Product Description

Everyone has seen Wal-Mart's lavish television commercials, but have you ever wondered why Wal-Mart spends so much money trying to convince you it cares about your family, your community, and even its own employees? What is it hiding?

WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price takes you behind the glitz and into the real lives of workers and their families, business owners and their communities, in an extraordinary journey that will challenge the way you think, feel... and shop.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2347 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-11-15
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Full length, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Subtitled in: Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 95 minutes

About the Actor
Robert Greenwald is the director/producer of "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" (2004), a documentary exposing the right-wing bias of Fox News. The film was initially distributed via internet DVD sales, but strong viewer demand led to an unusual post-DVD theatrical release in the summer of 2004. His new documentary is "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" set for release in November 2005.

Greenwald is also the executive producer of a trilogy of "Un" documentaries: "Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election" (2002), directed by Richard Ray Perez and Joan Sekler; "Uncovered: The Iraq War (2003)", directed by Greeenwald; and "Unconstitutional" (2004), directed by Nonny de la Pena, about the post 9/11 erosion of American civil liberties.

In addition to his documentary work, Greenwald has produced and/or directed more than 50 television movies, miniseries and feature films, including: The Book of Ruth (2004), based on the best selling book by Jane Hamilton; The Crooked E: The Unshredded Truth About Enron (2003); Blonde, a miniseries based on Joyce Carol Oates' fictionalized biography of Marilyn Monroe; The Burning Bed, starring Farrah Fawcett as an abused housewife; Our Guys, based on the true story of a rape in a small town; Shattered Spirits, starring Martin Sheen, about alcoholism; Forgotten Prisoners, about the work of Amnesty International; and Hiroshima.

Greenwald also produced and directed the feature film, Steal This Movie, starring Vincent D'Onofrio as 60's radical Abbie Hoffman, as well as Breaking Up, starring Russell Crowe and Salma Hayek.

Greenwald's films have garnered 25 Emmy nominations, four cable ACE Award nominations, two Golden Globe nominations, the Peabody Award, the Robert Wood Johnson Award, and eight Awards of Excellence from the Film Advisory Board. He was awarded the 2002 Producer of the Year Award by the American Film Institute. Greenwald is the recipient of awards and honors for his political work by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California; the L.A. chapter of the National Lawyers Guild; Physicians for Social Responsibility; and the Office of the Americas. He is a co-founder (with Danny and Victor Goldberg) of RDV Books, as well as the co-founder (with Mike Farrell) of "Artists United," a group of actors and others opposed to the war in Iraq, which continues to work toward publicizing progressive causes. Greenwald also has lectured at Harvard University for the Nieman Fellows Foundation for Journalism.

Customer Reviews

dishes the dirt on Sprawl-Mart
Would it surprise anyone to know that Wal-Mart disputed the factual accuracy of some statements made in this film? LOL. I expected them to say, "Yes, we are a ruthless, souless, corporation driven simply by pure greed, our neverending mission being to open more and more stores around the globe while destroying all competition and increasing profits forever and ever until the return of Jesus. Amen". You know what? I would at least respect that answer. It might actually work. But of coarse what they ended up doing was creating a public relations "war room" (-their term. Btw, "public relations" replaced the term "propaganda" to describe the exact same practices after the latter term became so tainted as to no longer be usable.)in late 2005 specificly to discredit this fair and objective -but passionate- critic of their business practices. On the same day as the release of THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE Wal-Mart released a DVD film defending its practices entitled WHY WAL-MART WORKS; AND WHY THAT DRIVES SOME PEOPLE C-R-A-Z-Y ("Crazy" already written in all caps with hyphens). A very funny and highly ironic incedent latter occured with the director of the pro-Wal-Mart propaganda, Ron Galloway. Galloway publicly criticised Wal-Mart for it's disgusting labor practices stating, "They just instituted a wage cap for long-term employees--people making between thirteen and eighteen dollars an hour. It's a form of accelerated attrition. They can't expect me to defend that." Heh, well you just gotta love that one.

This is an important film because Wal-Mart is the biggest public corporation by revenue in the entire world, the biggest private employer in the world, and the fourth biggest utility employer. They are also now the biggest grocery store in America and the biggest toy seller. They also run and own Sam's Club. So, it is only the right thing to do as a consumer AND a citizen to give a fair hearing to the critics and their arguments.

How much scrutiny has the world's biggest corporation received by our major media institutions? We have heard much more from Wal-Mart in their ubiquitous TV advertisements and cheerful right-wing pundits on the wonderful benefits to America and the world of Wal-Mart's business model. With WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE we get the other side of the story, and I'd argue a more accurate one.

Where you spend matters.
Good movie that should make people think about the power of their spending dollars.

Wal-Mart is as dirty as they come. Watch this movie and see what they don't want you to think about.

Somewhat repetetive and tedious
The topic is very interesting and the stories of the victims were interesting and instructive. Multiple views of the same shot were tedious. I began to feel that I was being treated as a rather dim bulb.