Sunday, January 30, 2005

Documentaries

A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash (2006)
A powerful doc that provides a sober look at industrial society's reliance on oil and a potential future with much less of the stuff.

Bowling for Columbine (2002)
Filmmaker Michael Moore explores the roots of America's predilection for gun violence.

Condor: Axis of Evil (2003)
First-Hand testimonies shed light on Operation Condor, the sinister collusion in the 1960s and 70s between South America's military dictators and Interpol and the CIA.

The Corporation (2003)
"...charts the spectacular rise of an institution aimed at achieving specific economic goals as it also recounts victories against this apparently invincible force."

Death Squadrons: The French School (2003)
This documentary is the first to consider France's unique contributions to "counter-revolutionary warfare" (torture, death squads and disappearance) in not only Chile and Argentina, but also in Vietnam.

The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream (2004)
End of Suburbia raises serious questions about the sustainability of the American way of life in the face of declining oil stocks and the worsening state of the environment.

Enron - The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
A look at the culture of corporate corruption and greed that led to the downfall of one of the biggest companies in the U.S.

Farenheit 9/11 (2004)
Michael Moore's doc on the aftermath of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and how the Bush Administration used the tragic event to push forward its agenda for unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Fourth World War (2003)
Using footage from hundreds of video activists on the front lines of conflicts raging around the world the documentary provides a unique look at the social movements which resist domination.

Harlan County USA (1976)
This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973.

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992)
Classic doc on the world renown linguist, intellectual and political activist Noam Chomsky and his analysis of the role of the media in reinforcing the corporate rule.

The Mayfair Set (1999)
Details the role of powerful individuals and neoliberal ideology in the stunning transformation of British society in the post-World War II era.

Panama Deception (1992)
Covers the brutal U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 and the role of corporate media and military propaganda in rallying public support.

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land: Media & the Israel-Palestine Conflict (2004)
Provides a striking look at the distorted nature of U.S. media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Roger and Me (1989)
Michael Moore's look at the devastation of his home town Flint Michigan in the wake of General Motor's decision to downsize its operations.

Sicko (2007)
Michael Moore compares the highly profitable yet terribly inequitable American health care industry to other nations.

Suits and Savages: Why the World Bank Won't Save the World (2001)
This documentary looks at a World Bank 'ecodevelopment' project and the impacts it has on forest-dwelling tribes in India (link is a 5 min excerpt)

This is What Democracy Looks Like (2000)
A grassroots account of the 1999 protests in Seattle against the World Trade Organization.

Wall Street (Documentary) (2005)
An insider's view of trading and the markets.

The Weather Underground (2002)
Details the rise and fall of a radical faction of the US anti-war, student movement in the 1960s and 70s that attempted to violently confront the US government.

The World According to Bush (2004)
A critical look at George Bush, his family history and his troubling administration.

Zapatista (1999)
Details the historical roots of the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico and its worldwide impacts.

Films

A Civil Action (1998)
A lawyer agrees to represent eight families whose children died from leukemia after two large corporations leaked toxic chemicals into the water supply of Woburn, Massachusetts, even though the case could mean financial, and career suicide for him.

Bloody Sunday (2002)
A dramatization of the Irish civil rights protest march and subsequent massacre by British troops on January 30, 1972.

Bob Roberts (1992)
A mock-umentary-style look at the fictional Senatorial campaign of Bob Roberts, an arch-conservative folk singer turned politician.

Brassed Off (1996)
Set in England under Thatcher's neoliberal rule, a small mining town is threatened with being shut down and the only hope for the town's men is to enter their brass band into a national competition.

Le Couperet (The Ax) (2005)
A darkly comedic look at the logic of competition in neoliberal times. A white collar worker finds his job outsourced and after two years of seeking employment, decides to eliminate his competition.

Cry Freedom (1987)
Based on a true story in Apartheid era South Africa, Cry Freedom is a dramatization of the murder of black activist Steve Biko and the oppressive regime that killed him.

