Hannah Rosenzweig & Wendy Sachs' SURGE tracks the entry of women into the 2018 congressional race

At this point in time there have already been several American documentaries about political candidates who were not white nor male. The latest of these is SURGE, and it is another fine example of both filmmaking and finding a subject well worth pursuing.

Filmmakers Hannah Rosenzweig (below, left) and Wendy Sachs (below, right) do a bang-up job of following three women candidates in the 2018 mid-term elections, allowing their viewers to see these women and their teams in action -- along with their hoped-to-be constituents, staff and 

friends and family -- their ideas, why they decided it was important to run for office and how they hope to achieve that goal. 

The overall film is impressive, and even if we might have wished for better election results, the strength and certainty these women possess about why and how our country needs to change -- and not in the MAGA (Make America Grate Again) manner of 

President Clown-cum-Realty-TV-Show-Host -- is worth seeing and hearing.

The three candidates we follow are Jana Lynne Sanchez (shown below), who is after a Congressional seat in a Texas district that Democrats have not won for 36 years; Lauren Underwood (two photos below) running in Illinois' 14th district, who, if elected, would be the youngest black female to hold this kind of office; and Liz Watson from notably red state Indiana (though South Bend did elect Mayor Pete), the state that gives its working class only a 12-hour window (6am to 6pm) in which to vote on election day. 

We watch as these campaigns kick off, gather steam and win their primaries, often against stiff opposition (Jana Lynne Sanchez, above, even after she won her primary, got no support from the Democratic National Committee -- yet another reason why TrustMovies shall never give another dime to that crap organization that keeps foisting "centrist hacks" upon us and refuses to endorse any real progressives).

You can see and fully understand how tiring campaigning is as you watch these women work against all odds to see things through to the finish. You also understand even more strongly what a waste it is to have to keep asking for donations rather than doing what's necessary to get out and meet, really listen to, and then convince, the voters.

As Election Day approaches and Republican opponents get dirtier and nastier, good things look less likely, but onward these gals go, and so do their documentarians, whose style is as positive, smart, caring and energetic as that of their subjects.

If you have mixed feelings by the finale, you're entitled. But I can't imagine any progressive-minded viewer not being pleased and edified by the chance to see all these wonderful women at work. Running 93 minutes, Surge is available to view now. Click here for further information on how to do so.

¡LAS SANDINISTAS! -- Jenny Murray's stirring and informative documentary of Nicaraguan history, machismo and feminism

What an eye-opener is ¡LAS SANDINISTAS!, the first full-length documentary from actress-turned-director Jenny Murray. Those of us alive and aware of international politics/revolutions back in the 1970s would have known of the Sandinistas, the young revolutionaries set on deposing the corrupt and dictatorial tyrant Anastasio Somoza DeBayle (best-known as simply Somoza), who ruled the Central American country of Nicaragua from 1967 through 1979, whose family had been in power there since 1936. We might even have been aware, from the occasional photo or news story, that women were a part of that revolutionary group. But we could hardly have known just how important -- how utterly vital -- women were, at both that time and now, to the betterment of Nicaragua.

What Ms Murray, shown at right, gives us -- via a terrific interweaving of archival footage, photos and information with present-day interviews with some of the most important of those women -- combines to form a brief but compelling history of Nicaragua, as well as one of the strongest feminist movies you will have yet experienced. The documentary, without ever shouting or insisting, simply shows and tells us what these women accomplished at the time and how they have had to keep fighting ever since then for the justice and equality that ought to have long ago been granted.

The film begins (and returns again and again) to a woman named Dora María Téllez, who rose to the (unofficial) rank of top woman in the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), whom we see in her youth (above, center) as a resistance fighter and now, in her senior years (below), still fighting for Nicaragua and its citizens.

Ms Téllez and her ideas are so strong and right, and though the woman speaks quietly, what she has to say will stay with you. There are a half dozen other women we see and hear from, all worth our time and caring.

