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

‘The Two Popes’: The god couple
November 22, 2019 By Ed Rampell
Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles, who was Oscar-nominated for 2002’s City of God and Golden Globe-nommed for 2005’s The Constant Gardener, is back with another topical film.
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Culture

‘Desert One’: The imperialists who couldn’t shoot straight
November 21, 2019 By Ed Rampell
From Harlan to Hormel to Hemingway to Hostages, two-time Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple is one of America’s preeminent documentarians.
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Culture

‘The Irishman’: Pacino, Paquin and the gangs of New York are all here
November 20, 2019 By Ed Rampell
I enjoyed this epic three quarters of the way through, but I could have lived without the final hour or so, which basically deals with growing old.
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Culture

‘Kathy Griffin, A Hell of a Story’ comedy documentary mocks Trump
November 13, 2019 By Ed Rampell
Griffin’s hilarious documentary tells the saga of her May 30, 2017, photo shoot, with what looked like Trump's bloody severed head.
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Culture

‘Poisoning Paradise’: Pierce Brosnan 007 hunts down agrichemical villains
November 8, 2019 By Ed Rampell
The ultimate Bond villain: Biotech companies such as Monsanto and DuPont, whose pesticides and GMO experimental projects are turning people into lab rats.
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Culture

‘The 7 Stages of Grieving’: An original Aboriginal Australian one-woman show
November 7, 2019 By Ed Rampell
As soon as the curtain lifts at the Skylight Theatre, "The 7 Stages of Grieving" kicks off with something most American audiences are likely to have never seen before in all of their theatergoing.
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Culture

Film review: All aboard the freedom train with “Harriet”
November 1, 2019 By Ed Rampell
In a straight forward, conventional manner co-writer/director Kasi Lemmons (1997’s Eve’s Bayou) unfolds the life story of Araminta "Minty" Ross.
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Culture

‘Indirect Actions’ and ‘The Advocates’: Two new films on social problems
October 30, 2019 By Ed Rampell
The 11th annual DTLA Film Festival has just concluded.
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