Pay 2 Play (2014)

Director: John Ennis
Run Time: 97 min.
Call Number: JK2249 .P39 2014

". . . director John Ennis is interested in doing more than getting people riled up. 'How do we get past the pay-to-play system?' he asks in a voice-over narration. 'Because I’m ready to be a board flipper.' That reference is to the Monopoly game and tossing all the pieces on the floor when you’re losing. Ennis uses the Hasbro game and its cartoon mascot, the mustachioed Uncle Pennybags, as a leitmotif throughout the film. In his view, the spirit of Monopoly — the player with the most money wins — is emblematic of what’s wrong with government today."

—Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post

Big Men (2015)

Title: Big Men
Director: Rachel Boynton
Call Number:  HD9577.G42 B54 2015

"Not for nothing does 'Big Men,' Rachel Boynton’s astonishing documentary about the 2007 discovery of oil off the coast of Ghana, open with a quotation on greed from the economist Milton Friedman. Dropping us into a perfect storm of avarice, this cool and incisive snapshot of global capitalism at work is as remarkable for its access as for its refusal to judge. . . . Tagging neither heroes nor villains, Ms. Boynton wonders instead who benefits from, and who is harmed by, the billions of dollars in play. Should the enormous risks and staggering costs of getting to 'first oil' guarantee its finder—in this case, a small Texas start-up called Kosmos Energy—a sweetheart deal from the Ghanaian government? The amiable chief executive of Kosmos at the time, Jim Musselman, certainly hopes so; eager to satisfy his corporate backers, and with Ms. Boynton’s camera in tow, he schmoozes with West African royalty and glad-hands middlemen." 
—Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times

You've Been Trumped (2013)

Director: Anthony Baxter
Run Time: 100 min.

"...what does not seem at all like business as usual is the astonishing lengths Trump's allies go to make sure that his will is obeyed down to the smallest detail. 'You've Been Trumped' is a potent study of the intimidating power of money not in theory but on the ground, an examination of how a wealthy man with a boundless sense of entitlement can strong-arm all opposition without really breaking a sweat."
—Kenneth Turan, L.A. Times

A Place at the Table (2013)

Directors:  Kristi Jacobson , Lori Silverbush

Run Time: 98 min.

"50 million people in the U.S. - one in four children - don't know where their next meal is coming from, despite our having the means to provide nutritious, affordable food for all Americans. Directors Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush examine this issue through the lens of three people who are struggling with food insecurity: Barbie, a single Philadelphia mother who grew up in poverty and is trying to provide a better life for her two kids; Rosie, a Colorado fifth-grader who often has to depend on friends and neighbors to feed her and has trouble concentrating in school; and Tremonica, a Mississippi second-grader whose asthma and health issues are exacerbated by the largely empty calories her hardworking mother can afford."
—A Place at the Table film jacket

Detropia (2013)

Directors: Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady
Run Time: 91 min.

“In 1930 Detroit was the fastest growing city in the world. Today it’s the fastest-shrinking city, with families fleeing every day. That’s one of the sobering facts shared in Detropia, the powerful 2012 documentary about the once-thriving Motor City. Though the economy has affected all of us, what has happened to Detroit is particularly dramatic and shocking.”
– Whitney Matheson, USA Today, May 24, 2013