18 of the Greatest Films About Capitalism, Business, and Working

Labor Day has passed, and with it a moment to reflect on the place working has in daily life. Despite the occasional Norma Rae, Hollywood tends to not be interested in producing a lot of movies that explore the nature of business and working in America or anywhere else, despite the fact that most adults’ jobs are the major concern of their lives.

Great films about the blue- and white-collar world tend come along every decade or so. Here is a list of some of the ones that have endured the test of time and, due to their artistic merit and social insight, remain relevant today:

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
A high-profile Hollywood morality tale of naked greed and the quest for the "American Dream" played out in a hunt for gold.

Marxist Movie Reviews 11: The Boss (2016)

Marxist Movie Reviews attempts to look at modern and classic films from the perspective of what they say about society and social conflict.

The Plot: A former multi-millionaire (Melissa McCarthy) is indicted for insider trading, loses all of her money, and goes to prison. When she gets out, she tries to make a comeback selling girl scout cookies with her former assistant (Kristen Bell).

The Best Part(s): Melissa McCarthy’s performance

The best you can say about this movie is that Melissa McCarthy is a wonderful comic actor and can elevate even mediocre material into something halfway watchable. The rest of the cast just doesn’t match McCarthy’s charisma. There are some very talented people in supporting roles (Kristen Schaal, Peter Dinklage, Cedric Yarbrough) who simply cannot overcome a weak premise and script. Attempts at slapstick, parody, and cringe humor fall flat throughout the movie’s run time.

Marxist Movies Reviews 10: Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982)

Marxist Movie Reviews attempts to look at modern and classic films from the perspective of what they say about society and social conflict.

The Plot: A group of friends from a small Texas town reunite to mark the anniversary of their James Dean fan club, where they experience revelations and long-hidden secrets about each other

The Best Part(s): Strong performances by the cast, including Cher, Karen Black, and Kathy Bates

One of my favorite recent quotes from a movie or TV show is from The Sopranos, when Tony advises one of his associates that “‘Remember when’ is the lowest form of conversation.” That bit of advice speaks to the toxicity of nostalgia, even as it dominates American thought in pretty much every area of life. Political ideologies and million-dollar ad campaigns are built on the longing people have for some mythical past when everything was better.

Set the Wayback Machine to Polyester: J.C. Penney's 1977 Catalog

written by Clarence Ewing [originally published June 2009]

My sister gave sent me this collection of photos a while ago. It came from a friend of hers. Here’s how he came across them:

“Last weekend I put an exhaust fan in the ceiling for my wife’s grandfather. While my wife’s brother and I were fitting the fan in between the joists, we found something under the insulation. What we found was…a J.C. Penney catalog from 1977. It’s not often that blog fodder just falls in my lap, but holy hell this was two solid inches of it, right there for the taking.”

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves (mostly), but before I do, I’d just like to make a few observations, especially for the younger generation of readers:

*Please keep in mind that back in the day, long before your Gap’s and your Dress Barn’s and your Abercrombie & Fitch’s dominated retail, J.C. Penney was the big dog in the mid-range fashion game, especially in the Midwest. So it wasn’t like they were offering these clothes on a lark, just having a laugh, if you will. They expected to move a serious amount of this merchandise, and they did.

*If you had ever gone to a ‘70s throwback party and dressed in a way you thought was way too over-the-top, rest assured, based on these pictures you pretty much nailed the look.

*Keep in mind, IT WAS THE '70s. The unnecessarily bright colors, the too-busy patterns, the open collars framing thickets of chest hair, the matching his-and-hers outfits – it’s all indicative of a nation making it’s way out of the purple-hazed, peace-and-love, turn-on-tune-in-drop-out, don’t-trust-anyone-over-30 menagerie of the 1960s and getting ready for the coke-fueled, me-first, greed-is-good consumerist slog that would be the 1980s.

*If anyone at JCPenny is sore that I posted these, too bad, you should have thought about that before your released these sartorial monstrosities on the world 30 years ago.

Enjoy.

27 Famous and Completely Wrong Predictions About the Future

written by Clarence Ewing

Prognostication is everywhere. Whether it's politics, sports, the stock market, or the weather, entire industries have been built around attempts to find out what is going to happen tomorrow (or next week or next month or next decade).