One of these is Daisy Zamora, shown at left in her younger days and below these days. Together, they paint a picture of the emerging Sandinistas that is a light year away from what our own despicable President Ronald Reagan would have had us believe about the group and what it was supposedly doing to its home country. We see that lying and demented sleazeball during the time he and his cohorts were illegally, treasonously funding the "Contras," and we finally hear, via these women, what this was like as experienced by "the other side."

In addition to Reagan, we also get a look at a much younger Bernie Sanders, who -- of course -- came out on the right side of justice, suggesting that more politicians should come to Nicaragua and simply see what the Sandinistas were achieving.

The documentary makes us aware of how these women did not simply bear arms and fight along with the men; they were also expected to perform the usual "women's chores" -- from cooking and laundry to all the rest. (One women explains the difficulties of having to give birth and tend to a her infant during the revolution.)

Most shocking of all comes as we learn how the women were betrayed, compromised and kept completely out of power, once the revolution had been won.

We've heard and seen over the years countless examples of Latin American "machismo." The extreme downside of this is on full display here. ("They're even prettier when they're fighting" explains one male soldier about his female counterparts.)

When we're finally told that many of these women left their husbands during or after the revolution was won, this may not come as much of a surprise.

The film is full of history that we seldom received word of up north (or may not readily remember): the 1972 earthquake that leveled much of the city of Managua (instead of helping his people cope, Somoza preferred to have his army shoot the looters); the Castle House Raid of 1974, after which the dictator cracked down with even more intense repression; the National Palace Raid of 1978 (Somoza billed the conflict as a fight between the usual "Communist Menace" and Democracy); and finally, July of 1979, as the dictator was ousted and the battle for freedom appeared to have finally been won.

The second half of the documentary covers the post-revolution period, right up to recent times, as we learn how women's place in Nicaragua has actually devolved. It's not pretty. Yet hearing and seeing how the woman continue to work so tirelessly in every possible manner to achieve whatever they can is uplifting rather than depressing. By the time we view the country's own Me2 movement -- with one woman actually taking a stand against revolutionary leader and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega by outing him as a rapist -- speaks volumes about entrenched male power and the difficulties of anything approaching real change.

In one of the film's penultimate scenes, above, we see a grandmother and her grandchild together, just sitting quietly and answering a question or two. This is oddly and remarkably moving. And then we're back to Ms Téllez (shown below with rifle, just left of center) and her quietly bracing, intelligent words. ¡Las Sandinistas! proves itself a major work. It is difficult to imagine any woman, or any man who actually cares about women, not embracing it with pleasure and gratitude. I hope it is shown in every Latin American country -- where it is most needed.

From Film Sales Co. and running 96 minutes, the documentary opens in its U.S theatrical premiere this Wednesday, November 21, at New York City's Film Forum for a two-week run. It is also scheduled to open in Chicago on November 30 at the Gene Siskel Film Center, and then later in Santa Fe at the Jean Cocteau Cinema. To keep abreast of further screenings as they are scheduled, click here.

Thomas Huchon's TRUMPING DEMOCRACY explains one way last year's election was won

"What if the election of the 45th President of the United States was not a fair fight?" That question, which begins the new documentary, TRUMPING DEMOCRACY, from fledgling French filmmaker Thomas Huchon, may sound like a somewhat obvious and already answered question -- until you realize that, in the world of Donald Trump of course, it is answered by: "It's a fair fight only if Donald Trump wins."

M. Huchon's answer to why this election was not a fair one is new to me and involves a family, its businesses and political philosophy, none of which I was fully aware. This proves both very interesting and very believable, too -- offering up evidence of enormous sums of money making their way into the campaign, some of them possibly illegal, fake news, data collection and "dark" Facebook posts. A Russian connection? Nope. Everything we see here is utterly American and as sleazy as it comes. How Trump-appropriate.

