Author Archives: Metro Council
Rick (2003)
100m; U.S.
Director: Curtiss Clayton
Cast: Bill Pullman, Aaron Stanford and Agnes Bruckner
Synopsis (IMDB): “Rigoletto” retold at Christmas time in Manhattan’s corporate world. Rick, an executive at Image, is a jerk to a woman applying for a job. That evening, he’s out for drinks with his much younger boss, Duke, and the same women is their waitress. Rick’s continued rudeness leads to her getting fired. She puts a curse on him. A potential rift with Duke quickly surfaces; Rick is approached by the hail-fellow Buck, who runs His Own Company, offering to rid Rick of Duke. At dinner later that night, Rick and Duke’s paths cross again; this time Rick is with his stunning and beloved daughter, Eve, a student who has a secret relationship with Duke. All paths lead to the office holiday party.
Riding the Rails (1997)
72m; U.S.
Director: Lexy Lovell, Michael Uys
Synopsis: Riding the Rails offers a visionary perspective on the presumed romanticism of the road and cautionary legacy of the Great Depression. From ‘middle class gentility to scrabble-ass poor,’ the undiscriminating Great Depression forced 4,000,000 Americans away from their homes and onto the tracks in search of food and lodging. Of this number, a disturbing 250,000 of the transients were children. The filmmakers relay the experiences and painful recollections of these now-elderly survivors of the rails. Forced to travel more by economic necessity than the spirit of adventure, the film’s subjects dispel romantic myths of a hobo existence and its corresponding veneer of freedom. Riding the Rails recounts the hoboes’ trade secrets for survival and accounts of dank miseries, loneliness, imprisonment, death, and dispossession. Sixty years later, the filmmakers transport their subjects back to the tracks…
Riff – Raff (1991)
96m; U.K.
Director: Ken Loach
Synopsis: The story of Stevie, a construction worker, and his girlfriend, an unemployed pop singer, serves to show the living conditions of the British working class
Rise Up! West Virginia (2008)
75m; U.S.
Director: B. J. Gudmundsson
Synopsis: Mountain Keepers who have been fighting a 20 year battle to save their land and homes from the destructive practices of coal mining and especially mountaintop removal mining.
Contact: Patchwork Films Email: bj@patchworkfilms.com Patchwork Films mailing address 106 Lamplighter Drive Lewisburg, West Virginia 24901 Phone B. J. Gudmundsson 304-645-4998 Email Doug Chadwick 304-653-4916 Email Joan C. Browning 304-645-6799 Email
The Rise of Big Business (1969)
27m; U.S.
Director: Encyclopedia Brittanica Educational Corporation
Synopsis: A portrait of the rise of industrial tycoons proposes that, after the Civil War, a combination of economic conditions and the efforts of various individuals produced the large business organizations. Shows the impact of the new economic structure on the lives of workers.
The Rise of Labor (1968)
30m; U.S.
Director: Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corporation
Synopsis: Traces history of the American labor movement. Discusses working conditions from the 19th century to 1960s, the effects of early strikes in changing governmental attitudes toward labor and the AFL and CIO.
The Rise of Organized Labor (1960)
18m; U.S.
Director: McGraw-Hill Book Company
Synopsis: The historic and economic determinants of unionism are examined to illustrate trends in economic problems influencing unionization.
Rising Son (1990)
92m; U.S.
Director: John David Coles
Cast: Brian Dennehy, Piper Laurie and Graham Beckel
Synopsis (IMDB): A factory foreman with 36 years experience becomes despondent after being laid off by his company which has just been taken over by a Japanese conglomerate and is unable to find any other work. Meanwhile, his son uses his father’s unemployment as an excuse to drop out of the pre-med program his father pressured him to enter.
The Rising Tide (2008)
38m; U.S.
Synopsis: Effects of the Luxury Tax on yacht workers and the fight to kill the tax.
Contact: slu@sluproductions.com 973-228-4195 (Day)
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