Waiting for the Vaccine Connection

 CoVideo Nation - II

“The Assistant,” – The best film on working as an executive assistant I’ve seen. (After all, how many are there? One?)  A young college grad gets a high-stress entry-level position at a film production firm in New York.  The film, covering one long day, goes into the many details of how she is ignored and dissed.  She works almost as a personal servant for the rest of the staff and her especially terrifying boss. I’ve done many of these things, so I know how true they are.

This is a reflection of the Harvey Weinstein sex abuse story, so the best scene is the stomach-churning visit to HR.  HR is not your friend, now a cliché for white collar workers but might be news to some. The lead actress also appeared in Ozark as Ruth.

“I Care A Lot,” – The best film on the corruption of the ‘guardianship’ business I’ve seen. (There are no others...)  Guardianship is a business in the U.S. While the film is over the top, it depicts a ruthless guardian intent on soaking her vulnerable elderly wards, then going toe-to-toe with a ruthless gangster who wants his mother back.  Ordinary people in a complex legal situation like guardianship will many times be snowed or not aware of what is really going on. This film works as a wake-up call or warning.   

Small scale capital and crime, hand in hand.  All it takes is a corrupt doctor, a money-grubbing guardian, a creepy nursing home and a compliant and clueless judge.  Not to mention bad law.  Sort of a modern version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or Cloud Atlas. It also takes a hard poke at neo-liberal GLBT / feminist ‘woman-power’ capitalism.

“Leah Remini:  Scientology and the Aftermath” – the best series on the Scientology cult...  Remini, an actress and former Scientologist, works with another former Scientologist, Mike Rinder.  They take the cult apart, episode by episode.  Full of tear-jerking personal stories about child and personal abuse, mind control, bizarre building programs, weird archives and very weird ideas, soaking members for money, locking miscreants up in their private prisons, legal abuse, it is an eye-opener – especially the episode about Scientology’s work with the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan and one about the Armageddon cult Jehovah's Witnesses.

Worst of all is the seeming impunity of Scientology from the FBI, the IRS, local judges or police and sometimes the media.  They are either intimidated by Scientology's vicious legal and harassment approach or couldn’t care less.  The example of Clearwater, FL says it all, as Scientology took over the city's downtown. It is similar to recent documentaries on the Oregon Rajneeshis, the Bikram “Hot Yoga” guru or the film "Orthodox" about an ex-Hassidic woman.

“John Oliver – Meatpacking,” – Research like this by Oliver’s crew is one reason he stands head and shoulders above neo-liberal libertarian comics like Bill Maher.  In it he goes into great detail on the treatment of poultry, pork and cattle workers in slaughter-houses.  He discusses how the big producers like Tyson ignored CoVid, so thousands were infected and dozens died.  He looks into the weakening of OSHA standards by the industry; the ridiculous small fines levied by the government; the hiding of injuries at the plants; the vicious line speeds.

Most of these workers are immigrants, former prisoners and vulnerable minorities unable to protest – without unions or decent pay.  Like a modern day Jungle, this story has been done before. It seems with the recent approval of the nasty corporatist Tom Vilsack as Ag Secretary, nothing changes.  No wonder rural areas are in such a mess, dominated by corrupt corporations, and hand in hand with both parties.

“United States vs. Billie Holiday” – a story of the harassment of Billie Holiday by the FBI and Frank Anslinger, the originator of the U.S. drug war.  The FBI wanted to stop her singing the anti-lynching song “Strange Fruit” and so decided to harass and jail her for heroin use.  Anslinger originally pitched the drug war as a racist and later political project and this film shows how that worked out in her case.

The wandering, overly-long film looks at Holiday’s history of physical abuse, drug use, tours and concerts with musicians like Lester Young and individual fights against racism, in the context of a fake romance with an FBI agent(!)  The loss of her cabaret performer’s license, prompted by the FBI, led to a long decline and her death from alcoholism and heart disease. The FBI attempted to arrest her even on her death bed.   

“Judas and the Black Messiah” – I haven’t watched it.  Both Louis Proyect at Counterpunch and Akin Ollah at the Guardian point to different significant flaws in the film, even while it pinions the FBI and Hoover as murderers.  (Why is it that it always takes 50+ years to recognize some crime by the state or a corporation while at the time the truth is suppressed?) The FBI have always been a 'political police' and they still are.  Hampton, like many before him, is being sanitized by the controllers of culture.  One point made in the reviews is the weakness of the Panthers’ adventurism and distance from organized workers; and two, it leaves out their tough anti-capitalist Maoist politics.  The sanitation squad is at work still.

Counterpunch on J&tBM  Guardian on J&tBM

Epilog:  Have you noticed how many movies about slavery, Jim Crow and now black radicalism have popped up in the last few years?  Unfortunately most of the films have a 'liberal' slant that guts them, fitting them neatly into a liberal schema.  Also, why are so many lead 'black' actors in these films Afro-Caribbean or British?  Fred Hampton?  MLK?  We know the answer.  Then we might wonder why Latino people are still invisible in Hollywood.  And don't get me started about invisible working class people, Nomadland nonwithstanding.

Prior blog reviews on these subjects, use blog search box, upper left:  White Knight, Mean Girl, The Handmaid’s Tale, Bullshit Jobs, Ideation, Missoula, The Jungle, Manny’s Steakhouse, Vegan Freak, Archaic Thanksgiving, The Emotional Lives of Animals, Black Panther, FBI Secrets, Lost Connections or words like Malcolm X, MLK, Kennedy.

The Cultural Marxist

February 26, 2021