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In the press materials for “Critical Thinking,” producer Carla Berkowitz drops this line about her reaction to reading the true story that inspired the film: “The image and story was haunting and I felt like I had a quantum shift in my perception of chess and who plays it.” The who in question are five Miami-area Black and Latino men who, along with their teacher, Mr. Martinez, brought back to their underprivileged Florida neighborhood the U.S. National Chess Championship. This happened in 1998. The film chronicles the loving camaraderie of the players and the events leading up to their victory.
In that same press release, acclaimed writer and actor John Leguizamo , who plays Martinez and also directs, states that he wanted to make this film because there were very few representations of Latin people on-screen when he was growing up. He also mentioned that the book The Bell Curve harmfully depicted people of color as being mentally inferior due to our genetics. I wondered if, like me, Leguizamo grew up in an environment where the Black and brown people he knew played chess, so that it wouldn’t seem unusual nor an anomaly that they did. Because Berkowitz’s statement really made me consider what exactly the standard issue chess player was supposed to look like.
Chess has appeared in a lot of movies, from Boaz Yakin ’s “ Fresh ” to Steven Zaillian ’s “Searching for Bobby Fisher” to 2016’s superb Mira Nair film, “ Queen of Katwe .” I even remember it being prevalent in a crappy Gary Coleman TV movie about a smart Black kid. The game always carries the same symbolic qualifier: the person who plays it has a mental capacity for strategy and is intelligent. Chess is often employed to teach life lessons in these movies, to the point where it has become a cliché that just so happens to be used differently depending on who’s playing it. This difference is something that I admit often sticks in my craw, so I found myself wrestling a bit with this movie even though it seemed to be addressing my concern.
Unlike Zaillian’s film, which I guess answers my question of what a “standard issue” chess player is supposed to look like, the protagonists in the other films I’ve mentioned, and in “Critical Thinking,” are people of color whose economical circumstances are far from ideal. This tends to be the model when minorities are seen playing chess in films, which bends the cinematic chess player cliché toward making the ability to play the game the audience’s reason to offer empathy. Sure, they’re broke, probably in crime-ridden areas and may even do a crime or two, but see, they’re smart, so it’s OK to feel for them! This line of thinking has to do with who stereotypically plays chess and who does not.
Leguizamo’s Mr. Martinez speaks to this early in “Critical Thinking” by asking why chess is never associated with brown people despite a Latin man playing a major role in its evolution. “Why don’t you think we know about him?” he asks the students in his critical thinking class before delivering a great, pointed monologue that speaks about how history is taught in schools. The script by Dito Montiel has some sharp commentary about the education system, from what gets funded to the over-reliance on test scores to the differences between Martinez’s inner city school and the posh preppy institutions who fall victim to our heroes on the tournament circuit. There’s a bit more bite than you may be expecting, and the writing is just prickly enough to balance out the moments when the film dives headfirst into its tropes. And there are numerous tropes to swim in; not only is this a sports movie, it’s also an entry in the “Beloved Teacher” genre.
Our chess champion team is comprised of Sedrick Roundtree ( Corwin C. Tuggles ), Ito Paniagua (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.), Gil Luna ( Will Hochman ), Rodelay Medina (Angel Curiel) and later, Marcel Martinez ( Jeffry Batista ) who joins the team after dispensing a hustler’s ass-whipping in a speed chess match. Their dialogue is peppered with the language the PG-13 won’t allow but realism will. Martinez is often telling them “watch your mouth” in his class, even if, in his less guarded moments, he’s prone to occasional profanity. Leguizamo gets good performances from each of them, especially in moments where you really feel the bond between teammates, both in the tournaments and in the streets. When they tell each other that they’ve got each other’s backs, there’s a real emotional pull that emanates straight from the actors.
Though this is an inspirational movie, Leguizamo and Montiel never sugarcoat the dangers of the environment their characters inhabit. The potential for violence, temporary homelessness, crime, and police harassment are always hovering in the margins, sometimes even invading the safe space of Martinez’s class or the school. An early sequence that shockingly ends in violence shows how good Leguizamo is at quickly establishing the audience’s tie to a character. When Rivera (Dre C) is thrown into critical thinking class after a disciplinary problem (“my class is not detention!” Martinez yells at frenemy Principal Kesler [ Rachel Bay Jones ]), he immediately runs afoul of Ito. Rivera’s lack of response is due to Spanish being his primary language, which may also have something to do with the infraction that got him sent to this class. Martinez talks to him in Spanish, lectures Ito and all seems well.
Rivera is then brutally assassinated in broad daylight after accidentally bumping into another person on the street. The film is barely 15 minutes old when this happens, but it immediately establishes that “Critical Thinking” has no plans of abandoning reality for its feel-good message. That sense of realism extends to the way the characters bond with, rib, and defend each other. Additionally, Leguizamo plays Martinez as someone who understands the temptations and frustrations of his students’ world. He challenges them to do for themselves because he knows all too well that the system has no intention of lending a helping hand.
Like Nair does in “Queen of Katwe,” Leguizamo also blatantly refuses to impose on poverty any notions of shame or requests for pity. “Chess is the great equalizer,” Martinez tells his team as they navigate snooty tournament heads and appearances against challengers from much posher ‘hoods. Even when things get expectedly dire for some of the characters, “Critical Thinking” remains focused on the characters’ response to the situation, never once stripping them of their dignity for cheap emotional manipulation.
Of all the team members, Sedrick has the most detailed arc. He has a girlfriend, Chanayah ( Zora Casebere ), who is supportive and tougher than she looks, and a father ( Michael Kenneth Williams ) whose sole job here is to fill that chess movie trope of the angry guy who uses chess as a means of brutal domination. Williams is an always welcome presence, but I could have done without him. Still, there is one very good moment where he shows some growth, and his son makes a snide comment that he silently acknowledges as being right.
The chess scenes are good even if you know nothing about chess. I’ve been playing since I was five, so of course I wanted more detailed representations than Leguizamo provides. I found his classroom lessons and the team’s banter about moves fascinating, and every time I was given a good look at a chessboard, I got closer to the screen to investigate. And yet, despite its acknowledgement of my aforementioned issues, I still felt a little itchy watching “Critical Thinking.” I am always game for a movie that makes me reckon with my personal feelings and biases, and I’m glad this one exists because representation will always speak volumes. If nothing else, “Critical Thinking” reminds you what a chess player can look like.
Odie Henderson
Odie "Odienator" Henderson has spent over 33 years working in Information Technology. He runs the blogs Big Media Vandalism and Tales of Odienary Madness. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .
