RSS

Category Archives: Genre

New in Town (2009)

06 Nov

97m; US
Director: Jonas Elmer
Writers: Ken Rance, C. Jay Cox
Stars: Renée Zellweger, Harry Connick Jr. and Siobhan Fallon

A high-powered consultant (Renée Zellweger) in love with her upscale Miami lifestyle is sent to New Ulm, Minnesota, to oversee the restructuring of a blue collar manufacturing plant. After enduring a frosty reception from the locals, icy roads and freezing weather, she warms up to the small town’s charm, and eventually finds herself being accepted by the community. When she’s ordered to close down the plant and put the entire community out of work, she’s forced to reconsider her goals and priorities, and finds a way to save the town.

 

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on November 6, 2011 in Comedy, Romance, Women, Working Class

 

Rosie the Riveter (1944)

06 Nov

75m; US
Director: Joseph Santley
Writers: Dorothy Curnow Handley (story), Jack Townley (screenplay), and 1 more credit »
Stars: Jane Frazee, Frank Albertson and Barbara Jo Allen

In wartime 1944 in California,defense plant workers Rosalind “Rosie” Warren and her friend Vera Watson must share, on a rotating schedule, the town’s last available rental-room with Charlie Doran and Kelly Kennedy, who work the other shift at the plant. The landlady, Grandma Quill , also has her grandchildren, Buzz Prouty and Mabel Prouty , and her daughter Stella Prouty —who is on the outs with her husband Clem —living with her. Rosie doesn’t tell her fiancé, Wayne Calhoun, about the living arrangements, and is also plotting with Vera to re-unite the Proutys. Rosie pawns the engagement ring Wayne gave her for money for Clem and Stella. Rosie and Charlie fall in love and get their picture in the paper. Wayne huffingly breaks the engagement and wants his ring returned. Written by Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net> IMDB

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on November 6, 2011 in Comedy, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Romance, Women

 

Chance (2009)

06 Nov

91m; Panama
Director: Abner Benaim
Writers: Abner Benaim, Lino Georg von Saenger
Stars: Francisco Gattorno, Rosa Isabel Lorenzo and Aida Morales
This hilarious comedy tells the story of Toña and Paquita, the housekeepers for the aristocratic González-Dubois family. These domestic employees have been mistreated for quite some time and they are tired of their situation. So when the family plans a shopping trip to Miami, the maids have a plan of their own; to take control of the mansion. Unexpectedly, they will also discover a family secret. (Written by Chicago Latino Film Festival)

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on November 6, 2011 in Comedy, Service Workers

 

The Apartment (1960)

06 Nov

120m; US
Dir: Billy Wilder
A man tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but complications and a romance of his own ensue.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on November 6, 2011 in Comedy, Romance, White Collar

 

Dish: Women, Waitressing and the Art of Service (2010)

05 Nov

58m; Canada
Color, DVD, French/Japanese/English, Subtitled

Director: Maya Gallus
View trailer

Why do women bring your food at local diners, while in high-end establishments waiters are almost always men? DISH, by Maya Gallus, whose acclaimed GIRL INSIDE (2007) won Canada’s Gemini Award for documentary directing, answers this question in a delicious, well-crafted deconstruction of waitressing and our collective fascination with an enduring popular icon. Digging beyond the obvious, Gallus, who waited tables in her teens, explores diverse dynamics between food servers and customers, as well as cultural biases and attitudes they convey. Her feminist analysis climbs the socio-economic ladder—from the bustling world of lower-end eateries, where women prevail as wait staff, to the more genteel male-dominated sphere of haute cuisine. Astute, amusing observations from women on the job in Ontario’s truck stop diners, Montreal’s topless”sexy restos,” a Parisian super-luxe restaurant, and Tokyo’s fantasy “maid cafés”, as well as male customers’ telling comments, disclose how gender, social standing, earning opportunities, and working conditions intersect in the food service industry.
– Women Make Movies

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on November 5, 2011 in Documentary, Service Workers, Women

 

450, Four Hundred and Fifty (Cuatrocientos cincuenta) (2001)

