maisannes

Waging a Living looks at the lives of several people who feel that it is difficult for themselves to get ahead or pay the bills even though they have full-time employment. A waitress, security guard, CNA and an elder care activity leader face the challenges of rising costs of living, raising dependent children, social services regulations and just plain life.

The documentary's strongest asset is that instead of the snapshots usually seen on the nightly news, these people are followed for several years so we can see the steady stream of immediate problems along with the slower solutions such as education, unionization and patient persistence.

Watching the movie filled me with a combination of gratitude for my own circumstances and insecurity from knowing that I am not too far away from living paycheck to paycheck myself.

My only concern about the film is that it is imbalanced by focusing on the external causes of their conditions but does not point out as much what choices these people made in the past to place themselves in these positions. For instance, we are not told why one person lost his job, or why disability claims were not taken earlier, or why they have so many children and so on. Then again, perhaps the filmmakers thought that "blaming the victim" was unwarranted.

Lastly, two of the four people are members of the same union, even though they live on different coasts, and are both shown as active union members. I wonder how these people came to be chosen for the documentary, and if their union somehow was involved in the making of the film.

The Ice Harvest's violence, strippers and angry humor goes far afield from Ramis's usual comedic territory. John Cusack does his best to provide a sympathetic center in a movie trying to find the funny side of the lack of honor among thieves.

I saw the movie with a festival audience in Charlottesville and the theater was full of laughter, but it was just not to my taste. Billy Bob Thornton's matter of fact rueful cruelty had its moments, but I grew weary of Oliver Platt's rude drunkenness quickly, and slapstick gags will only carry me so far.

A History of Violence's commentary on how we react to criminals and killing will never become dated as long as Hollywood continues to produce movies like these.

Just another TCM time-passer. June Allyson brings her usual earnest charm to a movie that just didn't have much to it. The essential weakness is that the screenplay cannot make up its mind whether it wants to be a "look at all those crazy animals" comedy or a political "the honest man will win" film. When the movie finally makes its decision at the end, it just made me wonder why it spent all that time on the other thread. I've also been fairly suspicious of movies that have more than one credited director. Maybe that played a role here too.

The high point for me was the performance of Cecil Kellaway as the father. TCM and IMDb make a great combination for learning about the wonderful character actors of Hollywood history.