Okay folks, I promised everyone a docu-comedy for our next film and I'm a man of my word. It's an amazingly hilarious film that hits all the right levels. If you attend one more Films For Action screening this year, make it this one. :) It's not to be missed. - Tim
HSBC, one of the biggest banks on the planet, has taken to calling itself "The world's local bank." Winn-Dixie, a 500-outlet supermarket chain, recently launched an ad campaign under the tagline "Local flavor since 1956." The International Council of Shopping Centers, a global consortium of mall owners and developers, is pouring millions of dollars into television ads urging people to "Shop...
Deconstructionist philosopher Avital Ronell teaches that a few generations ago European travelers in the Swiss Alps found the sight of the mountain peaks so overwhelming that they equipped their carriages with special screens to block their view. They looked through tinted glasses to mediate the experience of raw nature. Today, standing in the Alps or outside our home, we no longer rely on...
Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the...
It’s kind of funny that for several years being an atheist I still celebrated Christmas because that’s what I’d always done. The last several years I’ve been gradually winding down my participation. I still love to gather and celebrate with family and friends, but each year I buy less. This year I have come the whole way – a total Buy ...
Take the one week Debrand your life challenge: If you have a problem with shopping, you’re obsessed by brands, or you just want to make life cheaper and easier, try following these tips for a less branded lifestyle. 1. Avoid advertising Have you ever started reading a glossy magazine feeling good about yourself, only to finish the thing feeling fat, unfashionable and poor? Advertising...
Suddenly, we ran out of money and, to avoid collapse, we quickly pumped liquidity back into the system. But behind our financial crisis a much more ominous crisis looms: we are running out of nature… fish, forests, fresh water, minerals, soil. What are we going to do when supplies of these vital resources run low?There’s only one way to avoid the collapse of this human experiment of ours on...
One week before Buy Nothing Day focuses the attention of activists around the world on the perils of overconsumption, groundbreaking economist, Herman Daly, zeroes in on the root cause of our financial meltdown.
We’ve reached a point in our civilization where counterculture has mutated into a self-obsessed aesthetic vacuum. So while hipsterdom is the end product of all prior countercultures, it’s been stripped of its subversion and originality, and is leaving a generation pointlessly obsessing over fashion, faux individuality, cultural capital and the commodities of style.
Two cups of McDonald’s iced coffee (BUY!) sit on a Fox TV news desk, a punch-you-in-the-face product placement (BUY!) to chase down your morning news. The funny thing is, the coffee is not actually real. The Las Vegas Sun comments on a growing trend in news stations across the country.
What's most striking about the Convention bag -- aside, of course, from its stunning design -- is how the parties no longer bother even trying to hide who it is who funds and sponsors them.
Do small steps actually lead anywhere? We all know the theory that small steps lead to bigger steps, which lead in turn to real change. And there are certainly a lot of small steps on offer these days, from the latest home energy tracker to the solar bikini. But it's not at all clear that the ready abundance of small steps is actually making any difference. Indeed, between greenwashing and green...
The price of one of those venti frou-frou caramel abortion lattes you can get at the neighborhood beanery equals about 10 days worth of wages for an Ethiopian toiling in the Addis Ababa coffee trade. In our junkie’s pursuit to ride the brown serpent, the 2-billion-cups-a-day coffee habit of the global community is borne on the backs of farmers and packagers in developing countries.
A spoof praising the marvelous wonders of consuming green to help fight climate change.
STOP SHOPPING TO GO GREEN: This November, environmentalists, social activists and concerned citizens in as many as 65 countries will hit the streets for a 24-hour consumer fast in celebration of the 15th annual Buy Nothing Day, a global cultural phenomenon that originated in Vancouver, Canada.