If only everything we see here had just come a lot sooner in the documentary. For whatever reason -- perhaps the need to somehow make this a full-length film (barely, in any case, as it runs but 69 minutes) -- young master Huchon (shown at right), who is affiliated with SPICEE, the popular French news network and investigative reporting outlet, has seen fit to make us sit through 20 minutes of information that has little to do with his main thesis and tells us literally nothing that those who followed closely this last Presidential election will not already know. TrustMovies was about ready to give up on the film, thank the distributor for sending the review copy, and explain that it was simply not worth his time or effort -- when -- at precisely 20 minutes, 20 seconds , I believe -- the movie kicks into action, big-time.

Prior to that we've sat through a bunch of preaching-to-the-already-converted that I doubt would change a single Trump fan's mind and will probably bore most non-Trumpers, who know all this information already. These 20 minutes are also accompanied by a somewhat tired and repetitive musical score that would seem more appropriate in a B-level action or slasher film.

And then, at that 20 minute point, we're introduced to a man named Robert Mercer (shown at top, above), his company's address, and a couple of businesses bent on helping the right wing take over the country, not only partially as has been the case for decades, but now totally, with the election of a fraudulent twat who makes even Italy's infamous ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who served four shoddy terms, seem somehow a wiser choice.

From this point on the doc stays focused and, with some fine investigative reporting and interviews with intelligent talking heads (shown above and below), allows us to understand one way in which this pomposity known as Trump managed to win those three necessary states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The evidence here is firm and fairly astounding for those of us who knew nothing of what went on until now.

Further, Trumping Democracy makes a very good case for one way in which this happened, while leaving out other possible scenarios such as Voter Restriction. (Remember the recount, which was already paid for, but that was not allowed in any of those three states, thanks to the Republican powers-that-be in each?) But we've known about illegal Voter Restriction already; Huchon's evidence about Mr. Mercer and his history, fortune, daughter, and businesses (Breitbart News and Cambridge Analytica, are two of these), is new and worth seeing and hearing. As is the information about personal data collecting (and selling!) and yet another nasty Facebook feature known as the "dark post."

It all adds up and makes yet another addition to the many reasons why this election could be stolen -- along with the piss-poor candidacy of Hillary Clinton, and the DNC's foul sabotage of the Sanders campaign, which effectively deterred the youth vote from showing up at the polls and opposing Trump. There are plenty of reasons for America's seeming tilt toward fascism, but Huchon's doc offers yet another one that is very well worth considering.

Trumping Democracy, from Cinema Libre Studio and running 69 minutes (and, please, don't let those first 20 deter you!), is available for streaming now (on Amazon, Vimeo and elsewhere), and will arrive on DVD this coming Tuesday, December 5. Click here for more information.

THE REAGAN SHOW: a course in Presidential television from Sierra Pettengill & Pacho Velez

As one commentator points out early on in THE REAGAN SHOW -- the new documentary from filmmakers Pacho Velez and Sierra Pettengill about how a certain U.S. President (more probably, his handlers) mastered made-for-TV politics -- the national stage is now television, and the important question turns out to be: Is the White House going to mange that stage, or will it be the television networks? For anyone old enough to recall the fetid 1980s (Ronald Reagan held office from January 1981 through January 1989), the answer will be readily apparent.

Oddly enough, it won't matter much what your feelings are, pro or con, about Reagan because the filmmakers (Ms Pettengill is shown at right, Mr. Velez below) simply offer up a nonstop procession of this President's TV coverage while he was in that office, along with snippets of his preceding movie career, ending with his final day as President of the United States.

Reagan supporters can and will come away from the documentary thinking this was the most wonderful, and most abused, President in U.S. history, while

detractors (like me) will finish the film mumbling, "What an asshole. Good riddance!" Both sides can and probably will admit that no one before had ever made such constant and productive use of TV as the tool to convince the masses -- which is, I guess, the filmmakers' point here.

