Arab Labor is a raucous and irreverent critically acclaimed comedy series from Israel about Amjad, a Palestinian journalist and Israeli citizen in search of his identity. His personal quest for status and success as a journalist at a Jerusalem newspaper is foiled by the humiliating searches he endures everyday when he leaves his Palestinian neighborhood to commute to his job. In the midst of a walloping identity crisis, Amjad jockeys between two cultures as he tries to polish his image for his Jewish friends and colleagues while enjoying his own down-to-earth family life. The result is a comedy series that pierces the taboos of acceptable language and humor surrounding the prickly, long-standing status quo in which Palestinian and Jewish Israelis live side by side.
“Meet the Palestinian Seinfeld.”
-San Francisco Chronicle
“…groundbreaking and amazing…”
-Los Angeles Times
“It will tickle your funny bone, and maybe strike a nerve.”
-The Associated Press
“…a groundbreaking TV show…”
-The Chicago Tribune
“…barges through cultural barriers…”
-The New York Times
“It’s not really an Israeli version of Jerry Seinfeld, the Jewish American actor whose mother is a Syrian-Jew (making him my favorite Arab comedian, by the way). It’s more like the 1960s and 70s American TV sitcom, All in the Family, where race and race issues were ripped apart to make a social point.”
-Jerusalem Post
Over 40 years ago, on October 9, 1967, Ernesto Che Guevara was executed by the Bolivian army, aided by the CIA. Guevara’s diary, a detailed, personal account of his futile 11-month attempt to foment revolution in Bolivia, is the basis of this moving portrait. Che’s relationship with the mysterious Tania, his betrayal by local peasants, his constant battle with asthma, and his distress at the death of his comrades is recounted. Interviews with Bolivians who met Che during these final days, coupled with narrations from Che’s actual diaries, testify to a man who embraced sacrifice for his ideals. This is an enlightening insight into the real history of a revolutionary icon.
“…moving…”
- The New York Times
“…a revealing glimpse into the revolutionary mindset.”
- Chicago Tribune
“…a compelling portrait.”
- Seattle Weekly
“An understated, stunningly effective portrait.”
- Chicago Tribune
WORKINGMAN’S DEATH is an unflinching portrait of the state of manual labor in the 21st century. In the Ukraine, a group of men spend long days crawling through cramped shafts of illegal coal mines. Sulfur gatherers in Indonesia brave the smoky heat of an active volcano and the treacherous trip back down. Blood, fire and stench are routine for workers at a crowded open-air slaughterhouse in Nigeria. Pakistani men use little more than their bare hands to dismantle an abandoned oil tanker for scrap metal. Steelworkers in China fear they could be a dying breed.
Today’s manual laborers are no longer celebrated with hymns of praise. WORKINGMAN’S DEATH provides a rare glimpse into the harsh treatment faced by manual laborers working half a world away.
“…the structure and tone of an epic historical poem…visually impressive…” -The New York Times
“Astonishingly powerful documentary about really, really hard work.” -Hollywood Reporter
“Essential viewing, this committed work restores worth and value
to those who, unseen and unheard, literally create our world.”
- TimeOut
Workingman’s Death DVD
Price:
$29.98
Item:
ALV-DV-9
Availability:
USA & Canada
Running Time:
122 minutes
Technical Aspects:
Dolby Digital, 16:9,
NTSC Region 0
Language:
English, German, Russian, Mandarin, with English Subtitles
The American Ruling Class is a morality tale set to music about two Yale students who seek their opportunities after graduation. Lewis Lapham, the renowned essayist, author and longtime Harper’s Magazine editor, conducts them through the corridors of power – Pentagon press briefings, the World Economic Forum, philanthropic foundations, Washington law firms, banks, the Council on Foreign Relations and New York society dinners. As they make their way, the real-life luminaries they meet become characters in a dramatic story about power, its responsibilities and abuses. The subject is our country’s most taboo topic: class, power and privilege in our nominally democratic republic.
Part Monty Python, part Michael Moore, The American Ruling Class is an entertaining clarion call for all citizens to consider who has power, how they acquired it, and most importantly, how they keep it.
“A guided safari through the tribal haunts of the power elite.” -Vanity Fair
“The American Ruling Class k.o.’d me..a remarkable and revelatory documentary
…an astonishing program”
-Studs Terkel
Introduced and Hosted by
Lewis Lapham
Featuring interviews with
Robert Altman
James A. Baker
Bill Bradley
Harold Brown
Hodding Carter III
William T. Coleman, Jr.
Walter Cronkite
Barbara Ehrenreich
Vartan Gregorian
Mike Medavoy
Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
Samuel Peabody
Pete Seeger
Lawrence H. Summers
Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr.
William Howard Taft IV
Kurt Vonnegut
Howard Zinn
Pledge of Allegiance Blues documents the journey of Rev. Dr. Michael Newdow, the blues-singing California physician and his battle to protect the separation between church and state, a battle that took him all the way to the United States Supreme Court where he defended the landmark “under God” lawsuit. From the controversy over the Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama State Courthouse to a historical analysis about the intertwining of religion and government in American history, Pledge of Allegiance Blues is a smart and funny examination of the often tense relationship between church and state. With toe-tapping musical numbers by Newdow, a cast of characters including attorney Alan Dershowitz, publisher Larry Flynt, and radio talk-show host Sandy Rios, this critically acclaimed documentary provides a contemporary and provocative look at one man’s campaign to defend his constitutional rights.
“Both as a lesson in law and as an entertaining personality profile,
Pledge of Allegiance Blues is highly recommended.
Three and a half stars!”
-Video Librarian