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Critical Thinking (2020)
117 minutes
John Leguizamo as Mario Martinez
Rachel Bay Jones as Principal Kestel
Michael Kenneth Williams as Mr. Roundtree
Corwin C. Tuggles as Sedrick Roundtree
Jorge Lendeborg Jr. as Ito Paniagua
Angel Bismark Curiel as Rodelay Medina
Will Hochman as Gil Luna
Jeffry Batista as Marcel Martinez
Zora Casebere as Chanayah
- John Leguizamo
- Dito Montiel
Cinematographer
- Zach Zamboni
- Jamie Kirkpatrick
- Chris Hajian
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Critical Thinking - Full Cast & Crew
- 65 Metascore
- 1 hr 57 mins
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In Miami's inner-city, teacher Mario Martinez steps up to coach Miami Jackson High School's struggling chess team, helping the ragtag group of teens to qualify for and claim victory at the 1998 United States National Chess Championship. Based on true events.
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‘Critical Thinking’ Review: John Leguizamo’s Inspirational High-School Chess Drama
The true story of the Miami Jackson High chess team — five brainy wizards from the inner city — is told in a rousing but conventional way.
By Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
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“ Critical Thinking ” is one of those up-from-the-streets high-school competition movies where just mentioning the true story it’s based on kind of gives the game away. Set in 1998, it’s about the five chess wizards from Miami Jackson High who became the first inner-city chess team to win the National Championship. Boom! But, of course, it’s how they got there that matters, and even if this movie weren’t based on a true story, you’d know more or less know where it’s going. “Critical Thinking” has some appealing young actors, and it’s been directed, by John Leguizamo (who costars as the film’s tough-saint teacher), in a way that gives them the space to clown around and then get serious. It’s still, in the end, a bit of a connect-the-inspirational-dots movie, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be inspired.
Leguizamo plays Mario Martinez, who teaches an elective class in chess at Miami Jackson, where his students call him “Mr. T.” They’re a rowdy, bellicose, street-smart bunch, hard to control in class, so at first we think we’re seeing one of those movies, like “Stand and Deliver” or “To Sir, with Love,” about a captivatingly square gadfly instructor who shows a bunch of underprivileged kids how to transcend the expectations (or lack thereof) that have been thrust upon them.
In a way, “Critical Thinking” is one of those movies, though with a crucial caveat: The basic training — the intellectual whipping into shape — has all happened before the drama even starts. Martinez, in his thankless underpaid plaid-shirts-off-the-rack way, is beloved by his students, and he has taught them well; they’re chess players who’ve got the game in their blood. (It’s the only thing that gets them to settle down .) Leguizamo, who spent a number of his early one-man stage shows sketching in (often quite brilliantly) the lives of young people from a similar background, knows how to create scenes that bubble with spontaneity. And he himself plays Martinez with an effusive, slightly weary middle-aged demeanor that’s touching, because what he nails is the unabashed corniness of certain great high-school teachers — their willingness to put on a show for their kids, to turn the life of the mind into energized nerd theater.
At one point, using the magnetic chess board at the front of the class, he plays out a chess match authored (and recorded) by Paul Morphy in 1858, and he makes it sound as exciting as something on Roblox. He employs silly accents (Southern, French, Austrian) and puts on wigs and fake beards to enact the game, and he draws the kids into it, challenging them in his geek-with-cool-slang way (“Why is it a wack move, Sedrick? Don’t just talk to me, man, show me!”).
It’s one of the only scenes where we actually witness the mechanics of chess, and while that’s always a challenge for a chess drama (there’s only so much it can lure the lay audience into the heady intricacies of the game), I wish the students’ connection with chess were less of a given, and a little less abstract. Watching “Critical Thinking,” you’d never even know that the art of chess is rooted in thinking several moves ahead. Yet Leguizamo stages the matches with percussive power, the kids pounding their time clocks even as their eyes burrow into the board like lasers.
Much of the film’s appeal lies in the way it revels in chess as a pure symbol of leveling the playing field of opportunity. As Mr. T explains, chess is “the great equalizer.” It doesn’t matter how rich or poor you are, what Ivy League college or prison you’re in: The elemental nature of the game shears away everything but intellectual ability. So in a drama like “Critical Thinking,” where five students (four Latinx and one African-American) bust out of a high school with limited resources to attend a series of tournaments, there’s a democracy-in-action, anyone-can-win-in-America spirit.
The actors are terrific; the roles, as written, less so. Leguizamo is working from a script, by Dito Montiel, that walks the line between lived-in experience and overboiled cliché. Sedrick is played by Corwin Tuggles, who has a great pensive face, and he lends conviction to the character’s struggles at home. But it still feels like a contrivance that his father (Michael Kenneth Williams), an angry curmudgeon who treats his son’s chess victories as if they were beneath contempt, is also…the guy who plays chess with him every day! The other pivotal character is the canny hothead Ito (Jorge Lendeborg Jr,.), who begins to moonlight as a drug dealer, and though it’s not that we don’t buy it, it plays out like one of those obligatory flirtation-with-delinquency subplots from the 1980s.
There’s also a newly arrived immigrant from Cuba who joins the class — a sleek prodigy named Marcel (Jeffrey Batista), who can play (and win) four simultaneous games with his eyes closed. Always good to have someone like that on your team! As likable an actor as Leguizamo is, “Critical Thinking” never generates the teacher/student face-off intensity that “Stand and Deliver” did. The issue of how the team members fund their trips, with Martinez having to win over a skeptical principal (Rachel Bay Jones), creates some tension along the sidelines, yet once these kids start to win their tournaments it seems like they can do no wrong. The picture is pleasant enough, but watching it you’re always one or two moves ahead.
Related:
Reviewed online, Aug. 31, 2020. MPAA Rating: Not rated. Running time: 113 MIN.
- Production: A Vertical Entertainment release of a Chaplin/Berkowitz production, in association with NRSP, Cinema Veritas. Producers: Scott Rosenfelt, Jason Mandl. Executive producers: Harvey R. Chaplin, Carla Berkowitz, Emilio Estefan Jr.
- Crew: Director: John Leguizamo. Screenplay: Dito Montiel. Camera: Zach Zambone. Editor: Jamie Kirkpatrick. Music: Chris Hajian.
- With: John Leguizamo, Corwin Tuggles, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Will Hochman, Angel Curiel, Jeffrey Batista, Michael Kenneth Williams, Rachel Bay Jones, Zora Casebere.
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Critical Thinking
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Watch Critical Thinking with a subscription on Netflix, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.
What to Know
Strategic in delivering all the feels, Critical Thinking is a good old-fashioned underdog story that marks a winning directorial debut for John Leguizamo.
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John Leguizamo
Mario Martinez
Rachel Bay Jones
Principal Kestel
Michael Kenneth Williams
Mr. Roundtree
Corwin C. Tuggles
Sedrick Roundtree
Jorge Lendeborg
Ito Paniagua
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Critical Thinking
2020 TV-MA 118 min 6.6/10
An unwavering teacher and his students must overcome the perils in their underserved community as they compete in a national chess tournament.
