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

‘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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Culture

The other Truman Show: ‘Tru,’ the fluke in his domain
June 9, 2022 By Ed Rampell
Jamie Galen’s uncanny incarnation of Truman Capote in the first act of Tru is a must-see tour de force.
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Culture

‘King Lear’: The monarch from another planet
May 19, 2022 By Ed Rampell
Of the countless screen versions of King Lear, the most offbeat may be Jean Luc Godard’s 1987 take co-starring Woody Allen, Norman Mailer, and The Breakfast Club’s Molly Ringwald as Cordelia. I kid thee not!
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