The Corporation is a documentary about the rise of corporations (specifically LLCs – Limited Liability Companies) since the industrial revolution, their gradual encroachment on and commodotisation of what was once public property and their disregard for the environment and human welfare in the pursuit of profit.

Watch the trailer:

Much of the film is made up of talking head soundbytes from various professors, economists and CEOs. The most interesting of them, I thought, was the CEO of America’s largest carpet manufacurer who’s pragmatic but passionate approach to making his company more sustainable was quite inspiring.

The most worrying interviewee was, interestingly, not the commodities trader who during the events of this day 7 years ago was more interested in how it would affect the price of gold rather than the people dying streets away, but the lady from the marketing company who seems to realise that manipulating children to buy products (or nag their parents to buy them) is probably not ethical but is happy to do it anyway.

The gimmick used to tie the film (at least the first half) together is to establish the characteristics and behaviours of a corporation and then ask what kind of person would behave in that way? The answer they come to is that if a corporation was a person, it would be a psychopath. It gives them a nice tagline for the film but I think they were a bit one-sided in their psychoanalysis! In fact, the whole film was a bit one-sided. There were a few token pro-capitalists in there but most of what they said was quickly undermined by the next interviewee. I suppose, like many of the recent docu-films, they have to be a bit one-sided and extreme because they represent views that are counter-cultural and under-represented in our daily lives.

Anyway, on the whole I found it an interesting film and it was pretty packed with thought-provoking interviews and information – I feel like I should watch it again to absorb the stuff that didn’t sink in first time round – but I think to scrap corporations altogether (as at times it seems to advocate) is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I’ll certainly be digging into the extra features to hear more from the carpet man but I won’t be signing up for any anti-globalisation rallies just yet!

The filmmakers have put the whole film up on youtube (split into its 23 chapters) so you don’t even have to pay a corporation to see it (unless you are inadvertantly advertised to whilst on youtube). However, if you do buy the 2 disc DVD you’ll get 8 hours of extra features to trawl through too.

“Money doesn’t buy you happiness, it just buys you a more expensive set of problems.”

So says Marilyn Monroe.

I’d never seen a whole Marilyn Monroe film before but I watched The Seven Year Itch (famous for the scene pictured) a month or two ago and I was surprised to find that it was an old comedy that was actually still funny. In brief it’s about a guy who’s living and working in New York over the summer while his family are staying in the country when Marilyn moves in to the apartment above his. Temptation ensues!

Much of the film is monologues by the tormented man and it was actually his performance that kept my me watching. IMDB tells me that he performed the part 750 times on Broadway before the film was made and that he won the Tony (Oscars of theatre) award for his performance so I guess that’s why it stood out – he’d had a lot of time to perfect it.

I have a tendency to dismiss any film made before 1970 (not that I’ve seen many good films from the 70s, just that, in my mind, all films before that are war films or song and dance films with no story).