Genres: Dramas
Director: John Leguizamo
Cast: John Leguizamo , Corwin C. Tuggles , Angel Bismark Curiel , Jorge Lendeborg Jr. , Michael Kenneth Williams , Will Hochman , Rachel Bay Jones , Jeffry Batista , Ramses Jimenez
Production Country: United States
Added to Netflix: December 15, 2022
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Critical Thinking (2020)
Genre: drama, duration: 117 minuten, country: united states, directed by: john leguizamo, stars: john leguizamo , jorge lendeborg jr. and angel bismark curiel, imdb score: 6,5 (2.752), releasedate: 18 december 2020.
This movie is not available on UK streaming services.
Critical Thinking plot
"Chess is the great equalizer" The year is 1998. The Miami Jackson Senior High School chess team is preparing for the great national chess championship. Coach Mario Martinez believes in his team, but according to the predictions his 'street boys' don't stand a chance. Based on a true story.
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Principal Kestel
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Ito Paniagua
Rodelay Medina
Marcel Martinez
Andre Lamar
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Critical Thinking: Is the 2020 Movie Based on Real Chess Players?
Directed by John Leguizamo, ‘Critical Thinking’ is a 2020 sports film that follows a group of kids from Miami Jackson High School trying to win the National Chess Championship. Led by Mario Martinez, the team comprises Sedrick Roundtree, Marcel Martinez, Gilbert Luna, Rodelay Medina, and Olemy Paniagua. The five boys come from the inner parts of Miami, where the families strive daily for necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing. Coach Mario Martinez sees their interest in chess as an opportunity for growth and sets out on a quest to create history.
Set in 1998, the film portrays what it’s like to come from underprivileged backgrounds and how classism deprives poor people of great opportunities. In addition, the narrative tackles subjects such as racism and juvenile crimes and depicts how the latter results from several other factors in a system that doesn’t uplift the downtrodden. The various characters and backdrops feel authentic and allow the audience to empathize with the people they see onscreen. The compelling performances and organic character journeys have made many wonder if the the story is rooted in reality. Well, allow us to shed some light on the matter.
Critical Thinking: Based on True Events
Yes, ‘Critical Thinking’ is a true story. Written by Dito Montiel and directed by John Leguizamo, the movie captures the events leading up to the 1998 National Chess Championship. It showcases how Mario Martinez and his team of boys from Miami Jackson High School won the title. The group is also the first-ever team from Miami to win the national title in chess . Executive producer, Carla Berkowitz, came up with this idea when she read an article in 1997 about the boys of Miami Jackson. She wanted to tell the story of all these boys doing such incredible things in the chess world with Mario Martinez’s help.
Interestingly the movie is quite close to how the events unfolded in real life. All 5 players in the movie are based on real-life chess players. Even the character of Coach Mario Martinez in the film has a real-life counterpart, who is a chess teacher . The real-life figures also played a significant role in the filming process. In an interview with CineMovie, Carla Berkowitz said , “All the boys that were portrayed and Mario obviously were the consultants in the chess movie.”
Another fascinating aspect is that Berkowitz wanted to make the movie for about two decades. Although filming began in 2018, Carla Berkowitz has been in touch with all players and Mario Martinez since 1997. While describing the movie’s accuracy, the real Mario Martinez and Carla Berkowitz mentioned a few things. First, all games we see the players play in the movie were played by their real-life counterparts. Second, Marcel’s book of chess moves also existed in real life. Third, the scene where Marcel plays with Mario, Sedrick, Roddy, and Gil, with his eyes closed, happened in reality too.
Numerous events in the movie mirror circumstances that transpired in reality, which elevates the narrative’s authenticity. ‘Critical Thinking’ is far more than a chess championship for Mario Martinez and the boys. The group comes from a place where they have nothing but want to create a better life for themselves. However, the boys do not get a fair shot at anything due to racial discrimination and financial circumstances. Coach Martinez sees chess as an opportunity and a metaphor for their life.
At the film’s beginning, Martinez says that chess is an equalizer that puts everyone on a level playing field. In fact, the teacher solves almost every problem with a chess move because he considers the game symbolic of life. The ideology comes from the real-life coach. In an interview with Orlando Sentinel, he said , “Chess is a way of looking at choices and realizing, ‘If I do this, then this will happen. If I do that, then that will happen,'” Martinez deduced, “Choices have consequences. That’s critical thinking. That’s analytical. And that’s life.”
The coach always applies this philosophy in the movie, which leads the boys to bag the national title. Marcel wins the title for the individuals’ category, and Miami Jackson High School wins in the teams’ category. In real-life, Coach Martinez didn’t stop with the 1998 championship title. The teacher went on to win several more via kids who developed an interest in the sport. In the next four years, he offered his guidance to various teams comprising different players representing Miami Jackson and won 4 more national championship titles.
In 2000, Rodelay Medina became the national champion in the expert division. Marcel played three opponents simultaneously while being blindfolded. Therefore, to reiterate, ‘Critical Thinking’ is a true story of a group of boys and their coach from Miami Jackson. It essays how Martinez and his team become the first from Miami to win the National Chess Championship. The narrative also portrays how the boys overcome several struggles and move toward a hopeful future.
Read More: Is Mario Martinez Based on a Real-Life Coach? Where is He Now?
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‘Critical Thinking’: Review
By Tim Grierson, Senior US Critic 2020-03-14T01:15:00+00:00
John Leguizamo’s directorial debut is the true story of an unlikely championship chess team
‘Critical Thinking’
Dir: John Leguizamo. US. 2019. 117mins
Chronicling the true story of an unlikely championship chess team, Critical Thinking has plenty of heart, which unfortunately can’t make up for its fairly uninspired design and predictable trajectory. Making his feature directorial debut, John Leguizamo (who also stars) digs into the cultural and political dimensions of the true story of an underfunded high school squad that, against all odds, bested players from more privileged communities. This inspirational sports drama has a worthy message — for many kids from difficult backgrounds, an education is crucial for escaping poverty — but viewers may ultimately prefer to have seen a documentary about the real-life participants rather than this earnest, conventional dramatisation.
Fashions itself as a classic underdog tale from the start
Initially programmed for South By Southwest, Critical Thinking will court buyers on the strength of Leguizamo’s marquee value. Fans of feel-good sports movies — especially ones based on real events — should be intrigued, and the up-and-coming cast of young Latinx and African-American actors will appeal to audiences hungry for more diversity on screen.
In Miami in 1998, a dedicated but overworked teacher named Mr. Martinez (Leguizamo) works at one of Dade County’s poorest schools, running a chess class for students who, oftentimes, have very little else that’s positive in their lives. But once young men like Ito (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.), who has to work long hours to support himself, and Sedrick (Corwin Tuggles), who has a disciplinarian father, become experts in the game, Martinez fights to get the school to support a team that will compete in district meets.
Like many recent true-life dramas, Critical Thinking shows the real individuals during the end credits, speaking briefly about their experiences with this chess team. That device has become a bit of a cliché, which unfortunately is fitting for a film that too easily follows the tired tenets of sports dramas. It fashions itself as a classic underdog tale from the start, and nothing that happens in subsequent reels diverts Dito Montiel’s script from its predetermined big-game finale.
