Here are Global Spin’s weekend recommendations for rental movies to watch that tell you about present world news. Presented by Ishaan Tharoor and Tony Karon.
The Conversation
The U.K.’s hacking scandal roiled on this week, with News Corporation titans Rupert Murdoch and his son James appearing before a British parliamentary committee. Their testimony may have been overshadowed by the clash between Murdoch’s wife, Wendi Deng, and a comedian who tried to pie him, but the fallout of the scandal still threatens Downing Street and has cast a dark pall over the premiership of David Cameron. It has exposed the cozy intimacies at the very top of Britain’s political life, with politicians, media executives and the police all seemingly in bed together. The scandal stems from the illegal (and horrendously unethical) practice employed by the now shuttered News of the World of having private detectives and journalists hack into phones of unsuspecting subjects of articles. Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation centers on a surveillance expert in California whose trade is this very sort of snooping.-I.T.
Max Manus: Man of War
Norwegians, and all of us who wish them well, will be in need of an uplift this weekend following Friday’s horrific terror attacks in and around Oslo. To that end, we recommend Max Manus: Man of War, believed to be the most expensive Norwegian movie ever made and featuring at least 1,800 extras. It’s the heroic tale of a hero of the Norwegian partisan resistance against the Nazi occupation of Norway in World War II. It’s a tale of derring-do and close shaves, prison breaks, torture and triumph — and also a gritty true-life look at the brutality of war. Still, having suffered through the Nazis, the Norwegians aren’t about to let a handful of fanatic terrorists break their spirit. – T.K.
Beyond Borders
This week, the U.N. declared a famine in Somalia as tens of thousands flee the worst drought in the region for some six decades. The Dadaab refugee camp on the Kenyan border, already the world’s largest, is being overwhelmed by over a thousand new arrivals each day. The international community is scrambling to deploy what resources it can, but humanitarian relief agencies are already complaining of a shortfall of supplies and political will. Beyond Borders, starring Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen, is a somewhat self-indulgent drama of two Westerners committed to humanitarian work. Hopefully, for those struggling to come to the aid of Somalia’s malnourished, their efforts will be somewhat less solipsistic.- I.T.
Fast Food Nation
This weeks news that McDonalds quarterly profits rose a whopping 15% on a massive increase in global sales obliges us to invoke Richard Linklater’s Fast Food Nation, a drama based on Eric Schlosser’s non-fiction investigative book of the same title. It’s a riotous tale of fecal matter finding its way into the patties of the hugely popular “Mickey’s” chain, that probes everything from the hygiene of industrial meat production to mac-jobbing ennui, illegal immigration and more. Of course it’s all fiction, eh? Or, as the movie says, “Do you want lies with that?” – T.K.
Heat
If you haven’t heard, it’s pretty hot right now in the U.S. This movie has nothing to do with a heat wave, but it’s good.
