Cross posted from BuyBlue.org
Last night was the BuyBlue co-hosted screening in San Francisco of Robert Greenwald's Wal-Mart the Movie: The High Cost of Low Price and as an added bonus The Roxie Cinema somehow obtained the movie being trumpeted as the counter-movie called Why Wal-Mart Works: And Why That Makes Some People C-r-a-z-y. According to the USA Today Wal-Mart has been promoting this competing film. It premiered in Bentonville, AR the same night, so I guess I was amongst the first to see it.
I'm here to report that there is no competition folks. I thought the competing film might be a well put together propaganda reel, but in reality the only thing it might convince you to do is sleep. I'm sure it did just that for 10's of people in Bentonville, AR last night.
I'll start with the good news. Greenwald has managed to put together another good documentary that hits all of the arguments against Wal-Mart and backs them with unimpeachable facts from news agencies, government reports and university research. They show you stories of how this company has negatively effected the lives of people from all walks of life, particularly those which Wal-Mart claims it serves. The common thread throughout the film is the juxtaposition of reality with the statements of Wal-Mart's CEO Lee Scott and Wal-Mart commercials. At the end the film shows you some of the
many communities that have united to keep Wal-Mart out and tries to inspire you to
join the fight yourself.
In short they do a very good job of presenting their side in a factual and entertaining manner with an effective call to action at the end.
Going into the movie I thought I wouldn't learn anything new due to the work I've been doing with BuyBlue. I was shocked to learn how wrong I was, we've barely scratched the surface.
The movie ended and the 200+ seat Roxie was pretty packed at that point. There was a short intermission and then the "Why Wal-Mart Works: And Why That Makes Some People C-r-a-z-y" movie began as some people started filtering out.
This movie was beyond bad and is in no way any sort of threat to Greenwald's movie. The film makers seemed to have less technical ability than a high school film student.
The flow of the story was horrible and made absolutely no sense. I know they were trying to walk through the arguments against Wal-Mart but they did so in no logical fashion that I could discern. I found myself watching segments with people rambling on that were so long and painful that I forgot what they were trying to tell me in the first place.
Furthermore, I wouldn't say this movie was even a rebuttal of the arguments against Wal-Mart. The LA Times article states this movie started off as a documentary about Wal-Mart's supply chain (a real snoozer to be sure) and they rushed it and added some things to compete with Greenwald. They spent an inordinate amount of time discussing economics, discussing how Wal-Mart was good at making money (duh!), and discussing The efficiency of their supply chain. This is painfully boring if you are an MBA student with a case study assignment, for the general public it is torture. Our President recently said "We do not torture," and I respectfully disagree.
They had such impressive speakers as some guy from the Cato Institute, some investors with Wal-Mart, "the" instapundit.com, an asst. economics professor from Frostburg State University - home to a whole 4,300 students! They had an author on discussing his theory of socioeconomics that basically states people go through phases of being angry for a period of years and happy for a period of years and when they are angry they hate corporations. I'm sure that'll stand up to rigorous academic analysis. I think that they must have deliberately picked the most clueless people they could find to try and make the case for or against Wal-Mart. My personal favorite was the group of three stoner teens they were interviewing about the heady issue of fair wages. "Wal-Mart seriously sucks man, I'd never work there. $8.60 an hour! Dude I could make thousands! Hey dude, can you pass the bong now?"
The last segment of the movie was a completely random segment about how Wal-Mart was rebuilding in Waveland, MS after Katrina - their store, not the community. I honestly don't know what the hell the point of this segment was and I couldn't take it anymore. By that time my wife was asleep and it was time to go. There were maybe 5 to 10 other brave souls that stayed to watch the conclusion. Perhaps I should have gone next door to Dalva to get a drink instead of soaking in this cinematic experience.
The LA Times article cited earlier states that the Galloway brothers spent $85,000 on the movie and ends with this quote:
"If I don't make back my money, my wife kicks me out of my house," Ron Galloway said.
My advice Ron, start packing your bags. The only possible scenario in which you'd make that money back is if Wal-Mart decided to buy all of your inventory and then used the movie in their arsenal of anti-union tools. You start talking union, the union strike team forces you to watch this movie over and over until you give up. Hell maybe the army would be interested in using it against terrorists.