That’s a shame because Leguizamo is quite likeable as Martinez, largely staying away from the kinds of showy speeches that plague films of this ilk. This wise but pragmatic teacher, who grew up in the same community as his students, knows that rousing oratory won’t help these kids. Instead, he shows tough love and advocates for chess’s efficient, dispassionate strategising, which might motivate these players to feel like they have control over their destiny. And as a director, Leguizamo does a good job of conveying the controlled chaos of a high school classroom as Martinez relates to his brash, unruly wards, lending those scenes a realistically rambunctious energy.
Lendeborg and Tuggles lead a confident young cast, who often bring sensitivity to roles that are underwritten. Even though the characters are drawn from actual members of the ’98 chess team, Critical Thinking tends to simplify their hardships until they feel like generic coming-of-age plights. (Ito gets involved in selling drugs, while Sedrick’s clashes with his dad, played by Michael Kenneth Williams, don’t have much resonance.) Because Leguizamo has to focus on several students’ arcs, none of their chess exploits are particularly riveting — which makes the team’s journey to the national championship less exciting than it should be.
Still, the movie’s thoughtful tenor isn’t to be discounted. This team will face off against opponents who are often white and privileged, and Critical Thinking consistently asks the audience to consider the racism and daily disadvantages that America’s poorer communities must endure. For these students, chess is the one level playing field they have — the board doesn’t discriminate because of your background, finances or skin colour — and there’s poignancy in the small measure of comfort that provides our characters. But the filmmakers’ willingness to plug their story into an inspirational-drama framework turns out to be a bad move — nuance and insight get sacrificed for reassuring narrative payoffs.
Production company: Chaplin/Berkowitz Productions
International sales: UTA, [email protected]
Producers: Scott Rosenfelt, Jason Mandl
Screenplay: Dito Montiel
Production design: Mark Harrington
Editing: Jamie Kirkpatrick
Cinematography: Zach Zamboni
Music: Chris Hajian
Main cast: John Leguizamo, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Angel Bismark Curiel, Will Hochman, Corwin Tuggles, Jeffry Batista, Zora Casebere, Ramses Jimenez, Rachel Bay Jones, Michael Kenneth Williams
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Critical Thinking
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- Rachel Bay Jones
- Corwin C. Tuggles
- Jeffry Batista
- Zora Casebere
- Ramses Jimenez
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- "'Critical Thinking' shows that Leguizamo makes a good teacher on screen and behind the camera (...) A story that is truly inspiring and educational" Joe Blessing : The Playlist
- "The picture is pleasant enough, but watching it you’re always one or two moves ahead." Owen Gleiberman : Variety
- "Leguizamo has delivered an outstanding directorial achievement" Ethan Anderton : SlashFilm
- "'Critical Thinking' does little to detach itself from genre cliché; yet this heartfelt drama (...) has a sweetness that softens its flaws." Jeannette Catsoulis : The New York Times
- "The script by Dito Montiel has some sharp commentary about the education system (...) Leguizamo and Montiel never sugarcoat the dangers of the environment their characters inhabit (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)" Odie Henderson : rogerebert.com
- "The beauty of Leguizamo's film is that the filmmaker never tries to outmaneuver the viewer. This may be a textbook case of an inspirational teacher/underdog sports drama, but it surehandedly delivers the feels" Gary M. Kramer : Salon
- "This inspirational sports drama has a worthy message (...) but viewers may ultimately prefer to have seen a documentary about the real-life participants rather than this earnest, conventional dramatisation." Tim Grierson : Screendaily
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Critical thinking, common sense media reviewers.
Underdog chess team defies odds but plays into stereotypes.
A Lot or a Little?
What you will—and won't—find in this movie.
Positive themes of teamwork and defiance against t
Main characters are depicted as underdogs whose su
Frequent gun use. One character is abruptly shot a
Occasional kissing.
Frequent use of the words "f--k," "s--t," and "ass
Adults get drunk. Underage characters smoke cigare
Parents need to know that Critical Thinking is a fact-based drama about a high school chess team from an underserved community that defies the odds to make it to the U.S. National Chess Championship. Directed by and starring John Leguizamo, the movie has frequent swearing ("f--k," "s--t," etc.), underage…
Positive Messages
Positive themes of teamwork and defiance against the odds are prevalent. While it exposes some of the broken systems in public education, it fails to fully portray its teen characters' humanity, contributing to problematic stereotypes.
Positive Role Models
Main characters are depicted as underdogs whose success goes against everyone's expectations. Some show determination, but most play into stereotypes associated with Black and Latinx teens from under-resourced communities -- i.e., unmotivated, unintelligent jokesters. That makes it seem like their success is because of some paradoxical talent instead of their strength of character. Failure to see these kids' humanity contributes to their stereotyping, on-screen and off.
Violence & Scariness
Frequent gun use. One character is abruptly shot and killed. Another character is punched and strangled to death. Parents emotionally abuse children.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.
Sex, Romance & Nudity
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.
Frequent use of the words "f--k," "s--t," and "ass."
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.
Drinking, Drugs & Smoking
Adults get drunk. Underage characters smoke cigarettes. Drug dealing.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Critical Thinking is a fact-based drama about a high school chess team from an underserved community that defies the odds to make it to the U.S. National Chess Championship. Directed by and starring John Leguizamo , the movie has frequent swearing ("f--k," "s--t," etc.), underage cigarette smoking, drug dealing, punching, strangling, and gun violence that results in death. Parents emotionally abuse children. While positive themes of teamwork and overcoming challenges are prevalent, the movie's Black and Latinx teens are stereotypically depicted as unintelligent with little work ethic and their success as an anomaly. Rachel Bay Jones and Michael Kenneth Williams co-star. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .
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What's the Story?
In CRITICAL THINKING, teacher Mr. T ( John Leguizamo ) oversees an unofficial detention hall at Miami Jackson Senior High School, where students are sent if they're deemed troublesome. Mr. T seizes the opportunity to start a chess team, all while navigating limited resources, a school with little faith in his students' abilities, and the stressors of his students' turbulent personal lives. When the team starts to succeed, the students come up with creative fundraisers to pay for travel and lodging at their competitions. But none of this is easy. One teen faces pressures at home from an emotionally abusive father who resents his son's talents. Another is pulled into dealing drugs to make ends meet. All the while, Mr. T is the loving, encouraging adult they crave.
Is It Any Good?
This drama is the classic story of an underdog team overcoming the odds and making it all the way; unfortunately, it falls back on stereotypical characterizations to tell its tale. The Miami Jackson team seems to be in this position because its members -- Black and Latinx teens from under-resourced communities -- have historically underestimated identities. The film plays on the biases that are often held about these identities by depicting the teens as shiftless and unfocused. They're careless in their fundraising efforts, they try to pass notes during tournaments, and they use the threat of physical violence to intimidate their opponents.
