A clunky home PC appears, unassumingly, through the doorway on the clip from the home video, in the midst of a guided tour through the typical suburban home.  “That’s the computer that Matthew plays on all the time,” his mom explains. “Spends most of the day on this thing here.” That “thing” would give Matt DeHart his identity, as an activist for Anonymous and the operator of a dead drop server connected to Wikileaks.

Continue reading ‘Enemies Of The State’ Is A Complex, But Gripping Cyber-Doc [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

It’s been a helluva week, and audiences clearly needed an escape and went to the multiplex in droves. Films that opened last weekend showed strong holds headed into week two, while others opened bigger than expected. Maybe the Trump years will at least be good for getting people to go to the movies….

“Doctor Strange” stayed on top of the box office, conjuring another $43 million domestically, and $60 million overseas.

Continue reading ‘Doctor Strange’ Stays Magical In Top Spot, ‘Arrival’ Lands Strong [Box Office] at The Playlist.

On the surface, “National Bird” is an effective and eye-opening documentary about the various political and moral harms of the U.S. drone program. Yet the real reason to see it lies in the way it insightfully and empathetically laments the fact that dehumanizing one’s “enemy” to the point of failing to even register them as human beings will in turn dehumanize the attacker. Once we go down the path of perceiving thousands of potentially innocent targets, children among them, as nothing but inconsequential blips on a screen, we’re already lost as a species.

Continue reading Documentary ‘National Bird’ Puts An Eye-Opening, Human Face On The U.S. Drone Program [Review] at The Playlist.