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Author Archives: iwwggrandson

The Yes Men (2003)

13 Jun

80m; U.S.
Director: Chris Smith, Dan Ollman, Sarah Price

Synopsis (IMDB): A comedic documentary which follows The Yes Men, a small group of prankster activists, as they gain world-wide notoriety for impersonating the World Trade Organization on television and at business conferences around the world. The film begins when two members of The Yes Men, Andy and Mike, set up a website that mimics the World Trade Organization’s–and it’s mistaken for the real thing. They play along with the ruse and soon find themselves invited to important functions as WTO representatives. Delighted to represent the organization they politically oppose, Andy and Mike don thrift-store suits and set out to shock unwitting audiences with darkly comic satire that highlights the worst aspects of global free trade

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Big Business/Corporations, Documentary, Finance, Global Economy

 

The World According To Monsanto (2008)

13 Jun

109m; France

Director: Marie-Monique Robin

Synopsis: Marie-Monique Robin has produced a powerful and frightening film in understanding the danger on a global level of out of control genetic engineering and the food industry. Workers, farmers, consumers and the environmentalists are all threatened by the unregulated development and growth products from this industry. The US media have censored the role of Monsanto and other biotech companies in spreading genetically engineered products that are harmful to workers in the laboratory, farmers and consumers around the world.Injured biotech worker David Bell who worked at Agraquest in Davis, which was owned by a former Monsanto Pest Division molecular biologist Pam Marrone, is one of the victims of this unbridled development and cover-up by the biotech industry.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Global Economy

 

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The Wisconsin Plan: From Welfare to Work? (2007)

13 Jun

13m; Israel

Director: Sawt el-Anel/The Labor’s Voice

Synopsis: Israel’s Welfare to Work Plan

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary

 

Them That Work – How Matewan Inspired a State (2009)

13 Jun

3:12; U.S.

Director: Jason Brown

Synopsis: Documentary about John Sayles’s “Matewan.” Features interviews with John Sayles, Chris Cooper, David Straithairn, and others.

Contact: http://www.themthatwork.com/TTW/Home.html

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Available Online, Documentary, Entertainment Industry, Labor History, Organizing

 

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Thelma & Louise (1991)

13 Jun

130m; U.S.

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis and Harvey Keitel

Synopsis (IMDB): Louise is working in a fast food restaurant as a waitress and has some problems with her friend Jimmy, who, as a musician, is always on the road. Thelma is married to Darryl who likes his wife to stay quiet in the kitchen so that he can watch football on TV. One day they decide to break out of their normal life and jump in the car and hit the road. Their journey, however, turns into a flight when Louise kills a man who threatens to rape Thelma. They decide to go to Mexico, but soon they are hunted by American police.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Crime-Action, Drama, White Collar, Working Class

 

They Don’t Wear Black Tie (Eles Não Usam Black-Tie) [1981]

13 Jun

122m; Brazil

Director: Leon Hirszman

Cast: Gianfrancesco Guarnieri, Fernanda Montenegro and Carlos Alberto Riccelli

Synopsis (NYT): At the beginning of the Brazilian film “They Don’t Wear Black Tie,” a middle-class boy and girl are making plans to live happily ever after. Maria (Bete Mendes) is pregnant by the handsome young Tiao (Carlos Alberto Ricelli), and that helps accelerate their plan to rush into marriage. Everything looks rosy. “They Don’t Wear Black Tie” is an extremely successful politically aware drama about how the bloom falls off the rose . . . The film chronicles the process by which Maria realizes that Tiao is not the man she thought he was. Her understanding of Tiao’s weakness is heightened by the political activity surrounding a local strike, at the factory where Tiao, his father and Maria are all employed. When the labor trouble begins, Tiao manfully wanrs Maria that she’d better stay home, exhibiting just the hind of stubborn sexism this courageous heroine refuses to tolerate. Later on, he violates the most basic tenets of his upbringing by becoming a scab. And Maria declares that her child will be bery, very proud of his grandfather, even if he never has a kind thought about his father at all.

“They Don’t Wear Black Tie” is an outstandingly good film in this year’s New Directors/New Films lineup.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Drama, Manufacturing, Romance, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

These Hands (1992)

13 Jun

DVD
45 minutes, 1992, Tanzania, Africa
Director: Flora M’mbugu-Schelling
in Kimakonde and Swahili with English subtitles
http://newsreel.org/video/THESE-HANDS

Who would have suspected that a 45 minute documentary about women crushing rocks, without narration or plot, would offer one of the most unforgettable and rewarding experiences of recent African cinema? Flora M’mbugu-Schelling’s quiet tribute to women at the very bottom of the international economic order ultimately deepens into a mediation on human labor itself. These Hands will stimulate viewers to rethink documentary and to question their own role as consumers in a global economy.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Blacks, Construction Trades, Documentary, Global Economy, Women

 

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There Oughta Be A Law: NoJobIsWorthThis.com (2009)

13 Jun

Director: Beverly Peterson

Synopsis: Documentary about the devastating impact of abusive bosses. And their victims’ national struggle to pass anti-harassment laws.

Contact: http://nojobisworththis.com/about Beverly Peterson 347-229-6815 peterson.beverly@gmail.com

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Documentary, Whistleblowers, Women

 

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

13 Jun

129m; U.S.

Director: Sydney Pollack

Cast: Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin and Susannah York

Synopsis: Gloria is a young woman of the Depression. She has aged beyond her years and feels her life is hopeless, having been cheated and betrayed many times in her past. While recovering from a suicide attempt, she gets the idea from a movie magazine to head for Hollywood to make it as an actress. Robert is a desperate Hollywood citizen trying to become a director, never doubting that he’ll make it. Robert and Gloria meet and decide to enter a dance marathon, one of the crazes of the thirties. The grueling dancing takes its toll on Gloria’s already weakened spirit, and she tells Robert that she’d be better off dead, that her life is hopeless – all the while acting cruelly and bitterly, alienating those around her, trying to convince him to shoot her and put her out of her misery. After all, they shoot horses, don’t they?

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Drama, Unemployment-Wages, Women, Working Class

 

They Live (1988)

13 Jun

93m; U.S.

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Roddy Piper, Keith David and Meg Foster

Synopsis (IMDB): Nada, a down-on-his-luck construction worker, discovers a pair of special sunglasses. Wearing them, he is able to see the world as it really is: people being bombarded by media and government with messages like “Stay Asleep”, “No Imagination”, “Submit to Authority”. Even scarier is that he is able to see that some usually normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the massive campaign to keep humans subdued.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Consumerism, Global Economy, Horror

 
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