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Ever since it opened the Cannes Film Festival, Fernando Meirelles’ BLINDNESS has been getting love it or hate it reviews. The premise has the world going blind and the infected are put in a closed-off hospital. One might expect allegories for seeing people for who they are and not what they look like. But the story, based on José Saramago’s novel, tackles much harsher, bleak and nuanced issues than simple racism, ageism and the like. I haven’t seen a mainstream non-horror film go to such dark places before. I foresee many expecting a simple thriller, walking out, demanding their money back. But for the more thoughtful and/or strong-willed viewer, this devastating and powerful film will have you talking for days.

In a very existential move, the characters have no proper names. The first blind man (Yusuke Iseya, CASSHERN) is driving when all of a sudden everything goes white. Everyone he encounters afterward and then everyone they encounter suffers the same fate. The one exception is the wife (Julianne Moore, BOOGIE NIGHTS) of his eye doctor (Mark Ruffalo, YOU CAN COUNT ON ME), who is the first to be put into quarantine by the government. His wife claims she is blind and comes along with him. Soon more and more people are quarantined. No doctors or staff are there to help. Men in hazmat suits drop off food each day and don’t take kindly to infected coming toward them. Scared of the increasing chaos, the doctor’s wife keeps her sight a secret.

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Check Out the Trailer

Mike Judge’s workplace satire is a very perceptive look at the cubicle corporate culture. Pointless bureaucracy. Middle-management morons. Blind downsizing. Faux company morale. He tackles it all with a sarcastic wit. In many ways it’s a modern revenge fantasy for the white-collar working stiff’s desire to stick it to the Man.

Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston, BAND OF BROTHERS) is the definition of disgruntled employee. His disdain for his job leads him to find every way to avoid really doing it. His workplace friends Michael Bolton, yeah he gets that a lot, (David Herman, TV’s KING OF THE HILL) and Samir Nagheenanajar (Ajay Naidu, SCARY MOVIE 3) look at their jobs as just a job they do to make a paycheck. Peter’s boss Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole, TALLADEGA NIGHTS) is a smarmy SOB, who always makes his employees come in on the weekend, never listens to them, and makes them do pointless redundant work. During a therapy session, Peter realizes that he is tired of living his life by other people’s rules and decides to do what he wants all the time. If he wants to not go to work, he won’t go. If he wants to ask out the pretty waitress Joanna (Jennifer Aniston, TV’s FRIENDS), he’s going to ask her out. When the company threatens lay-offs, Peter, along with Michael and Samir, devise a plan to get back at the company.

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