FILM

(updated 01/12/2010)

I am generating a list of films for you. Almost all of them are documentaries. They all have sociological relevance. You  may arrange with me to review films for extra credit, however some may be assigned or shown in the classroom.

I will be adding reviews as time goes by. You can look most of them up on the IMDB (Internet Movie  Database). Many are on Netflix's inventory as well. A couple may be found at their own homesites such as "Sir! No Sir!" Enjoy!

If reviewing for extra credit you MUST explain how the film is of sociological relevance. I do not need a full description of the film as I have already seen it. Take an academic approach and use your sociological imagination.

The List:

Why We Fight (My favorite exploration as to why we are in Iraq and elsewhere)

Gunner Palace: (Documentary that explores the hopes and thoughts of our military personnel in Iraq.)

Iraq for Sale (The War Profiteers: Private contractors getting rich while everyone else suffers.)

The Ground Truth (A must see for anyone thinking about enlisting or knows someone who is.)

Nuyorican Dream

Sir! No Sir! (A film about war resistance within the military during the Vietnam conflict)

Harvest of Shame (A beautiful expose of exploited farm labor in the US--Edward R. Murrow narrates)

Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk (A great film about the college system today and where it is failing us.)

The First Year (about the first year for elementary school teachers)

Children Underground

It Was a Wonderful Life (A film about middle class women who have become homeless for a variety of reasons. It may bust some stereotypes about homelessness.)

America Beyond the Color Line (Henry Louis Gates Jr.)

National Geographic: China's Lost Girls

Orwell Rolls in His Grave

Voices of Iraq

Death in Gaza

Dark Days (A strange film about homeless people living under the subway system in New York city.)

Gladiator Days: Anatomy of a Prison Murder (A very disturbing film about a murder that takes place in a prison.)

Weapons of Mass Deception (An analysis of the United States' reasons for invading Iraq.)

Control Room (A look behind the scenes of the Iraq invastion as viewed by the Al Jazeera news network. A very different perspective.)

Regret to Inform

I Am a Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School

War Photographer

The Official Story (Fiction, but revealing--The story of the "Dirty War" in Argentina during the 1970s.)

Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties (The hysteria and knee-jerk reaction to the attacks of 9/11. About the "Patriot Act.")

Vietnam: A Television History (4 disc series - rather long)

Lost Boys of Sudan

American Jobs

Mojados: Through the Night

Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train

Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause

Frontline: Ghosts of Rwanda

Born Into Brothels

Fidel

Hearts and Minds (The classic film about the war in Vietnam and how it has affected those who participated in it.)

Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony (A wonderful film about the anti-apartheid movement --read revolution-- in South Africa.)

Southern Comfort

American Dream (Hormel strike)

Trembling Before G-d

Riding the Rails: American Experience

Girlhood

The Times of Harvey Milk

Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (An indictment of Fox network's bias in news reporting as noted by former employees and analysts of Fox.)

Daughter from Danang: The American Experience (A young woman traces her family back to Vietnam and experiences culture shock upon meeting them.)

The Trials of Henry Kissinger (A powerful and revealing expose' of Nixon's Secretary of State during the period of the Vietnam War.)

Murder on a Sunday Morning

Incident at Oglala: The Leonard Peltier Story

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media

Waco: The Rules of Engagement

The Weather Underground

The Fog of War

Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times

Focus (fiction but a good example of prejudice)

What I Want My Words to Do to You

Malcom X (fiction but close to the biography)

Classified X

Paragraph 175 (The Thrid Reich's brutal tactics of persecution against male homosexuals.)

The Brandon Teena Story

Michael Moore's The Awful Truth: (2 disc series)

Bowling for Columbine

Rabbit-Proof Fence (fiction)

Clockwork Orange (fiction but disturbingly allegorical--A classic film that challenges perceptions of morality in a vague futuristic setting.)

Children of Men (fiction, dystopic view of society in a fertility crisis)

Real Women Have Curves: Fiction, but an excellent account of the struggles of Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles.

Persepolis: Autobiographical account (in animation) of a girl growing up during and after the theocratic revolution of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Blame it on Fidel: A fictional account of a young girl growing up in France during the revolutionary 1970s.

Skid Row: Hip-hoper Pras Michel went underground for nine days on Skid Row in Los Angeles to film the lives of the forgotten down-and-out.

Miss Ever's Boys: A dramatization of the infamous syphilis experiments by the US Government on black men which lasted from the 1940s to the 1970s. If you don't know the story it is a must see.

The Kite Runner: A powerful fictional account that describes life in the world of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Waging a Living: Documentary that tracks four men with minimum wage jobs and their efforts to pull themselves out of poverty.

Jonestown: The Life and Death of the Peoples Temple: This film documents the Tragedy of the mass suicide in Jonestown. The charismatic Jim Jones is studied in this documentary.