Posts tagged American Dream
“A Better Life” A Wonderful Film
Jul 21st
“A Wonderful Film”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
A Better Life is a terrific film that deserves as much publicity as it can get, because otherwise audiences will probably overlook it and not give it the attendance it deserves.
It also has a simple story that might not be popular, because it is about the relationship between an undocumented foreigner from Mexico and his teenage son, who live in Los Angeles.
Carlos Galindo has a steady job as a gardener working for another Mexican’s gardening business, and he sleeps on the couch in the living room at home so that his 14-year-old son, Luis, can sleep in the bedroom.
When Carlos finds out that Luis has missed 18 or 19 days of school so far this year, he asks him, “You want to end up like me?” to which Luis answers “No.”
Luis has some resentment toward his father, because he blames Carlos for his mother leaving them, whom Luis never wants to talk about.
Meanwhile, the man for whom Carlos works, Blasco Martinez, wants to retire, and he offers to sell Carlos his beat-up truck so that Carlos can have his own gardening business.
To Carlos, he wouldn’t just be buying a truck. He would be buying the American Dream.
However, not only doesn’t Carlos have the $12,000 that Blasco wants for his truck, but Carlos doesn’t even have a driver’s license, and if he ever gets stopped by the police, he could be deported back to Mexico. That is why Carlos wants to try to stay “invisible.”
Meanwhile, Luis gets suspended from school for fighting, and Carlos is concerned that Luis has a fascination with gangs and might even end up in a gang.
Carlos asks his sister, Anita, for a $12,000 loan, promising to pay the money back and telling her that if it works out, everything is going to change. He won’t have to work on Sunday anymore and can spend more time with Luis, if Luis wants.
Anita loans Carlos the money without telling her husband, who she says is the cheapest man in the world.
So, Carlos buys the truck from Blasco, but his life doesn’t change as he had imagined. Almost immediately, the truck is stolen, and Carlos and Luis have to try to get it back while staying invisible.
A Better Life is a wonderful film.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Capitalism: A Love Story” How We Got Here
Oct 15th
How We Got Here
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY is the latest film by Michael Moore, the Academy Award–winning documentary filmmaker, and if you know anything about Moore, you can guess that this very good film will be entertaining and informative and that the title is ironic.
By that I don’t mean just the part about “Love Story,” but also the part about “Capitalism,” which in the United States has turned our economic system into something more resembling feudalism in the Middle Ages, but with modern corporations taking the place of lords and the nobility.
In fact, at one point Moore talks about insurance policies that some corporations take out on their employees, naming the corporation as beneficiary if an employee should die, and in the business these are known as “dead peasants”
policies.
Let me emphasize that: Corporations refer to their employees as “peasants.”
At another point, Moore says, “This is democracy, a system of taking and giving–mostly taking.”
The movie opens with an unusual request that certain people should leave the auditorium before the movie even starts, because what they are about to see might be too much for them.
Then we see a nice comparison between the Roman Empire and what caused its downfall with present-day United States, followed by disturbing videos shot during the forced evictions of homeowners from their homes.
We then get a history lesson of the career of Ronald Reagan, the star of B movies before he became a television spokesman for corporate greed and then continued as a spokesman for corporate greed after becoming president.
Moore says that the country was run by corporations and it was done for sort-term profits and destroying the unions, and we see and hear how corporations and banks wanted to remake America to serve them instead of the people.
The messages and examples are so upsetting that you would cry if you weren’t laughing at Moore’s commentary and his filmmaking tactics for making his points.
In the end, however, the film is very patriotic, and you will cry for joy at the hope that still remains.
However, be sure to stay for the closing credits to learn more interesting details about information in the film.
CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY is an eye-opening and entertaining lesson in where we are and how we got here.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”