|
Edited on Tue Nov-15-05 12:25 AM by Touchdown
A local Denver Pro-labor group, Jobs with Justice, invited 200 of their closest union members and supporters to a screening of Robert Greenwald's new film. It is to say the least, just as informative as his other films.
Without going into too much detail, since so much information is thrown at you for 90 minutes, I do want to say it is well thought out, and covers just about everything the the company has been accused of. Just please don't complain about any spoilers I may have for you. This is a documentary, not The Crying Game.
The stories, or list of crimes, is told interspersed with the words of WM's CEO Scott, as he's talking about WM's responsible business practices that make America better, during a shareholder's meeting. There are no narrators.
All stories told are personal ones, told through either small business owners who's had to close shop, workers who can't make ends meet, workers who are on WIC or Medi-Cal (California's Medic-Aid), workers who's tried to organize, chinese workers who toil in the factories for 7 days a week, to get less than $3 a day, community members who want WM out, or to not come in, environmentalists who document the fertilizer drainage into drinking water, because the bags of fertilizer is not covered and gets rained on, Guatemalan factory inspectors who tell of the horrid working conditions in WM's factories, only to be told by WM to shut up, the list goes on. You got a beef with this company, it's covered here. All bolstered by freeze frames of statistics and numbers...STAGGERING NUMBERS!
After an hour of being bombarded with the absolute worst of corporate responsibility, I thought..."What more can they expose? Surely they've covered everything.", then the map zeroes in on Oxnard California, where a woman tells of an attempted rape in a WM parking lot, where the surveillance cameras were installed 3 weeks before. Oh' not for the safety of their customers, but for surveillance on suspected union organizers at the store. The video recorders were not manned, and nobody but the VCR saw the abduction. In fact, no cameras are in any WM parking lot, unless that store has been suspected of union organizing.
There are snippets of Jon Stewart and Leslie Stahl, but mostly they're local news reporters.
After the film, we were visited by two stars of the film. The Denver School superintendent who talked about how Wal*Mart got millions in subsidies for building mega stores, while they had to shut down and board up needed public schools because of budget cuts. The other was a Loveland Co. W*M Tire Center worker who tried to organize his store. He was presented with a plaque, and given the title of hero. All in all, a wonderful night!
While this is probably the most informative film Greenwald has made, it's not as shocking as Unprecedented, damning as Uncovered, or as giddily entertaining as Outfoxed, it is still worth seeing by Wal*Mart shoppers and non shoppers alike.
A warning about this. There are people interviewed who have Bush photos, who talk about being conservatives, who are Republican voters, and one who erroneously compares socialism to freedom as polar opposites. I think I know where Greenwald is going with this, since this is a much more populist film than his others, he toned down the partisanship, and even threw some bones to Bush Moonies, so that they might be a little more open to the important information the film has to tell.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
