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Author Archives: Metro Council

Goin’ Down the Road (1970)

01 Mar

90m; Canada

Director: Donald Shebib

Cast: Doug McGrath, Paul Bradley and Jayne Eastwood

Synopsis (IMDB): Story of desolation as two friends travel from Nova Scotia to Toronto in hope of finding a better life. Drifting from job to job: bottling plant, car wash, bowling alley, newspaper delivery, and in between enjoying the night life of the big city. Their previous life is looking better all the time. This movie is a time capsule of Toronto’s Yonge Street – record stores (defunct A&A’s), bars, and old neighbourhood side streets.

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Working Class

 

God’s Little Acre (1958)

01 Mar

118m; U.S.

Director: Anthony Mann

Cast: Robert Ryan, Tina Louise and Aldo Ray

Synopsis (IMDB): A poor farmer is obsessed with finding gold on his land supposedly buried by his grandfather. To find it he conveniently moves a marker out of his way that designates the land on which it rests as as God’s Little Acre, where anything that comes from the ground will go to God’s work. Eventually he abducts an albino to help him find the gold. Meanwhile, his daughter-in-law is suspected of fooling around with a labor activist out of work since the mill closed, and a local political hopeful actively seeks his daughter’s hand in marriage.

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Romance, Working Class

 

Go Forward: The Iraqi Freedom Congress (2006)

01 Mar

32m; Iraq

Director: Osamu Kimura & Mabui Cine Coop

Synopsis: Iraqi working-class organizing and fight against occupation.

Contact: http://homepage2.nifty.com/cine-mabui/

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Organizing, War, Working Class

 

Global Village or Global Pillage (2001)

01 Mar

USA; 27m

Director: Jeremy Brecher

Synopsis: A documentary that shows how ordinary people around the world are taking on the global economy.

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Global Economy

 

Fun With Dick And Jane (2005)

01 Mar

90m; U.S.

Director: Dean Parisot

Cast: Jim Carrey, Téa Leoni and Alec Baldwin

Synopsis: The day before Globodyne’s stock tanks, a la Enron, and its pension fund evaporates, the corporation’s CEO and CFO set up middle manager Dick Harper to be the public face of the disaster. Jobless, and with no savings, pension, or home equity, Dick and his wife Jane sink slowly into poverty. He looks for work (as do all former Globodyne executives); he even tries day labor with the relatives of their Mexican nanny. A foreclosure notice sends Dick and Jane over the edge into a life of blue-collar crime. Then, as things finally look up, the report of an looming indictment pushes Dick and Jane toward a denouement with the real criminals, the white-collar guys

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Comedy, White Collar, Working Class

 

Frozen River (2008)

01 Mar

97m; U.S.

Director: Courtney Hunt

Cast:  Melissa Leo, Misty Upham and Charlie McDermott

Synopsis (IMDB): Takes place in the days before Christmas near a little-known border crossing on the Mohawk reservation between New York State and Quebec. Here, the lure of fast money from smuggling presents a daily challenge to single moms who would otherwise be earning minimum wage. Two women – one white, one Mohawk, both single mothers faced with desperate circumstances – are drawn into the world of border smuggling across the frozen water of the St. Lawrence River. Ray and Lila – and a New York State Trooper as opponent in an evolving cat-and-mouse game

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Women, Working Class

 

From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks (2006)

01 Mar

U.S.

Director: Haskell Wexler

Synopsis: A filmed version of a Ian Ruskin’s one man-play covering the life of International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union founder and labor radical Harry Bridges.

Contact: Ian Ruskin, theharrybridgesproject@comcast.net; http://www.theharrybridgesproject.org

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Global Economy, Organizing, Politics, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Transportation, Working Class

 

From the Other Side (2002)

01 Mar

92m; U.S.

Director: Chantal Ackerman

Synopsis: Immigrant workers.

Contact: First Run Icarus Films. http://www.frif.com/new2002/other.html

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Immigrants/Immigration

 

From the Mountains to the Maquiladoras

01 Mar

Synopsis: Laid-off Tennessee factory workers visit Mexican communities where factories moved.

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Global Economy, Outsourcing

 

From the Bottom Up (1991)

01 Mar

65m; U.S.

Director: Sedgwick Productions

Synopsis: It’s a 65 minute documentary that features: 1. Community organizing: Gail Cincotta and NPA Two IAF groups in Texas: COPS and Valley Interfaith. 2. Community-based economic development Two groups in the South Bronx doing affordable housing including sweat equity – Banana Kelly, and the Mid-Bronx Development Corporation One group in Embarrass Minnesota (SISU) working on stabilizing a rural community through reviving Finnish heritage buildings, crafts, etc.

 
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Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Documentary, Organizing

 
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