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

‘Scraps’ co-star speaks out: An interview with Denise Yolén
September 10, 2019 By Ed Rampell
This is L.A. theatergoers’ last chance to see one of the year’s best dramas.
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Culture

The art of ‘The Heal,’ Sophocles’s ‘Philoctetes’ in a Malibu amphitheater
September 6, 2019 By Ed Rampell
The production, performed in front of an ancient Roman-style villa that is a repository of relics wrought contemporaneously when Sophocles created his dramas, is suffused with philosophical musings.
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Culture

Paul Robeson Theatre Festival: Like ‘Ol’ Man River’ Robey keeps rolling along
August 30, 2019 By Ed Rampell
The 2019 Paul Robeson Theatre Festival took place Aug. 23-25 with the theme of Awakening the Past, Present and Future: A Retrospective.
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Culture

‘This is Not Berlin’: South of the border like never before
August 23, 2019 By Ed Rampell
This audacious, bold, colorful film is for moviegoers who like to see the world with fresh eyes.
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Culture

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Freudian ‘Frankenstein’ on stage in Pasadena
August 21, 2019 By Ed Rampell
A Noise Within’s (ANW) Frankenstein is one of the most striking plays I’ve ever seen.
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Culture

‘Fefu and Her Friends’: Fornés’s feminist odyssey at the Odyssey
August 16, 2019 By Ed Rampell
With its cast of eight, Fefu is well acted and not without humor—although it is more of the ironic, sardonic sort than the laugh-out-loud brand found in most comedies.
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Culture

‘Fast & Furious’ presents ‘Hobbs & Shaw’: Samoa gets the ‘Black Panther’ treatment
August 1, 2019 By Ed Rampell
Hobbs & Shaw does for Samoa what Black Panther did for Africa with Wakanda.
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Culture

‘At War,’ class struggle film coming soon to a theater near you
July 22, 2019 By Ed Rampell
At War is very realistic and well-made—at times it seems like a documentary, and the cast is largely composed of nonprofessional actors.
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