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Category Archives: Genre

Sunday Too Far Away (1975)

07 May

94m; Australia

Director: Ken Hannam

Cast:  Jack Thompson, Max Cullen and Robert Bruning

Synopsis (Wikipedia): The film is set on a sheep station in the Australian outback in 1955 and its action concentrates on the shearers’ reactions to a threat to their bonuses and the arrival of non-union labour.

Acclaimed for its understated realism of the work, camaraderie and general life of the shearer, Jack Thompson plays the knock-about Foley, a heavy drinking gun shearer (talented professional sheep shearer), and while he makes a play for the station owner’s daughter Sheila (Lisa Peers), the film is a presentation of various aspects of Australian male culture and not a romance; the film’s title itself is reputedly the lament of a shearer’s wife, ‘Friday night too tired; Saturday night too drunk; Sunday, too far away’.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Drama, Farm & Food

 

The Sundowners (1960)

07 May

133m; Australia

Director: Fred Zinnemann

Cast: Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum and Peter Ustinov

Synopsis (IMDB): In the Australian Outback, the Carmody family–Paddy, Ida and their teenage son Sean–are sheep drovers, always on the move. Ida and Sean want to settle down and buy a farm. Paddy wants to keep moving. A sheep-shearing contest, the birth of a child, drinking, gambling and a race horse will all have a part in the final decision.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Drama, Farm & Food, Working Class

 

Surviving the Good Times (2000)

07 May

A Bill Moyers report
During the longest economic expansion in American history, many people had never had it so good. But for others, the boom only resulted in working longer hours at lower wages simply to keep up. This eye-opening program tells the story of the Neumanns and Stanleys, two working families in Milwaukee whose efforts to make ends meet in the new global economy reveal what life was like for millions of Americans during that period. Filmed over ten years, this intimate documentary captures their struggle to cope with economic upheaval and to keep their families intact with both parents working, children facing challenges in school and in the street, and family values being threatened by problems with no easy solutions. (2 parts, 67 minutes and 50 minutes)
Available from Films Media Group
Also available online on Vimeo

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Cities-Urban, Documentary, Global Economy, Working Class

 

Sunset Story (2003)

07 May

73m; U.S.

Director: Laura Gabbert

Synopsis (IMDB): Lucille and Irja are retired residents of Sunset Hall, a Los Angeles home for the elderly. Residents of Sunset Hall are retired radicals; they have retired from work but not from protesting against injustice. Bitter Lucille considers herself a realist. Wheelchair-bound Irja is sunny and optimistic. Lucille was raised a Jew but always aspired to assimilate. Irja wants to explore all sorts of new traditions. Through the lives of these women, Sunset Story shows the life at Sunset Hall: teachers, a dancer, an engineer, a social worker, and others, all living out their golden years in a unique environment.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Communism/Socialism, Documentary, Women

 

Sweatshop Cinderella (2010)

07 May

27m; U.S.

Director: Suzanne Wasserman

Synopsis: The story of Anzia Yezierska, a Jewish American writer whose family settled on the Lower East Side, where she toiled in sweatshops and laundries.

Contact: Suzanne Wasserman swasserman@gc.cuny.edu http://gothamcenter.org/cinderella/

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Documentary, Women, Working Class

 

Sweet Dreams (2006)

07 May

105m; U.S.

Director: Eric Scott Latek

Synopsis: 27-year-old boxer Gary “Tiger” Balletto attempts to unionize the sport.

Contact: Eric Scott Latek; ericlatek@phantazmapictures.com; 401-270-3768; 401-556-5197

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Documentary, Organizing, Sports

 

Sweet Sixteen (2002)

07 May

106m; U.K.

Director: Ken Loach

Cast: Martin Compston, Michelle Coulter and Annmarie Fulton

Synopsis: Liam is a young, restless teen struggling to realize his dream in the gritty and dismal streets of Greenock, where unemployment is rampant and little hope is available to the city’s youth. He is waiting for the release of his mother, Jean, from prison where she is completing a prison term for a crime that her boyfriend actually committed. Her boyfriend, Stan, is a crude and obnoxious drug pusher is partnered by Liam’s equally rough and foul-mouthed, mean-spirited grandfather. Liam is determined to rescue his mother from both of them, which means creating a safe haven beyond their reach. But first he’s got to raise the cash–no small feat for a young man It’s not long before Liam and his pals’ crazy schemes lead them into all sorts of trouble. Finding himself dangerously out of his depth, Liam knows he should walk away. Only this time, he just can’t let go

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Drama, Legal System, Working Class

 

Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo (2009)

07 May

120m; U.S.

Director: Bradley Beesley

Synopsis: Since 1940, the Oklahoma State Penitentiary has held an annual rodeo in which inmates compete, to the delight of thousands of spectators. Since 2006, female inmates have been allowed to take part. Many of them are young mothers, separated from their families because of drug-related crimes. The rodeo poses the real possibility of lifelong injury, especially for these amateurs with only minimal training, but both women and men participate to relieve the intense boredom of prison life. This two-hour, heartbreaking documentary introduces some of them, and in the process provides a poignant portrait of the inhumanity of the U.S. prison system.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Documentary, Legal System, Sports, Women

 

Swept Away (1974)

07 May

116m; Italy

Director: Lina Wertmüller

Cast: Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato and Riccardo Salvino

Synopsis (IMDB): A rich woman, Raffaella, and some friends rent a yacht to sail the Mediterranean Sea during summer. The sailor, Gennarino, who is a communist, does not like this woman but has to bear with her bad mood. One day she wakes up late in the afternoon and asks to be taken to land where everyone had gone earlier. Gennarino sets up a boat but during the trip, the boat breaks down. They spend the night in the middle of the sea.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Communism/Socialism, Drama

 

Swimming With Sharks (1994)

07 May

101m; U.S.

Director: George Huang

Cast: Kevin Spacey, Frank Whaley and Michelle Forbes

Synopsis: A young Hollywood executive becomes the assistant to a big time movie producer who is the worst boss imaginable: abusive, abrasive and cruel. But soon things turn around when the young executive kidnaps his boss and visits all the cruelties back on him.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Comedy, Crime-Action, Drama, Entertainment Industry, White Collar

 
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