The top rad movies available on DVD
Part 14
by Dr. John Ruhland
The movies on this list are well suited to watching as a group to
stimulate political discussions. All can be found on DVD through
independent video stores. In Seattle, try Scarecrow Video. A few are
also available at Seattle Public Library.
*highly recommended ** must see
*AELITA, THE QUEEN OF MARS Yakov Protazanov (Russian) 1924. Sci-Fi
classic of a Soviet Union engineer who dreams of flying a spaceship he
has designed to Mars to be with Aelita, bringing with him the
proletarian revolution.
*AGUIRRE, WRATH OF GOD (German) Werner Herzog 1972. Story of ill-fated
expedition of conquistadores.
**A KING IN NEW YORK Charlie Chaplin 1957. Critique of US consumerism,
superficiality, and political intolerance.
APOCALYPSE NOW Francis Ford Coppola 1979. The Vietnam war. Marlon
Brando, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, Martin Sheen.
*BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (Russian) S. Eisenstein, G. Aleksandrov 1925.
Graphically beautiful depiction of the beginning of the Russian
Revolution; a classic.
*BETRAYED Costa Gavras 1988. White supremacists in rural America.
Debra Winger, Tom Berenger.
BEZHIN MEADOW Sergei Eisentstein 1937. Movie was lost. Re-creation
using stills.
**BLUE COLLAR Paul Shrader 1978. Very good movie of blue-collar life
and politics. Richard Pryor.
THE CANDIDATE Michael Ritchie 1972. An activist is drawn into politics
and reshaped by the Republicrat machine. Robert Redford.
*CITIZEN COHN, 1992. Story of Senator Joe McCarthy�s right-hand man.
*CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 Agnes Varda (French) 1961. Beautiful film of the
effects of medical tests on the psyche.
CORNBREAD, EARL AND ME Joe Manduke 1974. Talented inner-city
basketball player is shot by cops.
**THE CRADLE WILL ROCK, 1999. The federally funded Theater Project
during the Great Depression, and it�s ruination by anti-communist
hysteria.
*DAS BOOT (German) Beautiful and tragic war story.
*DR. STRANGELOVE Stanley Kubrick 1964. Peter Sellers, George C Scott,
James Earl Jones, Slim Pickens.
*EARTH Alexander Dovzhenko 1930. The beginning of farm cooperatives in
the Ukraine.
FAIL SAFE Sidney Lumet 1964. Nuclear weapon suspense thriller.
**THE GRAPES OF WRATH John Ford 1940. Moving story of the plight of
Oklahoma farmers during The Depression. Henry Fonda, John
Carradine.
THE GREAT DICTATOR Charlie Chaplin�s great movie about fascist
Germany.
HIDDEN AGENDA Iain Paterson, 1998. CIA and STASI agents riddle this
aptly named film, as spies hustle to cover their rears. Gives a sense
of the lengths people and agencies will go to when frightened by
threat of exposure of what they have done.
*HIGHER LEARNING John Singleton 1994. Examines US society by looking
at a college environment.
THE INSIDER, A view into capitalist society by looking into the very
wealthy tobacco industry.
JFK Oliver Stone 1991. Dramatic recreation of the president�s
assassination introduces much compelling evidence.
*KING OF HEARTS Philipe de Broca (French) 1966. A beautiful and
unforgettable (and romantic) war movie.
KINO EYE Dziga Vertov 1924. Documents the young Soviet Union soon
after the Russian Revolution.
to be continued
|