Ed Rampell

Ed Rampell is an LA-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.

LATEST ARTICLES BY Ed Rampell

Culture

‘Hollywood’s Architect: The Paul R. Williams Story’ at PAFF
March 1, 2021 By Ed Rampell
I learned a lot from this very enjoyable, well-told 57-minute chronicle narrated by actor Courtney B. Vance that is about a truly admirable, gifted, dignified human being who defied the racism of his times by his...
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Culture

‘Finding Sally’: A filmic inquiry into the heart of Ethiopia’s revolutionary upheavals
February 25, 2021 By Ed Rampell
The absorbing, informative Finding Sally is Tamara Mariam Dawit’s first full-length documentary, but hopefully not her last.
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Culture

‘Executive Order’: A futuristic ‘final solution’ to the Brazilian ‘race problem’ at PAFF
February 24, 2021 By Ed Rampell
This imaginative movie is a highly recommended film from Brazil that personifies PAFF’s motion picture panache and ethos.
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Culture

‘Truth to Power: Barbara Lee Speaks for Me’ at Pan African Film Festival
February 23, 2021 By Ed Rampell
I enjoyed Truth, which has a joyous surprise ending that I didn’t see coming, it will leave you smiling. Which seems appropriate, considering the outstanding life story of this documentary’s admirable protagonist, who took the struggle...
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Culture

‘This is the Way We Rise’: Hawaiian poetry in motion
February 19, 2021 By Ed Rampell
A poetic short about Polynesian slam poet Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio that recently screened as part of the Sundance Film Festival
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Culture

‘41st & Central: The Untold Story of the L.A. Black Panthers’
February 19, 2021 By Ed Rampell
41st & Central zooms in on what the Panthers were probably most widely known for: Audacious, fearless militancy.
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Culture

‘Marble-ous’: Russian maestro’s masterful Michelangelo biopic
February 9, 2021 By Ed Rampell
Michelangelo Buonarroti, that incomparable Renaissance Man, is masterfully brought back to life by movie maestro co-writer/director Andrei Konchalovsky in Sin (Il Peccato).
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Opinion

Will Trump be the Orange Ogre who stole New Year’s?
January 4, 2021 By Ed Rampell
Dr. Seuss wrote about “How the Grinch stole Christmas," but we could be dealing with something altogether different.
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