Dirty Pretty Things (2002)
Follows the exploited lives of several illegal immigrants working in London's service industries.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Peter Seller's classic anti-war movie satirizes the insanity of the nuclear arms race.

Frida (2002)
"Frida" chronicles the life of the artist Frida Kahlo who lived a bold and uncompromising life as a political, artistic, and sexual revolutionary.

I (Heart) Huckabees (2004)
A scathing and hillarious satire about immoral corporate behaviour, New Ageism, pathological narcissism and the earnestness of social and environmental activism. An awkward, poetry-reading activist seeks out the help of 'existential detectives' to solve the puzzle of three coincidental run-ins with the same stranger while at the same time fending off a hostile take -over of his conservation society by a large Walmart-like corporation.

In the Name of the Father (1993)
Based on a true story, a small time thief from Belfast is falsely implicated in the IRA bombing of a pub that kills several people while he is in London.

The Insider (1999)
This film tells the true story of Jeffrey Wigand, a former tobacco executive who revealed that the tobacco industry was not only aware that cigarettes are addictive & harmful, but deliberately worked on increasing that addictiveness.

Erin Brockovitch (2000)
Based on a true story, Erin Brockovich tells the story of a single mother who finds herself working for a law firm investigating the possibility that a energy corporation has poisoned a small town's drinking water.

Harlan County War (2000)
A Kentucky woman whose mine-worker husband is nearly killed in a cave-in, and whose father is slowly dying of black lung disease, joins the picket lines for a long, violent strike.

Goodnight and Goodluck (2005)
A dramatization of journalist Edward R. Murrow's fight against Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist witch-hunt in the 1950s.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)
An imprisoned youth rises through the ranks of the institution through his prowess as a long distance runner but eventually re-evaluates his privileged status as the Governor's prize runner.

Machuca (2004)
A semi-autobiographical account of the tragic events of Chile's 1973 coup seen through the eyes of two 11-year-old boys who live on different sides of a wide class divide.

Malcolm X (1992)
Autobiographical look at the life of Malcolm X, from his life as a small time criminal to one of the most influential and controversial leaders of US black nationalism.

Matewan (1987)
A labor union organizer comes to an embattled mining community brutally and violently dominated and harassed by the mining company.

Missing (1982)
"Missing" is Costa-Gavras' film of fascism in Chile when military forces took over the government in 1973 and began a reign of terror.

The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
The true story of Che Guevara's journey with his friend Alberto Granado, a personal odyssey which would ultimately inspire him to become a revolutionary who had a profound impact on the history of several nations.

North Country (2005)
A fictionalized account of the first major successful sexual harassment case in the United States -- Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines, where a woman who endured a range of abuse while working as a miner filed and won the landmark 1984 lawsuit.

State of Siege (1973)
The kidnapping of an official of the US Agency for International Development (a counter insurgency front group) by a group of urban guerrillas is used to explore the often brutal consequences of the struggle between Uruguay's government and the leftist Tupamaro guerrillas.

Syriana (2005)
The global oil industry forms the backdrop for this political thriller.

Thin Red Line (1998)

A dramatization of the battle of Guadalcanal in World War II and a look at the horrors of war.

V For Vendetta (2005)
Set in England in a not-so-far-off future, V For Vendetta tells the story of a Guy Fawkes-masked vigilante who attempts to provoke an uprising against the fascist theocracy that rules the country.

Vera Drake (2004)
Vera Drake tells the story of a woman in 1950s England who helps women end unwanted pregnancies in a time when abortions were illegal.

Water (2005)
Set in the 1930s during the rise of the independence struggles against British colonial rule, the film examines the plight of a group of widows forced into poverty at a temple in the holy city of Varanasi.

Z (1969)
Chronicles the overthrow of the democratic government in Greece by murderous right wing elements in the military and police.