** ""You and I wouldn't be talking right now if it weren't for La Bamba - and to do what I love and be given these opportunities. Or something that actually touches people, like 'The 33' about the Chilean miners - that was a huge honor for me."

Get Fast, Conjuring Ritchie Valens For La Bamba, Che, Stand And Deliver - and among the triumphant copper coal miners trapped underground in the real life survival drama, The 33: Conversations With Lou Diamond Phillips. While the Asian, white and Indigenous actor of color talks surviving racial stereotypical casting in Hollywood by well - playing all of them.

Phillips also delves into getting in touch with his inner villain for Get Fast - likewise sharing thoughts about the state of the world today that may be drawing the masses to crime and chaos on screen, in figuring out the dark side of the universe at the movies - and what Gregory Peck told the actor about Phillips reminding him of Anthony Quinn.

** "Let me tell you a true story - I don't care if you believe it or not..."

Pacifica Host Garland Nixon on his time at Fox News, and what it has to do with the Epstein files. In other words - a hen in the Fox House. Plus, 'MAGA people apparently burning their red hats - I love to see anybody realize they've been took, they've been had, they've been hoodwinked...'

** "You ain't seen nothing yet..."

Union: A continuing conversation with investigative filmmakers Brett Story and Stephen Maing - fighting for the first union representation ever in the nation from an Amazon workplace. While 'we'll explore strategy, the international scene - and what the possible win of Zorhan Mamdani for NYC mayor, might mean for labor...'

** I'd like to talk about Hollywood and its involvement in politics...''

                                 Marked Woman...

The Five Minute Marxist. This week's episode...All In The Family - who is Vera Caspary, and cinematic revelations linking McCarthyism, film noir back then, metaphorical plot points intimating accusations and incriminating lists - and genocide in Gaza today. The case of the Caspary film, Laura - and the mystery underground Laura screenwriter counted among the imprisoned Hollywood Ten. Broadcasting from the art and activism Red Star Cafe in Red Iowa. 

Art Work: Peter Wise

Lilly: Diving Into The Glut Of Superhero-Saturated Cinema, A Workplace Feminist  Slips In

A dramatically subtle but determined docudrama immersed in the late Lilly Ledbetter's real life challenge to the shortchanging of working women when it comes to gender discriminating salaries, Lilly places its soft spoken but resolute challenger to the way things are and always have been - portrayed with unwavering delicacy by Patricia Clarkson, up against the repressive corporate workplace.  

Conceived in a circular fashion, a concept centering the victimized protagonist in the swirl of contemporary political events both impeding and advancing her cause of income equality playing out all around her through the years - and that led ultimately to the Congressional passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. 

Though this double edged sword not only has limited impact by narrowing the gender wage gap only slightly in subsequent years, while not conceived to address the pressing issues of workplace discrimination and retaliation. But in terms of the film celebrating this heroic woman on screen - that Ledbetter tragically passed away two days after the Lilly debut at the Hampton's Film Festival on October 12, 2024, and the theatrical release months later on May 9th this year.

And while politically challenging the Goodyear Tire plant in her native Alabama was a milestone in the struggle for working women's rights, her anti-corporate lawsuit against them was inevitably lost . And notably in an anti-union 'right to work' red state, in the midst of mass rights setbacks currently across the nation.

And in that regard, the most dramatiically striking moments in the film could have been enhanced by film noir stylistically - including Lilly's car run off the road, her room mysteriously trashed by clearly intimidating corporate operatives, and politicians similarly controlled cynically behind the scenes, by the Goodyear and other corporate lobbyists pulling their strings and financially determining their rise in power.

Though on a commendable and inevitably not so surprising Rotten Tomatoes, clearly class divide practice that gives equal weight to the critics ratings and those characterized as mass appeal 'popcornmeter' reviews - the critics snubbed Lilly, while audiences clearly related personally to the political intent, with their 92 percent accolade consensus.

Prairie Miller