L.A.-based film historian and 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. Rampell’s novel about the Native Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement for Indigenous rights, The Disinherited: Blood Blalahs, is being published this year.

LATEST ARTICLES BY Ed Rampell

Culture

‘Waiting in the Wings’ theater review: Women led play boldly tackles taboos on death and old age
July 22, 2026 By Ed Rampell
Playwright Coward showed courage going against the grain with a woman-centered play about those ultimate taboos: Death and old age, especially afflicting those whom Simone de Beauvoir dubbed “The Second Sex.”
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Culture

‘The Great Clown Bank Show’ theater review: A satirical takedown of the capitalist class
July 6, 2026 By Ed Rampell
Through the lens of a circus, it deliciously and maliciously pokes fun at those penny-pinchers who make life so unbearable and miserable for the rest of us, from mass layoffs to financial scams.
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Culture

‘HomeTown Hero’ film review: Hard-hitting drama focusing on Samoan struggles
July 1, 2026 By Ed Rampell
Has compelling portrayals from a cast of characters, trying to find their way in paradise lost, Samoans in the diaspora.
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Culture

‘Treasure Island’ theater review: Classic novel adapted with new feminist touch
June 26, 2026 By Ed Rampell
A wonderful adaptation of the 18th-century-set tale, full of action, executed by a cast of dozens.
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Culture

‘The Revolutionists’ theater review: An edgy guillotine-tinged satire
June 17, 2026 By Ed Rampell
A comedy about France’s Reign of Terror, with aristocrats and assorted enemies of the people quite literally laughing their heads off.
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Culture

‘Cassatt’ play review: Must-see with themes of feminism and women-led art
June 9, 2026 By Ed Rampell
A play on the artist Mary Cassatt for those interested in feminism, period pieces, and art history.
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Culture

‘The Magic Flute’ review: Mozart’s opera puts us on a path of enlightenment
June 4, 2026 By Ed Rampell
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s last opera is far more than an exceedingly whimsical flight of euphonic, euphoric fancy.
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Culture

Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival: Highlights and reviews
May 20, 2026 By Ed Rampell
This year’s themes include complicated subjects such as: mother/daughter conflicts; mental illness; death; infertility; homosexuality; the struggle over Indigenous self-determination in the arts and more.
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