Their chess skills are an afterthought, making their success feel like an anomaly. And it certainly doesn't help that a White teen joins the team as they gain momentum and becomes their shining star -- teaching the other kids new chess moves and giving them vocabulary lessons. He's the only teen character whose background, personal life, and stressors aren't explored. So while Critical Thinking is diverse in its casting and exposes some of the broken systems in public education, it misses the mark in humanizing its characters. The failure to see these kids' humanity contributes to their stereotyping, on-screen and off.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how Critical Thinking handles stereotypes and biases. Can media offer positive representations while still promoting stereotypical characterizations?
What does Critical Thinking teach viewers about student engagement and the importance of teaching things in a fun way?
What role does teamwork play in Critical Thinking ? Why is it an important character strength ?
Movie Details
- In theaters : September 4, 2020
- On DVD or streaming : September 4, 2020
- Cast : John Leguizamo , Rachel Bay Jones , Michael Kenneth Williams
- Director : John Leguizamo
- Inclusion Information : Latino directors, Latino actors, Female actors
- Studio : Vertical Entertainment
- Genre : Drama
- Topics : High School
- Character Strengths : Teamwork
- Run time : 117 minutes
- MPAA rating : NR
- Last updated : February 19, 2023
Did we miss something on diversity?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.
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Critical Thinking
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Critical Thinking streaming: where to watch online?
Currently you are able to watch "Critical Thinking" streaming on Netflix, Netflix basic with Ads. It is also possible to buy "Critical Thinking" on Amazon Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu as download or rent it on Apple TV, Amazon Video, Vudu, Google Play Movies, YouTube online.
Where does Critical Thinking rank today? The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.
Streaming charts last updated: 9:18:10 PM, 05/17/2024
Critical Thinking is 8410 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The movie has moved up the charts by 4192 places since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan but less popular than The Final Level: Escaping Rancala.
Based on a true story from 1998, five Latino and Black teenagers from the toughest underserved ghetto in Miami fight their way into the National Chess Championship under the guidance of their unconventional but inspirational teacher.
Streaming Charts The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.
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How Ncuti Gatwa Is Bringing Doctor Who Into a New Era
Ncuti gatwa, united kingdom.
W hen Ncuti Gatwa got the call that would change his life, he was walking into a London barbershop. The Rwandan-born Scottish actor froze as his agent shared the news: he had just been cast as the lead in the beloved British sci-fi series Doctor Who. This wasn’t just another job—it was something that would cement his place in British cultural history. He told his agent he’d call back. “I hung up and didn’t think about it for a week,” he recalls when we meet two years later on a cool spring day in East London. “I was like: I’ve got laundry to do, I’ve got the gym to go to, I can’t think about this life-changing thing you’ve just thrown at me.”
Doctor Who, which has been running on and off since 1963, is something of a national treasure in the U.K. Some of Britain’s most celebrated actors have played the Doctor, a time-traveling alien who explores the universe in a spaceship known as the TARDIS, which resembles an old British blue police box. The Doctor defeats evil creatures and rights wrongs across time and space—and can “regenerate” when fatally injured, allowing a new actor to step into the role. Though taking on such an iconic part was a no-brainer for Gatwa, now 31, it was also overwhelming. He describes himself as “an anxious, anxious mess” while filming: “My first day walking on set, I saw the TARDIS and it just hit me. This is the British TV program. I cannot fail.”
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‘Young Sheldon’ Is One of TV’s Most Popular Shows. So Why Did It Just End?
The “Big Bang Theory” spinoff aired its last episodes Thursday night, but the franchise will continue on CBS this fall.
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By Noel Murray
This article includes spoilers for the “Young Sheldon” series finale.
In last week’s episode of the CBS sitcom “Young Sheldon,” a laid-back, beer-drinking Texas high school football coach named George Cooper (Lance Barber) says goodbye to his family and goes to work. He never comes home: George dies of a heart attack later that day. The tragedy sets up the series’s last two episodes, which premiered Thursday night on CBS: They are about what happens when someone so steady, so reliable and so unassuming is just … gone.
A spinoff of “The Big Bang Theory,” the long-running CBS hit, “Young Sheldon” has been steady, reliable and unassuming over its seven seasons. This warm family sitcom, which fills in the back story of the “Big Bang Theory” breakout character Sheldon Cooper — played by Jim Parsons in the original and Iain Armitage in the prequel — has quietly been one of TV’s most-watched shows since it debuted in 2017.
And now it, too, is gone. The series finale takes Sheldon from the small town of Medford, Texas, where he attended high school at 9 and college at 11 as his family tried to understand and accommodate his genius, to the California Institute of Technology, where “The Big Bang Theory” is set. The episode included appearances by Parsons and Mayim Bialik, whose character, Amy, marries Sheldon in the original show.
The franchise will continue this fall with another spinoff: “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage.” It will follow Sheldon’s good ol’ boy older brother George Jr. (Montana Jordan) and his wife, Mandy (Emily Osment), as they raise their baby daughter.
“Young Sheldon” was a smash from the start, and while its network TV audience has shrunk (just like most every other show’s), its episodes elsewhere have drawn newer, younger viewers . Reruns air on the cable network TBS almost daily. Netflix licensed the show late last year, and it has since appeared regularly on that service’s self-reported Top 10 most-streamed TV series.
Yet despite its pervasiveness in TikTok memes , “Young Sheldon” has never been much of a cultural phenomenon. Television critics rarely write about it, and the Emmys have ignored it entirely — it has yet to get a single nomination. “The Big Bang Theory,” one of TV’s most-watched shows for much of its 12-season run, which ended in 2019, had a mixed critical reputation. But it did get press coverage, and was a legitimate Emmy contender, earning four nominations for best comedy series and picking up four wins for Parsons.
The “Young Sheldon” finale, meanwhile, came and went on Thursday night without much advance hype. Unless you regularly watch shows on CBS, you may not have known it was ending.
You may also be wondering: If it’s so popular, why is it ending?
In a phone interview, Steven Molaro, who created “Young Sheldon” with Chuck Lorre, and Steve Holland, an executive producer who has been a writer on the show since Season 2, explained that the series has always had an expiration date. This is because the story they inherited from “The Big Bang Theory” established that Sheldon began attending graduate school at Caltech at 14, the same year his father died.
The “Young Sheldon” team delayed the inevitable once, by holding the characters of Sheldon and his twin sister, Missy (Raegan Revord), at the same age for two seasons. But that trick could not be repeated indefinitely.
“The premise of the show is that an exceptional young kid is thrust into a world where everyone is older than him,” Holland said. “But as soon as Iain aged and Sheldon aged, he didn’t look that out of place anymore, even in college.”
So when Holland and Molaro sat down with Lorre to plot out Season 7 after the writers’ strike was settled, they decided their prequel had reached its natural conclusion. The tight post-strike production timeline meant they had to inform the cast about the decision on a group Zoom call, which surprised some of them. (In a Variety interview , Annie Potts, who plays Sheldon’s “Meemaw,” described her initial reaction as “shocked” and “ambushed.”) But whatever mixed feelings the cast may have had about the series coming to an end, it doesn’t show in their performances in the final two episodes, which strike the usual “Young Sheldon” balance of gentle good humor and soft sentimental pangs.
