Category: Books & films

• Sicario 2: this time there are no rules (or redeeming features)

  Maybe I’m just looking for excuses to toddle off to the movies when I should be deep in the data, but there have been a number of seemingly research-relevant films screening in the cinemas of Mexico City lately. I saw Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri not long after arriving here, which left me thinking all the…

  philipljohnson

  July 14, 2018

  Books & films

  film, Mexico, terrorism, violence

• Light reading turned heavy

  I brought one book with me, on my semester of research in Mexico City. This was an act of severe self-discipline, and resulted in me leaving a couple of half-read volumes on my shelf in Brooklyn. The book that made the cut was Francisco Goldman’s The Interior Circuit: A Mexico City Chronicle. Goldman splits his time…

  philipljohnson

  May 30, 2018

  Books & films

  Ayotzinapa, books, Enrique Peña Nieto, Francisco Goldman, Mexico, Mexico City, Miguel Ángel Mancera, violence

• Three billboards outside Cuernavaca

  Soon after arriving in Mexico City to commence field research, I paid a trip to the rather magnificent Cineteca Nacional, a grand cultural complex that brews coffee, sells books, and screens recent films. I went to see Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and was pretty surprised to find just how closely it connected with the…

  philipljohnson

  March 4, 2018

  Books & films

  Cuernavaca, field work, film, Mexico, narco-messages, police