It’s amazing how the most intelligent, capable, and accomplished professionals can be completely wrong about things. Years ago, when I was working at a public TV station years ago I got this list of wrong quotes that was passed to employees to help inspire us "think outside the box." I’ve kept the list ever since to set me straight whenever I start to think the pundits and “experts” might be onto something.

“Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.”
Drillers whom Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”
Western Union internal memo, 1876

“When the Paris Exhibition closes, electric light will close with it and no more will be heard of it.”
Erasmus Wilson, Oxford University professor, 1878

The Ten Most Influential Black TV Personalities of All Time (as of March 2008)

[originally published March 2008]

written by Clarence Ewing

Black History Month is officially in February. But for about 10% of the US population, every month is Black History Month. So now’s a good a time as any to have a look at 10 African-Americans who have had the biggest impact on the most powerful communication tool ever invented, television.

I do not intend to suggest with this list that everyone on it should necessarily be admired or respected. I think that these are people who have, more than others, left their mark on the medium, for better or worse.

10. Creflo A. Dollar: Creflo Dollar represents the continuing presence and evolution of the black preacher from the church pulpit to the radio to the TV screen. Unlike the fire and brimstone usually associated with black ministers, this current group of holy men is just as likely to advocate a Prosperity Theology that has become popular with preachers of all races like Joel Osteen.

Check out any of the local access channels in a large city and you will come across someone like Dollar preaching salvation, financial success, and personal and political change.


9. Eddie Murphy: He’s one of the greatest performers to come out of the Saturday Night Live comedy factory. But Murphy also raised the bar for that small subset of funny-people who cross over from TV to movies. It’s now taken as a given that if a comic gets popular with his or her TV show, it’s only a matter of time before the film projects come along. At a time when movies were just entering the era of the hundred-million-dollar blockbuster, producers wanted an instantly recognizable persona who crossed both mediums. They found that person in Murphy.

Other funny people had already begun to make the leap from TV to films, but when Murphy parlayed his successes on SNL into big-time films like 48 Hours and Beverly Hills Cop, he set the standard for 1980s comedic success.

How to Rob a Bank (According to the Movies)

written by Clarence Ewing [originally published Spring 2009]

The economy’s got you down. The bills are due and your pockets are empty. You walk down the street and eye the local bank. All that money, just sitting there for the taking.

“How hard can it be?,” you ask yourself, thinking of the expert planning, the daring execution, the successful getaway, and you sitting on a beach, officially Retired. Bank robbing is as American as apple pie. Pull off that one big score and you’re on Easy Street.

But hold on a second. Grand larceny isn’t as easy as it may seem in your head. If you don’t believe me, scrape together a little of what cash you have left and rent some movies. They can show you just how dicey these schemes can be.

Here is a sampling of techniques used by people in films trying to rob banks (or other places that house a lot of money), and what they can tell us about how (un)successful the real schemes might be.

Option 1: The Stickup or Smash ‘n Grab

Seen in: Bonnie & Clyde, Dead Presidents, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Set It Off

The Plan: Walk into a bank during business hours, preferably wearing a mask or other disguise. Using the threat of physical violence, demand that whoever has access to the money hand it over to you. When the money is received, get away from the bank as fast as possible.

If the bank isn’t open, break open the vaults using brute force and take whatever’s inside, followed by a quick getaway.

What’s The Matter with The Simpsons? An Analysis

written by Clarence Ewing [originally published May 2009]

Now finishing up its 20th season, The Simpsons is one of the best and most successful television shows ever. It’s not just a TV show – it’s a cultural touchstone.

Nonetheless, I feel that anyone who would argue that The Simpsons is one of the greatest shows in history must also concede that there is a noticeable difference between the show now and the show during the time that made it great, the Golden Age that I define as seasons 2 through 10.

As of 2009, The Simpsons is still a good show, but just good, not great. And dare I say it, lately it’s been less than good, and the general trend has been pointing downward for at least the last five years.

While hard statistical evidence of this is impossible to come by, there is some subjective support for this idea. From the Wikipedia article on the show:

“In 2003, to celebrate the show's 300th episode "Barting Over", USA Today published a pair of Simpsons related articles: a top-ten episodes list chosen by the webmaster of The Simpsons Archive fansite, and a top-15 list by The Simpsons' own writers. The most recent episode listed on the fan list was 1997's "Homer's Phobia"; the Simpsons' writers most recent choice was 2000's "Behind the Laughter."