In the penultimate episode, “Funeral” (which aired Thursday night right before the finale), the Cooper family struggles with saying goodbye to George, with Sheldon revisiting his last moments with his father and thinking of the things he could have said to him but didn’t.
The episode ends on a poignant note, as Sheldon’s devoutly religious mother, Mary (Zoe Perry), rages at God at the memorial service before Meemaw steps in to lighten the mood. (She jokes that no one is sadder about George dying than the Lone Star beer company.) Sheldon, still lost in his own head, imagines the heartfelt eulogy he is too numb to give.
The finale, “Memoir,” tells a more typical “Young Sheldon” story, about Mary trying to get Sheldon baptized before he leaves for college. In framing scenes, the older Sheldon and Amy argue about his parenting of their own children, underlining one of the show’s main themes: that Sheldon’s parents, while dealing with all the usual messes of everyday life, did the best they could to take care of him. The episode closes with a shot of the 14-year-old Sheldon at Caltech, connecting everything back to “The Big Bang Theory”; the adult Sheldon is working as a Caltech physicist when that series begins.
Holland said Lorre pitched the idea of having Parsons and Bialik appear in the finale to make the episode feel a bit more “significant.” (Parsons, who is also an executive producer of “Young Sheldon,” has been the show’s narrator from the beginning, but this is his first on-camera appearance.) As for the differences between the last two episodes — one heavy, one lighter — Molaro said they wanted something “a little more positive and upbeat” for their ending.
“Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” which was created by Lorre, Molaro and Holland, will be a multicamera sitcom shot with a live audience, like “The Big Bang Theory.” (“Young Sheldon” is a single-camera series with no audience, a choice Molaro said was made to “let the show feel like its own thing.”) They hope to have some “Young Sheldon” regulars appear as guest stars, if they figure out how to do that without turning the new show into what Holland called “Older Young Sheldon.”
As for the legacy of “Young Sheldon,” that will now depend largely on whether it remains as popular as it has been on Netflix, where Molaro said the show is being discovered by kids who have never been in the habit of watching prime-time network TV. Despite the lack of critical buzz, “Young Sheldon” has always been good family television, with a likable cast of youngsters and showbiz veterans helping to tell slice-of-life stories that push deeper than some viewers may expect into topics like religious hypocrisy, marital strife and how it feels to share a household with someone both irritatingly eccentric and astonishingly brilliant.
The final episodes of “Young Sheldon” were designed to hit many of the notes that the show had played so well during its run, ending with a finale that Holland wanted to have “a little bit of humor and a little bit of hope.” The series finishes in an understated and touching way — going out just as it came in.
An earlier version of this article in one instance misspelled the given name of an actor. He is Iain Armitage, not Ian.
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JFK was inspired by Camelot. Now this professor thinks we need fantasy once again to protect us in an AI age
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JFK was inspired by Camelot. Now this professor thinks we need fantasy once again to protect us in an AI age
Northeastern business professor Art Langer argues that societies who forget the importance of the humanities risk becoming “warlike”.
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LONDON — John F. Kennedy’s name is inscribed into ledger stone placed among the granite fieldstones at his gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
Only a few feet away from his final resting place is what is known as the eternal flame — the candle in the wind.
That image is central to Northeastern University professor Art Langer’s argument about how fantasy and storytelling are integral to understanding the world, and that societies that forget its importance risk becoming “warlike.”
“The Candle In the Wind” is the fourth book in T. H. White’s novel “The Once and Future King,” a series of stories about the mythical legend of King Arthur and his knights of the round table.
The title refers to Arthur’s pursuit of peace — represented by the candle — being buffeted by rival forces.
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“Camelot,” a popular musical based on White’s book, came out in the same year as Kennedy’s election as U.S. president in 1960 and the LP recording of the original Broadway cast’s performance was said to have become one of the Democratic politician’s favorites to put on the White House turntable.
The popularity of the musical and the politician forged the two together in the minds of the public, with Kennedy’s presidency becoming nicknamed the “Camelot era” — a comparison that was emphasized in an interview with the president’s wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, after his assassination in 1963.
Langer uses the example of that interlinking of fable and reality with Camelot and Kennedy as part of his argument that there are perils if societies ignore the humanities.
An associate vice provost and professor of practice in Northeastern’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business, Langer advanced his theory during a lecture at “ The Future of Humanities: Reflective Practices In the Age of AI conference ,” held on the university’s London campus.
It built on an argument he first put into writing in his paper, “ Fantasy and Adult Development ,” published in the Journal of Aesthetic Education.
The use of imagination and stories can provide the critical thinking skills necessary to rebuff misinformation and can also serve as a driver of economic growth, he argues in the paper.
Langer says teaching humanities fosters critical thinking in society.
“If you become too pragmatic about the output of education, making it about what industry needs or for the useful purposes of science and technology, you lose the idea of humanities and abstract thinking and creativity, you become a warlike society — that can happen easily,” he said.
In his paper and in the Q&A session after his London lecture, Langer honed in on the way Kennedy’s presidency has been tied to the British tale of the noble and good ruler, King Arthur.
Langer told the conference that JFK and his wife saw the “Camelot” musical on Broadway and “really fell in love with it.”
Jacqueline Kennedy, in an interview with Life magazine two weeks after her husband’s death, quoted lines from the finale of the show, before saying: “There’ll be great presidents again … but there’ll never be another Camelot.”
The eternal candle was also part of Jackie’s idea of linking JFK’s presidency with the Camelot legend, Langer said.
He told the Future of Humanities conference: “You may know that the Kennedy presidency is known as Camelot. And what was the message of Camelot? The sacrifice that King Arthur made, the candle in the wind. Arthur thought he had failed but yet he had started an idea.
“When Kennedy was shot and killed and they buried him in Arlington, Jacqueline Kennedy demanded that there be a candle, the ever-burning light, at his grave.”
There were reports of some resistance to having a so-called eternal flame at JFK’s gravesite, but the former first lady was insistent, Langer said.
“She said, ‘Listen to me, this is Camelot. He (Kennedy) created an idea and he gave his life for it’. And today there is the ever-going fire at Kennedy’s grave,” Langer said.
“So do you see how this creates these movements of sacrifice for the greater good based on a metaphor of ‘The Once and Future King’? I found that extraordinary, how much she linked into that story that she saw in a musical.”
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Langer highlighted how White himself positioned “The Once and Future King” novel as an allegory, as a way of warning about the dangers of fascism, with the book having been written during World War II, but not published until 1958.
The New Yorker said fantasy cannot only be used to foster political movements and messages but can also help to grow the economy.
He concluded his paper by saying that “innovative organizations can use fantasy to stimulate creativity of their teams to drive economic performance, and entrepreneurs can use it to influence how they develop future innovations.”
Learning about legends and folktales can also help to guard against falsehoods, teaching people about the need to consider whether things are real or fakes, he says.
