The Alabama Solution

At last, a genuinely political (and legitimately entertaining) movie, the decoupage of which achieved its genesis in a politically democratic way. In other words, the filmmakers constructed their film from the material of lived life broadcast from Alabama prisons by real prisoners via smuggled cell phones. (It's the first time I've seen the vertical aspect ratio of mobile phones used successfully in a feature film.) Objects intended to exploit powerlessness and isolation end up being used against the exploitative system — a delicious kind of irony absent in damp, dirty wash rags like One Battle After Another. Despite the ultimate failure of the prisoners' strike, it's still inspiring as all hell, more so than the downbeat and disappointing Union, which is mostly about how Chris Smalls's ego got in the way of worker organizing at Amazon.