Would you like some tort reform with that? - "Hot Coffee" film trailer, review - HBO tonight 9pm ET

[Bozita]

HBO at 9pm ET tonight

Film trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBKRjxeQnT4

‘Hot Coffee’ (documentary)
Added June 14, 2011
Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek
(from the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival)

Directed by: Susan Saladoff
Featuring: Jamie Leigh Jones, Connor Gourley, Colin Gourley, Al Franken and Oliver Diaz

Expertly edited by Cindy Lee with slick visuals by Brian Oakes, “Hot Coffee” is so good that it’s difficult to believe it was helmed by a first-time filmmaker. Executive producer Sheila Nevins and the HBO hierarchy usually have enough on their own production and development plates, but it’s no surprise that they picked up this provocative and potentially game-changing documentary; one would also not be surprised to see this film continue on its way into end-of-season awards discussions.

Like “GasLand,” “The Last Mountain” and “Inside Job,” “Hot Coffee” will knock you backward and change your perception of what you thought you knew. The film tackles the corporate demolition of this country’s civil rights system and the constitutional pretzel-twisting taking place to favor big business over those the system is supposed to protect.

Stepping off with a scene from that episode of “Seinfeld” in which Kramer spills hot coffee down his pants and sues for punitive damages, director Susan Saladoff uses the well-known but little understood case brought by Stella Liebeck against McDonald’s in 1994 and illuminates the marketing machine that followed, transforming that lawsuit into the definitive case cited as evidence of “jackpot justice” and “frivolous lawsuits.” Setting the record straight, Saladoff confronts our recollections of the case and ensures we understand the facts that transpired rather than the commonly referenced fictions we’ve accepted into lore.

Did you know, for instance, that there had been more than 700 other cases of burns from hot coffee reported to the restaurant? Did you ever see the pictures of the heinous burns the victim suffered and the skin grafts necessary to address the damage?

more...
http://www.movingpicturesnetwork.com/28931/hot-coffee/