R; 1h 23m
After college, Will is having problems getting a good, lasting job, as are his roomies, his girlfriend, and his just-fired dad.
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Category Archives: Comedy
Get a Job (2016)
The Spook Who Sat By the Door (1973)
1973 action crime–drama film based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Sam Greenlee (which was first published in the United Kingdom by Allison and Busby after being rejected by American publishers). It is both a satire of the civil rights struggle in the United States of the late 1960s and a serious attempt to focus on the issue of Black militancy. Dan Freeman, the titular protagonist, is enlisted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in its elitist espionage program, becoming its token Black person. After mastering agency tactics, however, he becomes disillusioned and drops out to train young Black people in Chicago to become “Freedom Fighters”. As a story of one man’s reaction to white ruling-class hypocrisy, the film is loosely autobiographical and personal.
The novel and the film also dramatize the CIA’s history of giving training to persons and/or groups who later utilize their specialized intelligence training against the agency – an example of “blowback.”
Directed by Ivan Dixon, co-produced by Dixon and Greenlee, from a screenplay written by Greenlee with Mel Clay, the film starred Lawrence Cook, Paula Kelly, Janet League, J. A. Preston, and David Lemieux. It was mostly shot in Gary, Indiana, because the themes of racial strife did not please Chicago’s then-mayor Richard J. Daley. The soundtrack was an original score composed by Herbie Hancock, who grew up in the same neighborhood as Greenlee.
In 2012, the film was added to the National Film Registry, which annually chooses 25 films that are “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”.
Working Class Heroes (2022) Original title: Heroji radnicke klase
1h 25m
A group of illegal construction workers, left without money and basic rights, fight their bosses with all they have left, building a hoax “Potemkin’s village” to con a development fund. Close to deadline it’s a fight for life and death.
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Dear God (1996)
Full Time (2023)
- 16m
A skateboarder played by Andrew Lutheran (Goldbergs, breaking bad, Palo Alto) gets offered a full time job by a mysterious man played by Iddo Goldberg (Peaky blinders, Snowpiercer) to stand in a square all day. He is making more money the longer he stands there but his life is passing him by.
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Irma la Douce (1963)
When a policeman falls in love with a prostitute, he doesn’t want her to see other men, so he creates an alter-ego who will be her only customer.
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- 2h 27m
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023)
An overworked and underpaid production assistant drives around Bucharest to shoot the casting for a workplace safety video commissioned by a multinational company.
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Night on Earth
R 1991 ‧ Drama/Comedy ‧ 2h 9m
Dir: Jim Jarmusch
Cab drivers, in the US and elsewhere.
Release date: May 2, 1992 (New York)
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Music composed by: Tom Waits
Screenplay: Jim Jarmusch
Cinematography: Frederick Elmes
Night Shift
1982
Comedy/Sex comedy ‧ 1h 46m
Chuck (Henry Winkler) has given up life as a stockbroker because it was too stressful. Now, he works an easy gig as a night shift attendant at a New York City morgue. His co-worker, Bill Blazejowski (Michael Keaton), on the other hand, is always looking to make a quick buck. When Bill finds out that Chuck’s prostitute neighbor, Belinda (Shelley Long), needs a place to do her work, he convinces Chuck to turn the morgue into a brothel where they can work as her pimps.
Release date: July 30, 1982 (USA)
Director: Ron Howard
Screenplay: Babaloo Mandel, Lowell Ganz
Music composed by: Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager, David Foster
(NYT) This Ron Howard comedy takes the mantra “Do what you love” to some zany and enterprising places. The high-concept idea is a slam dunk (two guys run a prostitution ring out of a morgue), but its stars, Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton, bring so much charm to their odd-couple roles that they move them beyond cliché. While the movie has plenty of ’80s sex comedy silliness (and songs by Burt Bacharach), its pimps (or “love brokers,” as Keaton’s character calls them) take a respectful career-style approach to sex work, seeing that their employees get health and dental insurance, while also giving them an ownership stake in a fast-food restaurant. A 401(k) may not be far behind. MEKADO MURPHY
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