30 Oct

49m; Argentina
Director: Dario Doria              

Documentary film which reflects the injustice suffered by millions of retired people in Argentina. It narrates the daily struggle of a group of elderly people who don’t resign to the fact that their rights are being violated. Under the motto “with the strength of those who do not give up”, they meet every Wednesday across from the National Congress to request a minimum monthly retirement payment of 450 pesos that will allow them to lead a dignified life. Demonstrations have been inexorably done for over ten years now, though weakened day after day by the disappearance of some participants. Those that remain cannot give up the fight, which so far has obtained no response whatsoever from the State, whose idea of a solution seems to be to let time go by.
– 5th Seoul International Labor Film and Video Festival

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on October 30, 2011 in Documentary, Working Class

 

42: Forty Two Up (1998)

30 Oct

139m; UK
Director: Michael Apted
Stars: Bruce Balden, Jacqueline Bassett and Symon Basterfield

The Up Series is a series of documentary films produced by Granada Television that have followed the lives of fourteen British children since 1964, when they were seven years old. The documentary has had seven episodes spanning 49 years and the documentary has been broadcast on both ITV and BBC. In a 2005 Channel 4 programme, the series topped the list of The 50 Greatest Documentaries. The children were selected to represent the range of socio-economic backgrounds in Britain at that time, with the explicit assumption that each child’s social class predetermines their future. Every seven years, the director, Michael Apted, films new material from as many of the fourteen as he can get to participate. According to Apted, 56 Up is expected to have its broadcast premiere from 13 to 15 May 2012
– Wikipedia

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on October 30, 2011 in Documentary, Working Class

 

35 Up (1991)

30 Oct

128m; UK
Director: Michael Apted
Stars: Bruce Balden, Jacqueline Bassett and Symon Basterfield

Documentary tracking group of British people of different classes.

“If there’s ever been a more telling indictment that, indeed, the poor stay poor and the rich get rich, I haven’t found it. 35 Up is nothing less than a bleak yet scathing documentary skewering the class structure of Britain.”
Christopher Null

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on October 30, 2011 in Documentary, Working Class

 

30 Days – Working In A Coal Mine (2008)

30 Oct

55M; U.S.
Director: Morgan Spurlock
Cast: Morgan Spurlock

30 Days TV series (FX) creator Morgan Spurlock returns to his home state of West Virginia, to work as a rookie apprentice coalminer known as a “redhat” for 30 days. He also takes a little time to socialize with the miners and their families, and briefly explores the problems of mountaintop removal mining and the destruction of both the environment and the coal miners’ health.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on October 30, 2011 in Documentary, Working Class

 

Tags:

24 Hours in Tyrantland (1959)

30 Oct

30m; U.S.
Directed by Peter Tewksbury
Starring Robert Young, Jane Wyatt & rest of the Father Knows Best cast

Tells the story of Springfield under the control of a tyrannical despot. The Father Knows Best TV series became such a part of American pop-culture that in 1959 the U.S. Treasury Department commissioned a 30-minute episode called “24 Hours in Tyrant land”, with all production costs paid for by the AFL-CIO and actors and staff contributing their talents. Never aired, it was designed to be distributed to schools, churches and civic groups to promote the buying of savings bonds. (This very rare episode is on the Father Knows Best Season One DVD.)

“Unlike the weekly broadcast episodes of Father Knows Best, the point of this episode was not to entertain. No, the purpose of ‘Tyrantland’ was to save America from certain, inevitable communist rule via the sale of US savings bonds. The program’s sales pitch is a deadly serious and heavy-handed one. Its themes and morals are thickly applied, and now comes across quite quaint, if not downright silly. In short, Tyrantland has not aged well. But, it should be said, the film, perhaps due to the strong convictions and seriousness of everyone involved in its making, has not completely de-evolved into a laugh out loud, camp classic like Duck and Cover or Reefer Madness or other antiquated morality tales. Nevertheless, Tyrantland remains a powerful reflector of a profound national mood.”
– Cary O’Dell 

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on October 30, 2011 in Comedy

 
← Older posts
Newer posts →