New film about WAL-MART

psylent

psylent

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From Robert Greenwald, the maker of Outfoxed.

Dear friends, colleagues, and activists,

NO more secrets! Inspired by the revelation of Deep Throat's identity (well not really), I am pleased to let everyone know that the next film will be all about Wal-Mart, and I mean ALL. After working in secret for months, I am glad we can let you know what is going on and how you can participate and help. However, be aware that we are still keeping many of the specifics about the film quiet as we don't want the Wal-Mart attack machine knowing what we are uncovering. Here is a good article in today's New York Times introducing the film:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/01/movies/01walm.html

And I will be speaking via conference call TONIGHT at 7:30pm at the Democracy for America meetups. It's a great chance to see an exclusive trailer (not seen online or anywhere else!), and hang out with a great group of people. There are over 400 meetups throughout the country. More details are here:

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/meetup/

More than a film, the plan is for WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price to be the catalyst to ignite a movement bringing fairness to the marketplace and ensuring a vibrant future for every family -- not just the Walton family. This is a unique opportunity to unite people across the political spectrum -- extending from family business owners, to teachers, to ministers. Republicans from the midwest echo the sentiments of Democrats on the west coast, all set against the backdrop of gun racks, NRA paraphernalia, and countless American flags. This is a love song to America, a uniting cause for a new millennium.

Thanks for everyone's patience as we had to keep this quiet for a variety of reasons that you can imagine. Now we want you to join us in getting the film finished and distributed. Uncovered and Outfoxed would not have happened without you, and we want and need your help more than ever. Here are 3 ways you can get involved:

1. Donate. It's not been easy taking on the biggest company (and richest family) in the world, so we need all the help we can get raising money. Every day we are inspired as we see the power regular people have when they unite together against Wal-Mart, so we're entrusting you to fund this movie. If you donate $30 or more, I'll send you a free DVD as soon as it's available this fall. Please donate here:

http://www.walmartmovie.com/donate.php

2. Share your video and photos. Specifically, material from local groups fighting Wal-Mart, and before and after shots of communities that have been affected by Wal-Mart. What you send could be really important. The details on how to send video and email photos are here:

http://www.walmartmovie.com/video.php

3. Host a screening. Would-be Hollywood blockbusters book thousands of theaters months in advance hoping for a big opening weekend. But together, we've pioneered a whole new way of getting films out there, and would like to premiere this film in thousands of churches, family businesses, schools, and living rooms the week of November 13th. You don't need to know where the screening will be yet, we just want your commitment that you'll be involved, and spread the word to others. This is the perfect opportunity to brainstorm and think of creative ways to reach people with the film. Please sign up to host a screening here:

http://www.walmartmovie.com/host.php

If you're interested in how the film came to be, I just blogged about it on the Huffington Post this morning.

Lots going on. Lots to do.. Thanks so much for everything you've done, and will do,
Robert Greenwald

P.S. You can check out the brand new WAL-MART movie teaser trailer here:

http://www.walmartmovie.com/
 
Interesting, will be keeping an eye out for this, ta Jase. :D

Sort of on the topic, anybody seen the South Park episode (series 8) Something Walmart This Way Comes? It was inspired by a little town in the US whose citizens reacted strongly against the opening of a Walmart in the town and eventually forced them to pull it down and close all the companies operations there. :cool:
 
It's not totally on topic (sorry Psylent!) but George Monbiot had an interesting article recently about Tesco and their drive to take over the world (only a slight exageration). Theyre apparently using similar tactics to Wal-mart to take over control of UK magazines supply. (though actually it's Asda here who are owned by Wal-mart).
 
Hey Sean,

I read all of Monbiot's articles, and the one about Tesco and newspaper distribution is somewhat concerning. And let's not be confused Tesco and Walmart are two very similar beasts.
 
Along the same line RedZebra, I've seen my local Co-op drive a few local newsagents out of business recently and have heard the same story repeated from a few other areas too. It's obviously not the same as controlling what's in the media itself, but it's about controlling who sells it. Anyway the scheme goes like this:

They start to stock magazines and newspapers, which never tend to do too well against local newsagents at first as their range isn't as good and they really have no knowledge of them or ability to order what you want, but then they get in the Delice De France (or similar) range of breads/cakes/croissants etc stick them right in the entrance next to the papers/magazines and sell them real cheap for a while... it apparently first becomes noticeable on saturdays and sundays when more people will make an effort to pick them up for a "fancy breakfast" and buy the weekend papers whilst they're there. After a long enough period of breaking people away from their local newsagents, the newsagents begin to suffer badly and if they're unlucky end up closing down. Not long after the newsagents are bust, the Delice de France fancy goods are removed from the Co-op never to be seen again and all the other low cost part baked croissants etc they used to stock either jump in price again or are replaced by Co-op own brand ones at an even higher price than the quality ones were at before. By then it doesn't matter because there's now nobody but them to buy your papers from close by...


