review Archives | puntorojo

September 21, 2023

A Darkly Comedic Portrayal of Pinochet’s Blood-Soaked Legacy

“El Conde” (Pablo Larraín) depicts former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (Jaime Vadell) as a still-living 250-year old vampire. In the film, “the count” has his real origins in France, where he became the sworn enemy of all revolutions after he deserted the army of King Louis XVI to flee the revolution of 1789. In the present day, Pinochet is finally ready to die, feeling humiliated by his country’s hatred of him, but finds himself unable to do so. What ensues is a properly gruesome dark comedy for its subject matter, at its best when it leans into the lurid behavior of its bloodthirsty main character and his vain, money-grubbing family.

August 19, 2023

by Amy Lerner

Barbie is a Reactionary Movie Masquerading as Feminism

Do we really need another review of the Barbie movie? It’s a stupid movie, with serious plot holes, and virtually zero character development. The reviews defend the movie against right wing attacks, praise it for starting discussions about patriarchy worldwide, and laud Gerwig for subverting gender roles and showing audiences what true acceptance and female support looks like. Gerwig achieves all of this through creating a satirical Barbie world that looks amazingly like the Barbie dolls and accessories we played with and coveted as kids from the 1960s through the 1990s.

May 20, 2020

by Héctor Rivera

La lucha contra el fascismo: lecciones del pasado

Las crisis sanitarias y económicas desatadas por el COVID-19 han movilizado las fuerzas de extrema derecha en todo el mundo. La izquierda socialista necesita aprender de las luchas del Siglo XX para confrontar estas fuerzas antes de que se transformen en movimientos de masas. Puntorojo ofrece esta reseña sobre el libro Fighting Fascism (2017), publicado por Haymarket Books en inglés, para presentar a nuestros lectores un resumen de las teorías y estrategias aplicadas por la Comunista Internacional para luchar contra este fenómeno reaccionario. Ante la crisis actual, organizarnos en amplias coaliciones contra la extrema derecha es una cuestión de vida o muerte para los socialistas, la lucha feminista, y los movimientos indígenas.

October 20, 2019

by Héctor Rivera

Towards a new history of Black-Latinx solidarity

Paul Ortiz’s book An African American and Latinx History of the United States (2018), is a refreshing work that has opened broader vistas of the possible by recovering a wealthy history of Black and Latinx resistance. I hope to highlight important takeaways for those of us looking for a compass and to convince readers of puntorojo to engage with and expand on our people’s history outlined in the book. As I will outline below, the book allowed me to discover a proud history of Black-Brown of solidarity that shows that we are at our strongest who our struggles are united. It also provided inspiration to wage this fight in the present and I hope that it can do the same for others.

I came to An African American and Latinx History of the United States with the desire to understand Ortiz’s premise for an American history centered on the combined struggles African Americans and Latinx peoples. In this respect, the book did not disappoint, and like Howard Zinn’s classic, the historical breadth and solidarity-based ethos of Ortiz’s work is comparable. However, Ortiz’s book goes beyond the bounds of a traditional national history as the title might imply.