Taylor's Campaign

It is quite remarkable in this documentary how you start to forget that you are watching a documentary and start feeling like you are living on the street as well - or at least following the main characters around on the streets of Santa monica. This sunny coastal town more known for movie starlets with little poodles sticking out of their Fred Segal shopping bags and shiny expensive cars rolling around palm tree lined boulevards while shallow people on cell phones ignore them is also home to a large amount of homeless people - equally ignored by shallow people on cell phones. There are some scenes in this documentary where the police arrives and wants to move some transients along and you can see how they spot the camera and decide on a different tone than they would have used had there been nobody observing. Well worth seeing.

A person named Ron Taylor, who was at that time down and out on the street, decides to fight the flood of new "poor" laws by running for a seat on the Santa Monica city council. A fascinating look at some of the psychology going on on the other side, as well as a cinema verite look at life on the streets.