From Reagan's daily "life" (as phony as his rhetoric but shown us with utter ease and credibility) to his appearances with everyone from Michael Jackson and Mr. T. to various heads of state, we get oodles of this guy, who was dubbed by those handlers, the right-wing press and finally most of our media as "The Great Communicator." We also see just enough of Nancy to set our teeth on edge.

We view Reagan lying on screen, as he makes a campaign ad endorsing New Hampshire gubernatorial candidate John Sununu, claiming to know the guy well and believe in his abilities -- when he doesn't even understand how to pronounce Sununu's name! And yet, from his Make America Great sloganeering to his demonizing of the USSR, he will bring to mind Donald Trump, even though our current President would now have us view Russia as our new BFF.

Even President Reagan's enormous push for that ridiculous Star Wars defense initiative is handed to us without comment (except by some of the TV media), as is all else. For those of us who've followed history, The Reagan Show does make it clear that, even prior to Trump, America had elected an idiot to highest office -- though, back then, the leader was only a passively aggressive puppet, not an actively aggressive one like our current bully/bigot, coward/crook, fool/fraud "leader."

And then a new Russian big boy named Gorbachev appears, and everything seems to change. Here was someone from the other side that the media also loved. We hear Reagan state the Russian proverb that he claims to have learned in Russian -- Trust, but verify -- over and over until, as time passes, the Prez seems to slip further into the Alzheimer's with which he was later diagnosed. At this point he is kept farther and farther away from the press and is mostly seen either coming or going and doing the usual PR nonsense in front of the camera (like his appearance at Camp Ronald McDonald).

By the time we get to the Iran/Contra scandal, things have grown depressing as hell, as we realize that so much of the U.S. populace couldn't give a damn or would readily ignore the whole thing and actively close their eyes and mind to what is happening. Perhaps the most interesting segment in the doc comes as we watch Republicans back then rail angrily against Reagan for finally reaching some agreement with the USSR on arms control, even as today's Republican Party embraces Russia, Putin and Trump's sleazy regime. This combination ought to make more of us understand that the Republican Party -- one that consistently places the feet of the wealthy and atop atop the heads of the masses -- has now reached fully corrosive insanity. But it won't, of course.

From Gravitas Ventures and CNN Films, the 75-minute-long doc arrives in theaters this Friday, June 30 -- in New York City at the Metrograph and in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Playhouse 7. A national rollout will immediately follow, and the film will also become available on VOD on Tuesday, July 4. 

Our monthly Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman GET ME ROGER STONE--featuring the Prince of Darkness, agent provocateur & larger matters

 "I live a Machiavellian life" 

A new Netflix documentary bookends the rise of Donald Trump and his election as abetted by long time dirty trickster, Roger Stone, the decades-long maestro of Republican/Libertarian politics. Directed by Daniel DiMauro, Dylan Bank, and Morgan Pehme, the film shows us the grisly path to Trump but does not do much to help us think about extraction from our misery. That job is ahead.

Stone is the peacock of his breed of political action figure -- a body-building dandy. He describes himself as a jockey on the make for a champion horse who identified Trump in the late 1980's as prime horseflesh -- "one who has the size, the courage, and the balls" to achieve the presidency. Stone has prodded Trump to run for years. Although a consultant to many races, Trump horseflesh has been what Stone loved best. Reporters Jeffrey Toobin and Jane Mayer (she calls Stone the 'Joker in Batman') and conservatives Tucker Carlson and Paul Manafort help tell Stone's story. But Stone does his own showboating, grandstanding and preening in this film and his work. Trump didn't buy it for long; they have parted officially. (Trump says "fired", Stone says "resigned" -- you choose.)

