ABCs at the Movies: The Doubles Round!

[Fran]

From IMDb:  This fictionalized speculation posits that a covert group of rogue intelligence agents, ultra-conservative politicians, unscrupulously greedy business interests, and free-lance assassins become increasingly alarmed at President Kennedy's policies, including his views on race relations, winding down the Viet Nam War, and ending the oil depletion allowance. They decide to terminate him through an "executive action" utilizing two teams of well-trained snipers during JFK's visit to Dallas and place the blame on supposed CIA operative Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone assassin.

[Ellemeno]

I'm bummed I missed the AllPaul round.  Love you, Paul!

Clarissa

[oilgun]

Synopsis: "Final Solution is a study of the politics of hate. Set in Gujarat, India, the film graphically documents the changing face of right-wing politics in India through a study of the 2002 genocide of Muslims in Gujarat. The film examines the aftermath of the deadly violence that followed the burning of 58 Hindus on the Sabarmati Express train at Godhra on February 27 2002. In 'reaction' to that incident, some 2,500 Muslims were brutally murdered, hundreds of women raped, and more than 200,000 families driven from their homes. Borrowing its reference from the history of Nazism, the title of the film exposes what the film director calls 'Indian Fascism' and seeks to remind that 'those who forget history are condemned to relive it.'" (From the Ektaonline website)



From IMDb:  In February and March 2002, the Indian State of Gujarat witnessed horrific incidents of unparallelled violence that can only be described as Genocide. Over 2000 people, including British Citizens were slaughtered with more than 100,000 people displaced in under-resourced refugee camps. Houses were systematically looted; businesses burnt down, hundreds of women gang raped and many children murdered.

Substantial evidence suggests that the Gujarat State government, led by the current Chief Minister Narendra Modi and the police orchestrated the violence and were responsible for the carnage. Yet, despite domestic and international public pressure, not a single prominent individual has been held to account or brought to justice.

Commentating on the violence in Gujarat, The US based Human Rights Watch states - "What happened in Gujarat was not a spontaneous uprising, it was a carefully orchestrated attack against Muslims. The attacks were planned in advance and organised with extensive participation of the police and state government officials." The violence in 2002 followed a deteriorating trend of human rights abuses against the Christian, Muslim and Dhalit minorities in Gujarat, this trend has continued since 2002. Indeed, in 2005, the Chief Minister of Gujarat was banned from visiting the US for his part in the Genocide and continued Human rights abuses in Gujarat, citing Modi to be in "in severe violation of religious freedoms".

This film is worth a million textbooks, because it shows first-hand what was happening in Gujarat and draws some very relevant parallels with the Jewish experience in Nazi Germany.

Never Again? Watch this film and wake up....

[southendmd]

IMDb:  Whether you love George Wallace or hate him, this documentary shows how power or its pursuit, corrupts. The movie shows Wallace's change from his humanistic early state to his inhuman segregationist being and then back again. When he sought power, he said whatever the people of Alabama wanted to hear. When the ability to gain power no longer existed, he reverted back to the sympathetic being that he was early in life. Very worth seeing.

I'm bummed I missed the AllPaul round.  Love you, Paul!

Clarissa

Love you too, dahlin'

[Meryl]

Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (Eddie Bracken) is a small town boy who  pretends to be fighting overseas in World War II while secretly working in a San Diego shipyard.  A group of Marines decides to return Woodrow to his home so his mother will not keep worrying about him, loaning him their medals.  Word leaks out, and the entire town turns out to greet its homegrown hero. With an election coming up, the citizens decide to make an unwilling Woodrow their candidate for Mayor.  Finally, Woodrow confesses everything at a campaign rally, but after considering the matter, the town decides that Woodrow has just the mayoral qualities they need.

[Fran]

From IMDb:  Superb documentary on the hugely entertaining -- her loopy theory of the cosmos and galactic order alone is worth the price of admission -- absolutely appalling, diamond- and shoe-collecting former First Lady of the desperately poor Philippines. Apparently, Marcos attempted to block the doc's release in her home country, and one can see why. However, as she gets to speak throughout, she wasn't able to claim her words were taken out of context or that she was slandered. Happily for film-goers, her efforts to suppress the film failed. Documentarian Ramona Diaz combines archival news footage and interviews with Marcos sycophants, relatives, former employees, supporters and political opponents to present a very balanced and revelatory portrait of this truly ghastly woman, the epitome of small-town ambition run amok. Indeeed, this could be a biography of dictators anywhere.

[southendmd]

Plot:  Documentary account of George W. Bush's presidential campaign.

IMDb:  This is an interesting if ultimately disappointing documentary following G.W.Bush's campaign for the presidency. It is filmed entirely by Alexandra Pelosi as a member of press pack on the campaign buses and planes across the US. It is interesting because it shows the scale of the electioneering business and it shows an inside view of Bush. The overall impression one gets is that US elections are mostly about rallies and bus trips. What Bush stands for never comes into the picture. The result is mixed. Initially Bush comes across as a bit of a buffoon, not slow-witted, as he has been portrayed, but cheeky and a bit chauvinistic, like a college prankster. He never takes Pelosi seriously, and wise-cracks his way through all her questions. However, they strike up a rapport and ultimately he is shown to be more of a friend to her than her colleagues in the press corp. Democrats will probably hate this documentary because it doesn't show him to be a dim-wit monster. Karl Rove type Republicans will not like it too much either because Bush certainly does not look presidential. The press comes off worst, portrayed basically as willing poodles as they are bussed from one rally to another.

[oilgun]

aka:  King's Game

From IMDb: A very clever and insightful political thriller, this decade's All The President's Men, though without Robert Redford. Brings new angles on the government conspiracy theme. No doubt will be remade as a big Hollywood Studio thriller but unlikely to improve on this thought provoking original. The writer was himself a former top government Spin Doctor. Since the film was released real life events have made the curious leap of imitating fiction in the USA and UK with high profile political scandals, suicides and leaked information. Part of a string of strong political thrillers in recent years including Syriana with George Clooney. Maybe he will be in the remake.

[Fran]

From IMDb:  Filmed over the last six months of the 2000 Presidential election, Phillip Seymour Hoffman starts documenting the campaign at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, but spends more time outside, in the street protests and police actions than in the orchestrated conventions. Hoffman shows an obvious distaste for money politics and the conservative right. He looks seedier and more disillusioned the campaign progresses. Eventually Hoffman seems most energized by the Ralph Nader campaign as an alternative to the nearly indistinguishable major parties.

[southendmd]

Plot:  Based on the play "Red Gloves" by Jean-Paul Sartre which appeared on Broadway with Charles Boyer in the role of "Hoederer." A young intellectual, Hugo (Daniel Gelin), joins the Communist Party out of a sense of idealism, only to see his principles manipulated by party leaders. He is given the assignment of killing Professor Hoederer (Pierre Brassuer), a party deviationist. However, he grows to admire the man and begins to have doubts about morals and revolutionary politics. But jealousy---Hugo thinks Hoederer has made love to his wife, Jessica (Monique Arthur)---takes matters out of the political realm.

I couldn't find a poster, so here's Sartre: