Reviews

Sir! No Sir! (2005)

Directed by David Zeiger

USA Documentary Runtime: 85 min

The film tells the story of the GI resistance movement during the Vietnam war.

The depiction in "Sir! No Sir!" is accurate and balanced. The GI's who opposed the war when they were on active duty took great risks.

Jane Fonda played a pivotal role in the anti-war movement, and she has a pivotal role in this movie.

It's interesting that Ms. Fonda has--no doubt under pressure--retracted some of her statements and apologized for some of her anti-war activities.

In the film she is not apologetic about her actions, and she clearly believes that what she did was right.

I'm not sure which persona represents the real Jane Fonda.

I hope it's the unashamed activist who was trying to save lives--both US and Vietnamese.

The movie spends time discussing the (in)famous story about returning GI's getting spat at by peace activists. I had always accepted this story as true. All the civilian peace activists I knew were in sympathy with the GI's--we opposed the generals and the Commander- in-Chief, Richard Nixon, as well as his chief adviser, Henry Kissinger.

The film takes the position that the spitting episode never happened--it's an urban legend.

I was interested that the word "Iraq" never appeared in the film. However, the implications of this movie are obvious. We are again bogged down in an unpopular war that cannot be won.

Before the war on Iraq started, many of us in the peace movement said, "It's going to be another Vietnam. U.S. GI's and Iraqis will die, and the country will be divided."

The rest is history, as they say.

If you want further information look for: "Soldiers in Revolt" by David Cortright, AK Press. Cortright (enlisted in the U.S. Army from 1968-1971) details the myriad ways of resistance (from death by "fragging" of 87 officers, to the over 250 GI "alternative" newspapers), and details the race and class basis of this. A truly inspiring, and exhaustive, piece of historical research and narrative. With a new introduction by Howard Zinn.

Vietnam At 24 Frames a Second by Jeremy M. Devine. A critical anthematic analysis of over 400 Films about the Vietnam War. 1995. Uni of Texas Press.

Cultural Battles the meaning of the Vietnam-USA war; essays by Peter McGregor 1998 Scam Publications Australia.

The film Sir No Sir builds on these books and gives a compelling argument concerning the end of the Vietnam War.

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North Country (2005) directed by Niki Caro. 126 Minutes. USA

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. From the director of New Zealand 2002 film Whale Rider...(aka Te kaieke tohora in Maori language)

North Country makes you wonder about the society in which we live.

Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron) is a young single mother who has made some bad choices in her life. Then, she makes what should have been a good choice--she gets a job as a miner. Josey is physically, psychologically, and temperamentally suited for this difficult work, and it's a job that pays well.

Instead of a good choice, the job turns into a nightmare. To say that every man she meets at work is misogynistic doesn't really do justice to the situation. Every man in the company, starting with the president, is intent on driving women from the workforce. This mindset is so ingrained that even Josie's father assumes that no woman has a place in the mines. (Secretarial or clerical work is OK, but not mining.) The harassment goes beyond verbal hazing--it involves physical and sexual violence.

We know from the outset that Josey's struggle ended up in the courts, because we get flashes of courtroom testimony interspersed with the grim scenes at the mine. Because the film is based on a true story, we also know the outcome. Some of the courtroom scenes are melodramatic, but the mining scenes look all too realistic, and they compel your attention. Director Caro knows how to portray this segment of our society.

The three female leads are all excellent--Sissy Spacek as Josey's mother, Frances McDormand as her best friend, and Charlize Theron as Josey. Much has been made of the fact that a glamorous actor like Theron allowed herself to be shown in a markedly non-glamorous way. I wasn't as impressed with that part of Theron's performance as I was with the other half of her acting--as an attractive young woman who has made some mistakes, but hasn't given up on her chances for a happy and satisfying life. Josie's decision to fight for her job rather than to quit makes perfect sense in the context of this movie. That's what makes it a great film.

Reviewed by Viola Wilkins

Bound for Glory

This film is about a guy who had integrity. He couldn't be bought off. He didn't sell out. Woody Guthrie felt his music. It came from a sense of caring about people. As a film, "Bound for Glory" does a ten-star job of conveying the spirit of a man who could joke when the chips were down and who could sing out with an affection his listeners could believe. Guthrie made music move people to see themselves as worthwhile, as creators of vitality, gusto and dignity. And he did this during the Great Depression.

People, especially people in the industrial world, feel less and less a sense of connectedness to each other. Community tends to lose quality as the rule of quantitative cheapness triumphs. The more the narrow, modern sort of individualism envelops them, the more humans slip into an alienation reinforced by commodified cocoons.

Wage-slaves we are and wage-slaves we were in the 1930s. Only back then, we still had some remnant of solidarity, some spark of humanity to touch each other with. We still do, but it's fading fast. Woody's life was about fanning those embers into flames as people worked for wages, while others, the unemployed and under paid caught up in the depression of the Great Depression, wondered whether their families and other families like them would ever make it. Woody came from them and he sang for them. Woody was a working class hero, a modern day troubadour. He infused his listeners with his humorous, never give-up gumption, which, if you weren't luck enough to know him personally, came out in waves as you drank in his warm words and tunes. Woody made them feel that maybe they could be bound for glory!

If you find this movie on the rental shelf, pick it up and see it. It's great. I especially loved the scenes with Ozark Bule (played by Ronnie Cox). He must have been something. The first time you see him, he stands up on his vehicle near some unemployed field workers and sings the old IWW song composed by Joe Hill -

Long-haired preachers come out every night

Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right

But when asked about something to eat

They will answer in voices so sweet

'You will eat, by and by,

In that glorious land above the sky

Work and pray, live on hay -

You'll get pie in the sky when you die' - that's a lie!

And the Starvation Army they play

And they sing and the clap and they pray

Till they get all your coin on the drum

Then they'll tell you when you're on the bum . . .

Holy Rollers and Jumpers come out

And they sing and they clap and they shout

'Give your money to Jesus,' they say,

'He will cure all diseases today . . .

Working folks of all countries, unite

Side by side we for freedom will fight

When the world and it's wealth we have gained

To the grafters we'll sing this refrain:

You will eat, by and by,

When you've learned how to cook and how to fry

Chop some wood, it'll do you good

Then you'll eat in the sweet by and by - that's no lie!

And David Carradine (Bill of "Kill Bill" fame) would never do acting as fine as this again. His Guthrie is near perfect, one level above Gary Cooper's portrayal of Sergeant York. Hal Ashby got the most from his acting company. They all look and act like real people with real lives, not stars. And Haskell

Wexler's camera work is as artistically brushed as Woody's best known song:

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND words and music by Woody Guthrie

Chorus: This land is your land, this land is my land

From California, to the New York Island

From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters

This land was made for you and me

As I was walking a ribbon of highway

I saw above me an endless skyway

I saw below me a golden valley

This land was made for you and me

Chorus

I've roamed and rambled and

I've followed my footsteps

To the sparkling sands

of her diamond deserts

And all around me a voice was sounding

This land was made for you and me

Chorus

The sun comes shining

as I was strolling

The wheat fields waving

and the dust clouds rolling

The fog was lifting

a voice come chanting

This land was made for you and me

Chorus

As I was walkin' -

I saw a sign there

And that sign said - no tress passin'

But on the other side ....

it didn't say nothing!

Now that side was made for you and me!

Chorus

In the squares of the city -

In the shadow of the steeple

Near the relief office -

I see my people And some are grumblin

' and some are wonderin'

If this land's still made for you and me.

Directed by

Hal Ashby

Writing credits

Robert Getchell

Woody Guthrie (book)

Cast overview, first billed only:

David Carradine .... Woody Guthrie

Ronny Cox .... Ozark Bule

Melinda Dillon .... Mary/Memphis Sue

Gail Strickland .... Pauline

John Lehne .... Locke

Ji-Tu Cumbuka .... Slim Snedeger

Randy Quaid .... Luther Johnson

Elizabeth Macey .... Liz Johnson

Susan Vaill .... Gwen Guthrie

Sarah Vaill .... Gwen Guthrie

Alexandra Mock .... Sue Guthrie

Kimberly Mock .... Sue Guthrie

Miriam Byrd-Nethery .... Sick woman (water-swallowing scene) (as Miriam

Byrd Nethery)

Jane Lambert .... Other woman (water-swallowing scene)

Jan Burrell .... Other woman (water-swallowing scene)

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