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Category Archives: Working Class

Spare Time (1939)

15m; U.S.

Director: Humphrey Jennings

Synopsis (IMDB); A look at how industry workers spend their time when they are not at work.

 

Stanley and Iris (1989)

104m; U.S.

Director: Martin Ritt

Cast: Jane Fonda, Robert De Niro and Swoosie Kurtz

Synopsis (IMDB): An illiterate cook at a company cafeteria tries for the attention of a newly widowed woman. As they get to know one another, she discovers his inability to read. When he is fired, she takes on trying to teach him to read in her kitchen each night.

 

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Steel (1979)

102m; U.S.

Director: Steve Carver

Cast: Lee Majors, Jennifer O’Neill and Art Carney

Synopsis (IMDB): Mike Catton was once a world-renowned construction foreman (at least in the construction world), but an accident left him with a serious fear of heights. Unable to climb the big skyscrapers while under construction, he retired and became a truck driver. But when an old friend needs him to help put up a building, and when the old friend gets harassed and threatened by an Evil Corporate Type, he comes out of retirement and assembles the creme de la creme of the construction world. Together, they race against time to finish the building while the Evil Corporate Type tries to stop them.

 

Steel City (2006)

95m; U.S.

Director: Brian Jun

Cast: Jamie Anne Allman, Raymond J. Barry and Kristian Best

Synopsis (IMDB): Steel City is a stirring family drama from the heartland of America about pride, remorse and forgiveness. When Carl Lee is involved in a fatal car accident he finds himself behind bars, cut off from his life and alienated by his family. His youngest son PJ, confused by life without his dad, is the only person to visit him. While PJ’s girlfriend stays lovingly by his side and his Uncle Vic extends a helping hand, a belligerent older brother and the reality of being on his own force PJ to grow up faster than he’d like. It’s not until a devastating secret is revealed that the family reunites and a regretful father learns that you can never take back the past, but you can let go of it.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Children, Drama, Working Class

 

The Stars Look Down (1940)

110m; U.K.

Director: Carol Reed

Cast:  Michael RedgraveMargaret Lockwood and Edward Rigby

Synopsis (IMDB): Davey Fenwick leaves his mining village on a university scholarship intent on returning to better support the miners against the owners. But he falls in love with Jenny who gets him to marry her and return home as local schoolteacher before finishing his degree. Davey finds he is ill-at-ease in his role, the more so when he realises Jenny still loves her former boyfriend. When he finds that his father and the other miners are going to have to continue working on a possibly deadly coal seam he decides to act.

 

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Stolt Australia (2007)

11m; Australia

Synopsis: Fight by MUA ship crew of the MT Stolt to keep jobs

 
 

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Stop-Loss (2008)

113m; U.S.

Director: Kimberly Peirce

Cast: Ryan Phillippe, Abbie Cornish and Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Synopsis (IMDB): Decorated Iraq war hero Sgt. Brandon King makes a celebrated return to his small Texas hometown following his tour of duty. He tries to resume the life he left behind. Then, against Brandon’s will, the Army orders him back to duty in Iraq, which upends his world. The conflict tests everything he believes in: the bond of family, the loyalty of friendship, the limits of love and the value of honor.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2012 in Drama, War, Working Class

 

Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town

59m; U.S.

Director: Micha X. Peled

Synopsis (IMDB): Documentary that follows events in Ashland, VA, over a one-year period, from the first stormy public hearing that galvanizes residents’ opposition until the Town Council takes a final vote on the proposed Wal-Mart Store. Highlights Wal-Mart as the icon of the Big Box Industry and the symbol of sprawl.

 

Strangers in the City (1962)

83m; U.S.

Director: Rick Carrier

Cast: Robert Gentile, Camilo Delgado and Rosita De Triano

Synopsis: Puerto Ricans in New York’s barrio. The boy is beaten by a gang and loses his job; the girl is raped by her employer and becomes a prostitute.

 
 

Strictly Background

84m; U.S.

Director: Jason Connell

Cast: Terry Bolo, Geoffrey Gould and Cecilia Hartfeld

Synopsis (IMDB): For decades, film and television audiences have watched their favorite stars with little thought or concern for the people standing behind them. All of that is about to change as “Strictly Background” explores the charm and determination of some of Hollywood’s hardest working actors, professional “extras.” Turning industry convention on its head, this humorous & heartfelt documentary follows ten background actors as they navigate their way on and off the set. Both a behind-the-scenes look at Hollywood and a character-driven film, “Strictly Background” is a dynamic exploration into the pursuit of stardom and the real life struggle to stand out