Those aspects of critical thinking are going to become even more important as technologies, such as artificial intelligence, develop, Langer said.
“Because fantasy provides the impetus to think beyond what is socially accepted and awakens the reflection of new possibilities, the argument is that it can accelerate movement toward a more abstract thinking,” he said.
“That is especially true in a world dominated by voluminous information that can be manipulated using AI, or used to create new ideas and imaginations,” Langer said. “And of course, the concern is you are going to see all kinds of actors creating data that is not real — we are facing that now.
“I saw an artist that created an animal that doesn’t even exist, but it looks real. All of these things are going to challenge individuals to have better critical thinking skills.”
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Netflix Releases Jerry Seinfeld’s “Unfrosted” to Mixed Reviews
N etflix recently released Jerry Seinfeld’s feature directorial debut, “Unfrosted.” The film is about the historical rivalry between Kellogg’s and Post in creating the iconic breakfast pastry Pop-Tarts. However, critical reception has been polarizing, with some reviewers deeming it “one of the decade’s worst movies.”
Harsh Criticism
The Chicago Sun-Times didn’t hold back, labelling “Unfrosted” as one of the worst films of the decade and unfavourably comparing it to “Flamin’ Hot,” suggesting it falls short in its storytelling and execution.
Talented Cast in a Challenging Film
Jerry Seinfeld takes on multiple roles in “Unfrosted,” co-writing, directing, and starring alongside a stellar comedic ensemble featuring Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Hugh Grant, Amy Schumer, Max Greenfield, Christian Slater, Sarah Cooper, and Bill Burr. Despite the impressive lineup, the film has garnered a modest 44 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes from both critics and audiences.
Mixed Reviews and Interpretations
While some critics found merit in “Unfrosted,” others were less impressed. The Guardian characterized it as “amiable and funny” yet not groundbreaking, while The Hollywood Reporter praised Seinfeld’s direction and the performances of his cast.
“Unfrosted” raised eyebrows from its inception, with many questioning the choice of a Pop-Tart biopic for Seinfeld’s comedic talents. Seinfeld himself downplays the film’s ambitions, expressing a desire for audiences to simply enjoy the lighthearted humour.
A Shift in Perspective
Despite initial scepticism, viewers seeking light-hearted comedy may find enjoyment in “Unfrosted.” Seinfeld’s prior project, “Bee Movie,” similarly grew in popularity over time, suggesting potential for this unconventional food-centric film.
Jerry Seinfeld, a prominent figure in comedy, has recently engaged in discussions about societal and cultural shifts. While “Unfrosted” may not be considered among his best works, it offers a casual and amusing experience for those seeking comedic entertainment.
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The battle for truth in election seasons: ai-generated deepfakes.
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Deepfakes have the capacity to sway public sentiment, distort information, and subtly erode ... [+] democratic foundations, which is especially dangerous during an election season.
As artificial intelligence (AI) evolves from an engine of innovation to a conduit for deception, deepfakes – digital media or communications which have been altered with intent to mislead – emerge as a significant threat to the sanctity of election seasons , challenging the very fabric of democratic integrity. Recent episodes featuring alarmingly realistic fake communications cast a shadow on AI, spotlighting its potential for misinformation and manipulation. Moreover, the proliferation of bots — automated entities programmed to execute specific online tasks — introduces another layer of complexity. These digital operatives have the capacity to sway public sentiment, distort information, and subtly erode democratic foundations.
As we edge closer to the 2024 US Presidential Election, an array of deepfake manipulations, from deceptive videos to misleading audio to doctored images, are posing unprecedented challenges to political dialogue and discourse integrity. Highlighted instances, such as a fabricated video of Senate candidate Kari Lake, altered audio of President Biden, and AI-crafted images misrepresenting Donald Trump, illustrate the sophistication of these tactics. These examples signal an imperative for heightened vigilance and robust verification mechanisms in the digital era, as well as incorporating cybersecurity into candidate election platforms . In the face of these escalating concerns, human insight plays an invaluable role and intervention stands out as a beacon of hope, crucial for countering these digital forgeries.
The Menace of Deepfakes in Our Digital Age
Deepfakes, with their advanced AI-generated abilities to convincingly replicate individuals in a variety of formats, have evolved from mere novelties to significant threats against public trust and information accuracy. Election seasons are particularly vulnerable due to their high stakes and rigorous analysis, providing prime opportunities for nefarious entities to deploy deepfake technology and influence. Their goals range from sowing discord and skewing public opinion, to undermining political figures with counterfeit endorsements or fraudulent statements.
Prominent instances of deepfakes include:
- A manipulated video on Twitter suggesting President Biden incorrectly stated Russia's occupation duration of Kyiv.
- Manipulated footage claiming Senator Elizabeth Warren advocated for barring Republicans from voting in the 2024 presidential election.
- Altered audio on TikTok falsely conveying President Biden's threats to deploy F-15s to Texas.
- A video alteration making Vice President Harris appear inebriated and nonsensical.
- An online, AI-generated photo falsely showing ex-President Donald Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and an underaged girl.
- AI-created images on Twitter falsely depicting President Biden in military attire.
- A PAC-supported ad misusing AI to replicate Donald Trump's criticism of Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds.
- AI-generated portrayals of Donald Trump and Joe Biden in a fictitious debate on Twitch.
- A DeSantis campaign video with AI-fabricated images attacking Donald Trump.
- Synthetic speech suggesting President Biden made comments on financial instability, potentially inciting market chaos, or misleading corporate leaders.
While the first nine examples may seem implausible upon scrutiny, the tenth highlights the disturbing potential deepfakes have for causing real-world consequences. These incidents underscore the combination of technical sophistication and malevolent intent behind deepfakes and serve as a grim reminder of their potential for misuse.
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In the digital expanse, bots masquerade as real users on social media, forums, and websites. They wield the power to disseminate misinformation, amplify selected narratives, suppress voter turnout, and distort public discussions. Their ability to operate with unparalleled scale and speed makes them formidable tools for clandestinely influencing electoral outcomes.
- Misinformation and Disinformation : Bots capitalize on social media's viral tendencies to significantly contribute to the spread of false information. They inundate platforms with deceptive posts, blurring the line between fact and fiction and impairing voters' ability to make informed decisions.
- Amplification and Echo Chambers : By artificially magnifying certain viewpoints, bots create a false sense of consensus or popularity around specific issues or candidates, potentially misshaping public opinion. Furthermore, their promotion of content within echo chambers intensifies polarization by entrenching biases among the electorate.
As humans, we possess nuanced perception and an ability to detect subtleties that machines have yet to master. Amidst AI's complexity and machine learning's advancements , a recent incident spotlighting a CEO's encounter with deceptive technology underscores this importance of human vigilance and insight. This instance highlights the critical need for adept individuals capable of understanding and managing AI's intricacies and recognizing when it is being misapplied .
As the landscape of digital deception advances, the necessity for experts equipped to handle the ethical, technical, and societal facets of these technologies grows stronger. Such professionals are pivotal in ensuring that AI, bot defenses, and digital content creation are harnessed for the common good rather than misuse.