Stone identified the 'Reagan Democrat' and created the superpac to circumvent individual contribution limits. He sabotaged the Reform Party, after a 3-way race (Bush, Perot, Clinton) elected Clinton. Reformers have not run an effective challenge to the major parties since Perot, thanks to Roger Stone. He also orchestrated the physical blocking of the FL recount vote in 2000 insuring GW Bush's win over Al Gore. He ruined Dan Rather's career in 2004 by forging documents that discredited Rather's investigation of Bush's military record. Eliot Spitzer's demise is another trophy. In fact Stone has engineered perhaps the most sustained regime of dirty tricks in recent history. He's a best-selling author of many books that are screeds against opponents. When Hillary Clinton speaks of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" for its long-lived attack on her husband and herself, Roger Stone has been agent provocateur.

Of course he is not alone, simply a current and perhaps the most effective chess player. Roy Cohn, Joseph McCarthy's sidekick, was a fixture in Stone and Trump's orbit before Cohn's death. Lee Atwater led George H W Bush's successful defeat of Michael Dukakis with a racist meme and Karl Rove, Roger Ailes, and Steve Bannon fit the bill. (Below, l-r, Manafort, Stone, Atwater [c Washington Post] in the early days of their collaboration.)

The 'trickster' is abnormally contrary, thriving on sticking pins in accepted norms, being oppositional for the attention it gets. Agent provocateur Milo Yiannopolis throws out red meat (e.g.,defending pedophilia) then curls his face into a smirk with anticipation of return fire. Ann Coulter savors incoming outrage with the same glee. Perhaps this breed of contrarian hit paydirt from childhood by being naughty. They are happiest confounding norms and provoking criticism. "I revel in your hatred because if I weren't effective, you wouldn't hate me," says Roger; "the only thing worse than being wrong is being boring." (Below, Mr. Yiannopolis stylizing.)

A second feature of these contrarians is their professionalizing the use of the lie. Lying is now an ordinary tool in the toolbox for producing a desired result. Stone describes his discovery of this in grade school. His learning: one man's dirty trick is another man's civic action. The Biblical commandment forbidding the bearing of false witness, or lying, a precept agreed to by community at-large, has no relevance in the practical life of Roger Stone -- truth-telling is for losers.

Evolution appears to produce lethal numbers of sociopaths and agent provocateurs. It isn't as though discrediting McCarthy yesterday or the future fall of Stone and Trump will have stopped evil-doings for good; it's only for now. (Why are these opponents always among us? Could it be we lose our edge, our survival instincts, without mountains to climb and opposition to thwart?)

Here I reference relevant research published by (full disclosure) a relative of mine, Peter Liberman, in his book Does Conquest Pay?, Princeton University Press, 1996. In it Liberman measures the ability of invaders to extract yield/gain from the exploitation of occupied countries; he uses economic measures of GDP in a number of modern world conflicts to prove his thesis that in the short term, ruthless conquerers extract gains that exceed cost. But the returns do not last.

Once good minds mobilize their resources, the jig is up, as in the Allies eventual defeat of the Nazis. Liberman's answer to Does Conquest Pay? is 'yes', in the short term, 'no' in the long. (The present-day rollback of the ISIS state in the works.) Large scale conflicts driven by dictatorial regimes started somewhere and we have a 'starter' situation now -- a paranoid liar in the White House propped up by agent provocateurs whom we must overcome.

Roger Stone thinks we are now living in the age of Stone and that his brand of politics is now mainstream. A reflection of the liar's bad judgment is that Stone's favorite horseflesh is least able to govern. But for now the Trumpers have the field until we get up a campaign to unseat him. And Stone has already been down as often as up, which speaks to the self-destructiveness of liars and agent provocateurs. (See 1996 scandal below.)

We are flailing at how to deal with this presidency. In this early phase we are responding with logic and ineffective outrage. Some Republicans have turned the genteel Grand Old Party into the party of dirty tricks, (Variety writer Owen Gleiberman calls the current GOP a 'slash and burn cult') while Democrats have been too disbelieving or too unwilling to develop effective opposition. How can we do this?

Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama won with effective knock-back of incoming fire. Obama's team lobbied news outlets not to run lies. It may be that Democrats can toughen up and use very direct advertising in fighting lies with truth. Take the 'RAPE' T-shirt below on Stone. How about using an image of Trump and putting 'LIAR' or 'LIES' under it?

John Kerry was unresponsive to the Swift-boat attacks on his exemplary military career and Hillary Clinton's campaign needed repetitive, memorable memes to counter lies. How about the use of single words/phrases on Trump posters: CROOKED, MALIGNANT NARCISSIST, FRAUD. Run them over and over until LIAR Trump, FRAUD Trump (etc.) seep into muscle memory. It takes something like 16 exposures for a piece of information to sink in. Trump famously drills down with verbal repetition to slur his opponents -- 'little Marco', 'crooked Hillary'. In addition to simple memes, information ads are needed to contrast the policy effects on ordinary Americans proposed by the Right and the Left. And that is just advertising (a Republican PAC is already running ads to discredit former FBI Director, James Comey); also, Howard Dean-style 50-state ground strategies including the countering of voter-suppression are needed.
Other suggestions? 

HEATHER BOOTH: CHANGING THE WORLD completes Lilly Rivlin's women activists trilogy

First she gave us a terrific documentary about the life and times of activist/writer Grace Paley, then followed this with a shorter but fascinating film on Esther Bronner, the woman who brought us the first feminist seder. Now, Lilly Rivlin offers up her hour-long documentary, HEATHER BOOTH: CHANGING THE WORLD, which will introduce many (if not most) of us to, as Ms Rivlin puts it, "the most important person you've never heard of." This film's a winner, too.

Rivlin, shown at left, has a way of fishing out the facts of a life and stringing them together in a fashion that draws you in, makes you think and then connect the dots that lead from personal life to politics to change. All three women she has so far memorialized are good examples, and while Paley was certainly the best known, Bronner and now Booth make fine follow-ups. And this time, Rivlin is taking on a living woman -- which seems to bring even more energy and vitality to her film. (Of course, Booth herself could hardly be more vital and alive!)

So who is Heather Booth? (That's she, above, in both her younger and more recent days.) Well, the woman is an "organizer," and if that might seem at first a bit mundane, we soon learn how important this job is, along with how it most effectively can be done. We also learn about the forces that drive her -- love people, hate injustice -- and how her status as an "outsider" probably fueled the fire.

From her first task -- handing out anti-capital-punishment flyers in Times Square -- through the Mississippi terror and the Civil Right demonstrations during the 1960s, we follow her career with interest and often surprise. She worked with Fannie Lou Hamer -- above, center -- in the south, where her sense of the need for social justice was strengthened by living with a black family. From there her skill for organizing seemed to bloom and flourish.

From racial justice to abortion rights and the creation of "Jane" (at a time when abortion was still illegal), we follow her career, professional and personal (there is a lovely section here devoted to "When Heather Met Paul," the man who became her husband and co-worker, though in a very different venue).

We discover the ACDC (Action Committee for Decent Child Care), and The Midwest Academy where, against all conventional wisdom, Heather proves that "organization" can indeed be taught. The movie does skip around a lot, even, it seems, in terms of time frames, yet there is not an uninteresting minute in all of the 60.

We watch as, with Booth's help, Harold Washington is elected mayor of Chicago, and eventually Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is formed (and has by now returned almost twelve billion dollars to consumers!). Accolades to Booth from both Warren and Julian Bond are included in the documentary. The movie's a call to action, as it demonstrates just what a wonder Heather Booth really is. Watching and listening to her will give you much needed courage. The film ends with the election of Donald Trump, a declaration of concern and -- of course -- the need for organization.

Distributed by Women Make Movies, Heather Booth: Changing the World will make its debut in Sarasota, Florida, beginning next week at the Through Women's Eyes Film Festival on Saturday, April 1, at 3:15pm (click here for the complete film schedule); and again during the Sarasota Film Festival on Monday, April 3, at 4:15pm. Click here for this festival's complete schedule.