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 tostimulate political discussions. All can be found on DVD throughindependent video stores. In Seattle, try Scarecrow Video. A few arealso available at Seattle Public Library.

*highly recommended ** must see

*AELITA, THE QUEEN OF MARS Yakov Protazanov (Russian) 1924. Sci-Ficlassic of a Soviet Union engineer who dreams of flying a spaceship hehas designed to Mars to be with Aelita, bringing with him theproletarian revolution.

*AGUIRRE, WRATH OF GOD (German) Werner Herzog 1972. Story of ill-fatedexpedition 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. MarlonBrando, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, Martin Sheen.

*BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (Russian) S. Eisenstein, G. Aleksandrov 1925.Graphically beautiful depiction of the beginning of the RussianRevolution; a classic.

*BETRAYED Costa Gavras 1988. White supremacists in rural America.Debra Winger, Tom Berenger.

BEZHIN MEADOW Sergei Eisentstein 1937. Movie was lost. Re-creationusing stills.

**BLUE COLLAR Paul Shrader 1978. Very good movie of blue-collar lifeand politics. Richard Pryor.

THE CANDIDATE Michael Ritchie 1972. An activist is drawn into politicsand 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 theeffects of medical tests on the psyche.

CORNBREAD, EARL AND ME Joe Manduke 1974. Talented inner-citybasketball player is shot by cops.

**THE CRADLE WILL ROCK, 1999. The federally funded Theater Projectduring the Great Depression, and it’s ruination by anti-communisthysteria.

*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 inthe Ukraine.

FAIL SAFE Sidney Lumet 1964. Nuclear weapon suspense thriller.

**THE GRAPES OF WRATH John Ford 1940. Moving story of the plight ofOklahoma farmers during The Depression. Henry Fonda, JohnCarradine.

THE GREAT DICTATOR Charlie Chaplin’s great movie about fascistGermany.

HIDDEN AGENDA Iain Paterson, 1998. CIA and STASI agents riddle thisaptly named film, as spies hustle to cover their rears. Gives a senseof the lengths people and agencies will go to when frightened bythreat of exposure of what they have done.

*HIGHER LEARNING John Singleton 1994. Examines US society by lookingat a college environment.

THE INSIDER, A view into capitalist society by looking into the verywealthy tobacco industry.

JFK Oliver Stone 1991. Dramatic recreation of the president’sassassination introduces much compelling evidence.

*KING OF HEARTS Philipe de Broca (French) 1966. A beautiful andunforgettable (and romantic) war movie.

KINO EYE Dziga Vertov 1924. Documents the young Soviet Union soonafter the Russian Revolution.

to be continued