Posts tagged Documentary
“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.”
Capitalism: A Love Story – Movie Trailer
Sep 23rd
Twenty years after his influential debut, Roger & Me, Michael Moore returns to his roots by pulling back the curtain on capitalism to reveal the insidious role it has played in the destruction of the American dream for many people. Back in 1989, auto workers in Flint, MI, were lamenting layoffs and wondering how they would support their families without jobs to pay the bills, or benefits to ensure their health. Flash forward two decades, when cities all across the country are feeling the same pressures that Flint residents were back when GM left them high and dry. With an average of 14,000 U.S. jobs lost every day and taxpayer money constantly being pumped into failing financial institutions, the question must be asked: how long can this go on before the entire system collapses? Is there really any hope for Americans who are losing their homes to foreclosure and seeing their savings get wiped out at an unprecedented rate? In order to seek out an answer to this question and many more, Moore takes a trip to our nation’s capitol, engaging average Americans in conversations about the prospect of repairing America’s failing, debt-ridden economy along the way.
“The September Issue” Over The Top
Sep 16th
Over the Top
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE is an excellent documentary about the making of the September 2007 issue of VOGUE magazine and its legendary editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, said to be the inspiration for the Meryl Streep character in the 2006 THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA.
Wintour is called the single most important figure in the $300 billion fashion industry. That is a lot of dresses, shoes, accessories, makeup, a lot of woman, and by that I don’t mean Wintour, but all the women all over the world, as well as the ones in every man’s life.
Now, I know what you are thinking: “Sure, women will like this movie, because it is all about fashion and clothes, but will men like it, too?
Of course, women will love it for the fashion, and men will love it for the beautiful models. You will see beautiful outfits on beautiful women and ugly, atrocious outfits on beautiful women.
As someone in the film says, “Anna is the most powerful woman in the United States.”
Why? Because Vogue is the so-called “Bible” of the fashion industry, and if VOGUE–meaning Anna Wintour–gets behind something, it sells.
However, as Anna herself says at the beginning of the film, “There is something about fashion that can make people very nervous.”
The film begins in 2007 in New York City, and we see what goes into the making of the September issue of the magazine, because “September is the January in fashion.” A film crew was given access to everything, including the offices, the private lives of the editors and creative directors, the photo sessions, and the trips to Paris, Rome, and London for the fashion shows, meetings, and photo shoots for the cover with actress Sienna Miller.
The film also spends a lot of time with Grace Coddington, the magazine’s creative director and “resident genius,” as TIME magazine called her.
She and Anna started working at the American VOGUE on the same day 20 years ago, and Grace serves as some of the comic relief in the seriousness of the film, as we see her frustration after spending a lot of time and money on portions of the magazine only to have Anna take them out at the last minute or order a reshoot.
THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE is over the top, but fascinating, just like fashion.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”