I find this all the more disturbing as the Co-op has always been seen as one of the more ethical chains/organisations.
 
grokit23 said:
I find this all the more disturbing as the Co-op has always been seen as one of the more ethical chains/organisations.
Click to expand...

I was just going to ask. Isn'Aren't the "co-op" meant to be the good guys?

Jason
 
co-op do do some good things, like all their bags are 100% recycled.. still down the road from our co-op the cash and carry closed down, and they didn't have recycled bags so im with co-op on this one ;)
 
Well they're supposed to be... but then I'm realising more and more that so many of their business practises don't exactly reflect that at all, at least as far as I can see with my local one and the one in the town that I work in anyway.
 
Ant said:
co-op do do some good things, like all their bags are 100% recycled.. still down the road from our co-op the cash and carry closed down, and they didn't have recycled bags so im with co-op on this one ;)
Click to expand...

I'm not knocking all of their practises, I'm fully with them on the adoption of more and more in the way of fair trade products and recycling etc, just that I'm noticing more and more how so many of the things they're doing in my area are about forcing other local businesses out and not at all about putting the customer and locals first.

*whinge over*
 
People are strange creatures.
A co-op took over an old Costcutter type of store on our street, but still no-one went there until they totally renovated it and made it nice and shiney with nice lights (but fewer products) and now people line up there to shop in preference to the local Indian-run type store.

*shrug*
 
hehe

Especially like this from the last few paragraphs:



Opposition to some of Wal-Mart's employment practices has affected its store building programme.

In California, local residents blocked the building of a store in Inglewood in protest at the firms employment practises. "The company recently has encountered real difficulties in expanding and creating new stores ... reputation issues can very much hurt the company," Ms Litvack said.
 
i love wally world!
 
psylent said:
I was just going to ask. Isn'Aren't the "co-op" meant to be the good guys?

Jason
Click to expand...

though the co-op are probably the good guys, they are a buisness (of a sort)

and, sadly, the way of the mordern world is that buisnesses are designed to MAKE MONEY.
This is a long way from the original idea of the co-op, which was to provide cheap, locally produced food without making a profit as such. As they increase in size, the drive to make money increases - there's no point opening a branch if that branch is going to loose money to other local competition.. not to say that they are deliberatly trying to kill their competitors - it's your fault for not spreading yourself around: go to the co-op one day, to the local corner shop the next day, to the other local corner shop after that.. or better yet, grow everything you eat. Not entirely realistic, but thats where its at..

however, the co-op *are* the good guys, and they do do a lot of good (check out their statement of principles on their website: http://www.co-op.co.uk) so maybe if someone tells them about the problems they cause, they might listen.. though they don't have much to say on their role in the local community:

"The Co-op is part of the community and actively contributes to the well-being of the communities it serves."

not exaclty specific, is it?
 
An update from Mr Greenwald. The movie is a couple of months away.

Dear activists, colleagues, and friends: After spending almost the entire summer in the editing room working with four incredible editors, we've finally finished the film. We're getting ready to master the DVD now, and it's chock full of extras: three bonus sections, two behind the scenes features, a shorter 20 minute version of the film, an organizing video, and a slew of fun commercials mocking Wal-Mart's expensive ads.

We just started taking pre-orders for the DVD, you can get yours for $12.95. I'd like to see Wal-Mart beat that price!

http://www.walmartmovie.com/buy.php

One of the major challenges we have is balancing out Wal-Mart's endless promoting of its "good works" with $1.4 billion-a-year in advertising, much of it on television. We can't compete with that kind of budget, so we rely on you to spread the word to your friends, colleagues, and email lists about the real company Wal-Mart spends billions to hide. But you need something clever to show people, right?

So we put together a series of parody commercials mocking Wal-Mart's spots. They spend nearly $4 million every day.. we spent a hundred bucks. But with your help, we can have a big impact. Here are the first two ads:

1. The Gospel According to Sam Walton: Ever since their friends started working for Wal-Mart, Bob and Wendy haven't seen them much. Features James Cromwell and Frances Fisher.

2. Betty's Diet Plan: Betty's job at Wal-Mart has done wonders for her physique.

We'll be rolling out more ads and clips from the film on WM*TV in the next few weeks as we head into premiere week on November 13th. If you have short videos, commercials or video blogs about Wal-Mart that you think would be good for WM*TV, please send them our way, and we'll take a look. You can suggest a video here:

http://www.walmartmovie.com/wmtv/suggest.php

Best,
Robert Greenwald

P.S. If you want to surprise your entire neighborhood with early Christmas presents this November, pre-order a box of 30 DVDs. It's only $240, which is like buying 18.5 and getting 11.5 for free! Re-selling these is also a great way for family-owned retail stores to make a point about Wal-Mart and make a little money too.

http://www.walmartmovie.com/buy.php
 
Hey Ali, trust you to be lurking aorund here!

The video worked fine for me. Do you have QuickTime installed? You also have to press play!(a Quicktime thing!)
 
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