Granted, the series’ sheer number of episodes makes it harder to single out only 10, but when audience members believe your best work is over a decade ago, something’s not right.

How to Dress for a Job Interview: A Simple Guide

[originally posted May 2010]

written by Clarence Ewing

Over the years, millions of otherwise competent people have lost job opportunities because they did not dress properly for their interview. 70% of human communication is non-verbal, and what people see is often what makes the biggest and most lasting impression, especially if their opinion of it is negative.

Through the way you’re dressed for an interview, you are trying to tell potential employers that you are a professional, that you are serious about the meeting you are having, and that you won’t embarrass them in front of clients with your off-the-wall or casual look.

From my experience, new college graduates and workers who have not had to look for a job in a while are the most likely to make clothing faux-pas. Generally, the key is to dress conservatively and err on the side of formality. With certain clear exceptions (such as fashion design), an interview is not the time to show of how creative you are, clothes-wise.

Here is a brief, basic guide to how to dress for a job interview. This is, of course, not a set of hard and fast laws, just some general ideas of how to go in order to make the best impression during a meeting:

Head


Men: Hair should be cut or at least combed back away from the face. Face should be clean-shaven, or the mustache/beard should be trimmed.

Women: Women should wear their hair up and back so the employer can see your face and you don’t have to keep brushing your hair from it (which looks like fidgeting).

Christmas in August: A Quiz

[Originally published August 2009]

 What better time for a Christmas quiz than in August, when Christmas is still far away from most peoples' minds. Actually, this is me trying to clear out my year-old "Things to blog about" list...

This is an old quiz that was used at a holiday party at one of my old jobs. There are some interesting facts in here - enjoy!

Question #1
The first instrument on which the carol "Silent Night" was played was:
A) A harp
B) A pipe organ
C) A guitar
D) A kazoo

Question #2
In Guatemala, Christmas Day is celebrated:
A) On January 6
B) On December 25
C) On October 31
D) Never

Breaking Bad is the Bad-Ass-est Show on Television

[originally published April 11 2010]

by Clarence Ewing

Now in its third season, Breaking Bad, presented by The AMC channel, is finally getting the widespread acclaim it deserves.

This show about a cancer-stricken high school chemistry teacher who turns to manufacturing methamphetamine to help pay his family’s bills continues basic cable’s tradition of kicking broadcast TV’s butt when it comes to scripted dramas.

The show’s directing, editing and photography are all top-notch. As with any drama that lasts more than a season, though, it’s the cast that makes the show into more than a clever idea.

Bryan Cranston, who has already won a bunch of awards for his portrayal of Walter White (or “Heisenberg” as he’s known on the street), is now moving into Tony Soprano territory in terms of the depth and complexity of his character.

Aaron Paul skillfully plays White’s partner Jesse Pinkman, who used to be a smart-mouth punk-ass kid when the series started but now, after the deaths of one of his friends and his girlfriend as well as his parents’ disowning him, is starting to embrace his role as one of the more successful drug dealers in the Southwest.

Take Two: "Faith" (George Michael Vs. Limp Bizkit)

This article was written for the CHIRP Radio blog.

There is a chance that you have come across a song (or two, or so many more) that you enjoy and did not realize that it's either been covered by someone else or is a cover itself. We hope that this series allows you to appreciate both the original and the covers they have inspired, and to seek out and enjoy new music in the process.

The Original: From the album Faith (1987)

Around the mid-’80s George Michael split from his Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley and successfully proved he could make it as a solo act. The title track to his debut album is a fun, flirty pop number that channels ‘50s Elvis-style rockabilly through a solid Bo Diddley-esque rhythm.

The song was cemented in ‘80s lore by the iconic video of Michael working his guitar and his hips in sunglasses and a leather jacket, a stark contrast to the day-glo bubble gum image he was known for in his old band. And at a time when the music industry was still reluctant to have a star openly declare that they’re gay, the song used just enough vague, gender-neutral lyrics to keep the tabloids and morality police guessing.

