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June 10, 2011
Movie Review: Battle for Brooklyn
Documentary delves into Atlantic yards controversy
The Epoch Times
by Joe Bendel
Though hardly kneejerk, the Moving Picture Institute has nurtured some of the most challenging free-market/right-of-center documentaries to sneak into theaters in recent years. Norman Siegel is a self-proclaimed civil liberties attorney so far to the left that he has lost three Democratic primaries in New York City to more moderate candidates. When they agree something is a problem, it must be awful.
The issue in question is the abuse of the state government’s eminent domain powers. Indeed, both the MPI and Siegel were involved with Suki Hawley & Michael Galinsky’s Battle for Brooklyn, the opening night film of the 2011 Brooklyn Film Festival.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, A Battle for Brooklyn review: when libertarians agree with Norman Siegel that "something is a problem, it must be awful"
Indeed, as I wrote in my review:
Battle’s directors, however, do not point out how eminent domain can make for strange bedfellows, with Brooklyn activists working with the libertarians of the Castle Coalition, or that, given that New York has the country’s most condemnor-friendly eminent domain laws, such an alliance shouldn’t be shocking. (The film is also supported by the libertarian Moving Picture Institute.)
Posted by eric at June 10, 2011 9:31 AM