2021; 16+
An out of work hitman finds employment as a janitor at another local elementary school.
Director: Jack Beranek
Writer: Jack Beranek
Stars : Chris Charais, Iris Seifert, Katie Troske
https://www.maxbishopmovie.com/
Category Archives: Self-Employed/Freelance
TRAIN DREAMS
2025; PG-13; 1h 42m
Based on Denis Johnson’s beloved novella, Train Dreams is the moving portrait of Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker who leads a life of unexpected depth and beauty in the rapidly-changing America of the early 20th Century.
Director: Clint Bentley
Writers: Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Denis Johnson
Stars: Joel Edgerton, Clifton Collins Jr., Felicity Jones
NYTimes: ‘Train Dreams’ Review: Life, Understood in Reverse
Rolling Papers (Pikad Paberid)
2024; 1h 38m
Director: Meel Paliale
Writers: Meel PalialeUrmet Piiling Stars: Mihkel Kuusk; Karl Birnbaum; Edgar Vunsh
A portrait of European youth as they navigate life in their twenties, grappling with uncertainty and searching for purpose.
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.
- Director
- Writer
- Stars
The Union (2024)
Mike (Mark Wahlberg), a construction worker from Jersey, is quickly thrust into the world of super spies and secret agents when his high school sweetheart, Roxanne (Halle Berry), suddenly comes back into his life and recruits him on a high-stakes U.S. intelligence mission. Watch on Netflix.
Netflix hit “The Union” is a miss
Reviewed by Chris Garlock (Labor Heritage Foundation newsletter)
The Union is a hit on Netflix, but it’s not really about the labor movement, and it’s a pretty lousy movie, despite starring Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry. Wahlberg plays Mike, a construction worker in New Jersey, who finds himself thrust into the world of super spies when his high school sweetheart, Roxanne (played by Berry), enlists his help on a high-stakes US intelligence mission for a shadowy group of ex-agency operatives called The Union. It’s a telling sign that a film called The Union doesn’t bother to say whether Mike’s construction job is union or not. J.K. Simmons runs the team and does have a cool class-conscious rationale for its existence: “(We’re the) invisible army that keeps the world running. The people who do the actual work. Street smarts over book smarts. Blue collar, not blue blood. Able to build our cities, keep production lines humming. That’s who we are. We get shit done.” Unfortunately that’s about the only nod to labor in the film, which has been getting abysmal viewer reviews, the best of which call it “generic” and “cheesy”. Action fans will be disappointed by the rote gunplay, endless — and pointless — car chases and lame dialogue from movie stars who — like us — deserve better. And the big plot twist involving a traitor in The Union is not only completely unbelievable, but misses an obvious opportunity to take a shot at scabs. Hate to say it, but this is one union you won’t want to join.
Got an opinion you’d like to share about labor art you’ve seen or heard lately? Email us at info@laborheritage.org.
La Cola (The Line)
The Line is a drama from Argentina. Written and directed by Enrique 
Liporace and Ezequiel C. Inzaghi, starring renowned Argentine acting professionals such as Alejandro Awada, Lucrecia Oviedo, Ana María Picchio and Antonio Gasalla.
The Line focuses on the experiences of Félix Cayetano Gómez, who lives in the city of Buenos Aires and has to scramble daily to make ends meet. This man discovers a way to earn money by waiting in lines to run different errands or do paperwork for other people, in exchange of a sum of money.
But Félix is not the only one who works as a “line man”, there are many others doing the same job and all of them dream about forming an employee’s union that can group and protect them.
At some point in the story, those other workers reveal to Félix a criminal plan that would allow him to collect much more money: it is related to waiting in lines to do education, health and work related paperwork. As a consequence of his job, the main character will become a witness and an accomplice of a tragic but comical reality that will also affect his own life.
Original Title: La cola.
Starring: Alejandro Awada, Lucrecia Oviedo, Antonio Gasalla, Ana María Piccio.
Genre: Drama.
Directed by: Enrique Liporace, Ezequiel C. Inzaghi.
Country of Origin: Argentina.
Running Time: 99 minutes.
Rated: PG-13
Released in Buenos Aires: September 13th, 2012.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-_73RuRg_w
Gaucho del Norte (2015)
54 min | Documentary, Adventure, Western
Directors: Andres Caballero, Sofian Khan
In the quiet, bucolic Patagonian countryside in the town of Bahia Murta with 587 inhabitants we meet Eraldo Pacheco, a thoughtful man who has recently arrived at a momentous decision. “Things are worse here than ever,” Eraldo tells his father and family as he announces his plan to move to the United States to fulfill a three-year contract tending sheep almost 6,000 miles away in rural Idaho. In this observational documentary of impressive beauty and painterly cinematic images the imbalance of economic forces is seen in high relief.
With poetic subtlety the film speaks to the economic fragility of these remote and rural communities in South America as well as the precarious and fickle agricultural economy up north. Once in Salt Lake City, Utah, we meet Jhonny Qispe, from Peru, who also made the trek up north and who also left a wife and two children behind.
Peaceful, meditative scenes envelop the viewer – vast desert, steep mountains, winter’s terrain and thousands of sheep belie the angst of the economic woes that cause a separation between a man and his beloved, his elders, his children, and the spiritual majesty of his homeland. Jhonny is also deeply invested in being a provider for his family. But what might seem like a pastoral, nomadic life is a lonely and tough existence.
While Eraldo is up north, he continues to fret about not being in Chile tending to his family, especially his elderly parents. Did he make the right choice?
Buzzard (2014)
97 min | Comedy, Drama | 6 March 2015 (USA)
Director/writer: Joel Potrykus
Stars: Joshua Burge, Joel Potrykus, Teri Ann Nelson
Marty is a caustic, small-time con artist drifting from one scam to the next. When his latest ruse goes awry, mounting paranoia forces him from his lousy small town temp job to the desolate streets of Detroit with nothing more than a pocket full of bogus checks, a dangerously altered Nintendo® Power Glove, and a bad temper. Albert Camus meets Freddy Krueger in BUZZARD, a hellish and hilarious riff on the struggles of the American working class.
NYTimes: Review: In ‘Buzzard,’ an Angry, Unkempt Antihero
An unsparing portrait of an office temp and scam artist near the bottom of the economic food chain.
NYTimes: Joel Potrykus’s Film ‘Buzzard’ Is Inspired by Dead-End Jobs
The writer and director’s deadpan comedies have followed a man-child on the skids.
THE LABOR FILM DATABASE 