This track became one of a string of hits for Michael, including “Father Figure,” “I Want Your Sex,” “One More Try,” and “Kissing a Fool” (one of the greatest pop vocal performances of all time, BTW). “Faith” went to #1 on the Billboard charts, where it stayed for four weeks.

The Cover: From the album Three Dollar Bill, Yall$ (1998)

If there was ever a case of a cover song openly mocking its source material, it’s this one. Limp Bizkit, the band best known for its single “Nookie,” had been playing a version of “Faith” live on tour before eventually deciding (presumably between bong hits) to put out their own take on George Michael’s song. The sound fits the band’s persona, basically a series of loud, crunchy riffs and a howling chorus.

Delivering the lyrics with all the nuance of a drunk groomsman at a karaoke mic, Fred Durst leads the band with the kind of boring swagger that put them on top of the American pop music hill for a hot minute. While G. Michael hated this version of the song he wrote (and it’s not hard to hear why), Durst was very proud of how his band was able to get more exposure and make more money by putting it out. In doing so, they gave the world another taste of the kind of bro-tastic cis hetero white male aggression that would define much of American culture during the 2000s.

The ULTIMATE Purity Test

[originally posted August 2010]

Back when e-mail was new and exciting, purity tests were all the rage. The text below is the last word in purity tests: 2000 questions, covering just about everything. I’ve reprinted the e-mail exactly as I received it many years ago, including names and e-mail addresses of the authors, as requested by them in the test.

Please note that this test is not appropriate for young folks. There are frank descriptions and dirty words scattered throughout the text, but it's nothing that can’t be found on 200 million other Web pages. Enjoy!

"Summer of Soul" and "Woodstock 99"

This article was written for the CHIRP Radio blog.

by Clarence Ewing

What’s the point of a music festival? The answer depends on who you ask: To make money; To perform your art in front of crowds while also getting paid; To see bands, hang out with friends, enjoy the weather, and maybe have a transformative experience..

The festival that still stands out in history is the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts Festival. It’s not just a touchstone in American music, but American culture. The electrifying performances and peaceful gathering of hundreds of thousands of fans remain an ideal image of what festivals can be.

Two new documentaries highlight two other major milestones in music festival lore, one of them lost to history until now, the other one something a lot of people would rather forget.

Steve McQueen and The Evolution of The Action Hero

[This essay was part of the Steve McQueen Blog-a-Thon, sponsored by Jason Bellamy of the blog Cooler Cinema. Click here to check out more bloggers’ thoughts and opinions about the Hollywood legend.]

by Clarence Ewing

Without a doubt Steve McQueen is one of the most popular American actors to ever walk the silver screen. He was also one of the most successful – at his peak he was the highest paid actor in Hollywood and he still ranks among the top earning deceased celebrities of all time.

I’m not a huge McQueen fan, although I’ve enjoyed all of the films I’ve seen him in. The movies I know him best from are The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, The Cincinnati Kid, The Towering Inferno, and Hell is for Heroes, all of them great films. Like anyone with more than a passing familiarity with the man, I’m also familiar with the public and personal aspects of his life that earned him the title “The King of Cool.”

The celebrity McQueen reminds me most of is Frank Sinatra. Both were good looking, driven men who came up the hard way and earned everything they got with their talent and will. They both thrived when America was entering the last half of the 20th century, with all the changes in cultural and social mores that went along with it. They were both also physically undersized men who (from my distant viewpoint) perhaps at times tried a bit too hard to prove to everyone how badass they were.

How to Get a Job: "No Phone Calls, Please."

[originally published August 2010]

by Clarence Ewing

“No Phone Calls, Please.”

If you are looking for a job, it’s guaranteed that you have seen this sentence in printed or online want ads several times. It’s an incredibly frustrating phrase, especially these days when it seems most people do nothing BUT make phone calls on their mobiles, Blackberrys, and wireless laptops.

The reason these four words are so ubiquitous is simple – too few Human Resources people with too much to do. The average HR and recruiting department is not a revenue generator for most companies, so they tend to keep their staffs small. This means at a given company there will be one person doing the work of one and a half or even two people.

This includes organizing the hundreds of resumes submitted, reading the documents, picking out the ones that might be promising, coordinating resumé reviews with the people who actually make the hiring decisions (no small feat, I can tell you), arranging interview times, writing the ads and getting them posted, researching what positions they should be hiring for and what qualities are needed in those positions.

