Roger Ebert makes it easy to keep up with movies, while not actually watching many of them. His review of Life and Debt was featured on Z and got me hooked on his reviews.. He slams corporations since Mel Gibson’s latest Action Movie didn’t leave him with much else to talk about, just like he ended up discussing stunt history during his review of John Travolta’s new Paris shoot-em-up work.
It does have a useful subtext. It serves as a reminder that the purpose of a corporation is not to be patriotic, but to maximize profits for its officers and shareholders. This is required by its by-laws. I suppose if we, as shareholders, don’t agree with its profit-making strategies, we can always sell our stock, assuming we can find out what those strategies are.
He has some more specific targets in the review too..
Because much of the movie is a cranked-up thriller with chases, fights, conspiracies and all that stuff, permit me a digression on secretive, shadowy corporations. What kinds of headquarters buildings do they inhabit? I Googled. Blackwater, which supplies our mercenaries in Iraq, has a drab two-story building outside Cleveland, with eight cars parked in front. Halliburton, Dick Cheney’s old company, recently moved from Houston to an anonymous skyscraper in — Dubai, closer to its place of business.
It’s nice to see someone looking at the water we all swim in, especially after the latest Supreme Court decision that money is free speech and corporations are people with constitutional rights.
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