A Collaborative Front: Humans and AI in the Fight Against Disinformation
The proliferation of deepfakes and AI-induced misinformation campaigns in advance of the election season underscores the necessity for collaboration between humans and AI. While AI can sift through data, the nuanced understanding, ethical foresight, and critical thinking of humans fills the gaps AI cannot perceive. This collaborative dynamic is fundamental in forging systems robust enough to identify and counteract the threats deepfakes present.
The judicious application of AI by knowledgeable individuals exemplifies the constructive power technology holds when applied correctly. Utilizing AI to detect irregularities and potential deepfake indicators, coupled with human expertise for thorough analysis and interpretation, can equip an organization with a formidable line of defense against deepfakes and other threats. This strategy transforms the workforce into an expansive reservoir of knowledge, instinct, and moral discernment, enhancing AI’s analytical prowess. This partnership both addresses the immediate challenges posed by digital disinformation and sets a precedent for the symbiotic relationship between technology and human oversight in safeguarding digital integrity.
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Critical Thinking (2020) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. Menu. Movies. Release Calendar Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie Spotlight. TV Shows.
Critical Thinking: Directed by John Leguizamo. With John Leguizamo, Rachel Bay Jones, Michael Kenneth Williams, Corwin C. Tuggles. The true story of the Miami Jackson High School chess team which was the first inner city team to win the U.S. National Chess Championship.
Critical Thinking is a 2020 American biographical drama film based on the true story of the 1998 Miami Jackson High School chess team, the first inner-city team to win the U.S. National Chess Championship.. Critical Thinking was directed by John Leguizamo (in his directorial debut), written by Dito Montiel, and stars Leguizamo alongside Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Angel Bismark Curiel, Will Hochman ...
The film is barely 15 minutes old when this happens, but it immediately establishes that "Critical Thinking" has no plans of abandoning reality for its feel-good message. That sense of realism extends to the way the characters bond with, rib, and defend each other. Additionally, Leguizamo plays Martinez as someone who understands the ...
An unwavering teacher and his students must overcome the perils in their underserved community as they compete in a national chess tournament. Watch trailers & learn more.
Netflix (Subscription required) All Watch Options ... View All Cast & Crew Critic Reviews Critic Reviews View All. Metascore Generally Favorable Based on 9 Critic Reviews. 65. 67% Positive 6 Reviews ... Critical Thinking does little to detach itself from genre cliché; yet this heartfelt drama about a rough-and-tumble group of high-schoolers ...
Critical Thinking Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. ... If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don't despair — we put together the best offerings on Netflix, ...
Learn more about the full cast of Critical Thinking with news, photos, videos and more at TV Guide. X. ... Everything to Know About Netflix's Addams Family Spinoff Wednesday.
"Critical Thinking" has some appealing young actors, and it's been directed, by John Leguizamo (who costars as the film's tough-saint teacher), in a way that gives them the space to clown ...
Across the Web. Critical Thinking in US theaters September 4, 2020 starring John Leguizamo, Rachel Bay Jones, Michael Kenneth Williams, Jorge Lendeborg Jr.. Based on a true story from 1998, five LatinX and Black teenagers from the toughest underserved ghetto in Miami fight their way into the Nati.
Meet the talented cast and crew behind 'Critical Thinking' on Moviefone. Explore detailed bios, filmographies, and the creative team's insights. Dive into the heart of this movie through its stars ...
Strategic in delivering all the feels, Critical Thinking is a good old-fashioned underdog story that marks a winning directorial debut for John Leguizamo. Miami -- 1998. Poverty, broken families ...
Critical Thinking 2020 TV-MA 118 min 6.3/10 An unwavering teacher and his students must overcome the perils in their underserved community as they compete in a national chess tournament.
The movie Critical Thinking was more than two decades in the making by the time the cast and crew began filming in Miami in 2018.After reading a 1997 article about the Miami Jackson High School ...
Cast & crew; Share. Copy URL. Critical Thinking (2020) Drama | 117 minutes . 3,00 8 votes + My vote . ... Watch on Netflix; Watch on Amazon Video; Watch on YouTube; Critical Thinking plot "Chess is the great equalizer" The year is 1998. The Miami Jackson Senior High School chess team is preparing for the great national chess championship.
Rohan Jain. December 15, 2022. Directed by John Leguizamo, 'Critical Thinking' is a 2020 sports film that follows a group of kids from Miami Jackson High School trying to win the National Chess Championship. Led by Mario Martinez, the team comprises Sedrick Roundtree, Marcel Martinez, Gilbert Luna, Rodelay Medina, and Olemy Paniagua.
Check out the official Critical Thinking Trailer starring John Leguizamo! Let us know what you think in the comments below. Watch on FandangoNOW: https://ww...
US. 2019. 117mins. Chronicling the true story of an unlikely championship chess team, Critical Thinking has plenty of heart, which unfortunately can't make up for its fairly uninspired design ...
Year: 2020. Original title: Critical Thinking. Synopsis: The true story of the Miami Jackson High School chess team which was the first inner city team to win the U.S. National Chess Championship.You can watch Critical Thinking through flatrate,Rent,buy,free on the platforms: Netflix,Netflix basic with Ads,Google Play Movies,Amazon Video,Apple ...
Parents need to know that Critical Thinking is a fact-based drama about a high school chess team from an underserved community that defies the odds to make it to the U.S. National Chess Championship. Directed by and starring John Leguizamo, the movie has frequent swearing ("f--k," "s--t," etc.), underage cigarette smoking, drug dealing, punching, strangling, and gun violence that results in death.
Critical Thinking is 8505 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The movie has moved up the charts by 3897 places since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than Lured but less popular than A Savage Nature.
Critical Thinking (2020) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. Menu. Movies. Release Calendar Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie Spotlight. TV Shows.
Millie Gibson and Ncuti Gatwa star as Ruby Sunday and the Doctor in the second episode of the new season of Doctor Who. Courtesy of James Pardon—Bad Wolf/BBC Studios. He hit a low in 2017, after ...
Following their Game of Thrones run, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss put all their energy into developing 3 Body Problem for Netflix (alongside Alexander Woo), and after the show's season 2 renewal ...
Netflix licensed the show late last year, and it has since appeared regularly on that service's self-reported Top 10 most-streamed TV series. ... had a mixed critical reputation. But it did get ...
Those aspects of critical thinking are going to become even more important as technologies, such as artificial intelligence, develop, Langer said. "Because fantasy provides the impetus to think beyond what is socially accepted and awakens the reflection of new possibilities, the argument is that it can accelerate movement toward a more ...
Netflix recently released Jerry Seinfeld's feature directorial debut, "Unfrosted." The film is about the historical rivalry between Kellogg's and Post in creating the iconic breakfast ...
Recent episodes featuring realistic fake communications cast a shadow on AI, spotlighting its potential for misinformation and manipulation this election season.