Two Magical Moments from "The Drew Carey Show"

For a couple of seasons, The Drew Carey Show was one of the best sitcoms on TV, especially in the show's use of music. Here are two sequences that show how. In both of them, the choreography is fantastic. Carey is clearly a music fan, and these two dance numbers show it:

Here is An intro they used for the show for a couple of seasons. The song they used, "Five O'Clock World," was a hit for The Vogues back in the '60s and was a pitch-perfect way to set up this show, which was mainly about the absurdities of office life.

Eventually they switched to a different, less effective opening set to "Cleveland Rocks" by a band called The Presidents of the United States of America. It was more provincial, but not nearly as fun as the old opening. Speaking as a TV watching expert, if I made a top ten list of the show openings ever made, this would be near the top.

8 Themes That Defined Popular Music in the 2000s

[This essay was originally posted on Jan. 11 2011]

Whether it really started in 2000 or 2001, we can all finally agree that the first decade of the 21st century is over. What will be remembered about popular music from this last decade? Forty years from now, when music fans look back at 2000-10, what will they see that made this particular ten-year stretch unique?

Here is my completely biased and woefully incomplete list of what I think are the major themes to come out of the first decade in music in the 21st century:

1a. and 1b. The musical Tower of Babel fell, thanks to technology. More than ever before, there's a huge amount of music out there from every genre, time period, and country, with has at least a few hundred outlets (mainly Web-based) available for listening to and talking about it. Along with the unleashing of all this music came the complete splintering of listener tastes, or, it's probably more accurate to say, music fans' ability to fully indulge their own idiosyncrasies.

Because of this, I think it would be almost impossible for another Beatles or Michael Jackson to emerge on the American music scene. Not only are there a myriad of other choices to pay attention to, as soon an artist becomes popular, there's always a legion of people lined up to tear them down by loudly deriding their talent or authenticity. Of course, one should never say never, but it seems like that task is more daunting than ever before.

Technology made all this possible. And by technology I mean the MP3 audio format, music-making equipment, and the Internet, which is now a million-channel jukebox, nickelodeon, fanzine, and record store. Maybe that could be its new motto - "The Internet: It's Not Just For Porn!"

Audio purists still get upset about MP3s (something about lacking "warmth" compared to a turntable – I stopped listening to the explanations a couple of years ago), yet there's no question that billions of people, even music fans with perfectly good hearing, are willing to trade audio fidelity for portability and ease of use.

In years past it wasn't playing the music that was the problem, but getting it recorded and distributed, a function almost completely locked up by your friendly neighborhood record studio. Today, someone who really, really wants to get their sound out there can do it with relative ease. Anyone could go to Radio Shack right now and get enough equipment to produce and distribute their own record. I don’t think we, as a society, really get just how powerful that is.

A Review of “TNT” by Tortoise

[This is an article I wrote for CHIRP Radio’s “Rediscovering Our Record Collections” series.]

I had been living in Chicago for a few months after relocating from Boston (where I lived for 8 years) with a short stint in Omaha, where I grew up. Not knowing anything about Chicago’s city’s neighborhoods, I had landed in the community of Edgewater, on the North Side right by the lake. It turned out to be a great place to get started as it was starting to feel the effects of the surge in commerce and urban renewal renovation resulting from the Dot-Com Era.

My apartment was a block away from Dominick’s grocery store (a local chain) and the CTA Red Line. Downtown was a straight shot south on Lake Shore Drive, and there were plenty of places to explore close to home. I had recently discovered the Village North movie theater, which showed a lot of excellent classic films, and The Atomic Café coffee shop right next door. I had never been a regular coffee drinker until that time, but after a few trips there as well as Café Boost, a wonderful independent shop a few blocks west on Clark Street, I started a romance with caffeine that continues to this day.

10 Critically Acclaimed, Wildly Successful, Extremely Popular Movies That I Don’t Like

I was perusing IMDBs top 250 list the other day, looking for some additional films to add to my rental list. There are some films on this list, for one reason or another, that I just can’t get into. The fact that I don’t particularly care for these films says nothing about their quality and everything about me. Probably some unacknowledged, unresolved issues I need to deal with. I’ve listed what I think they might be along with my two cents about the films.