Customer Reviews

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price

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Usually, when a book is published to coincide with the release of a documentary film, the book contains details and information that serve to flesh out the synoptic look that the documentary format provides. If you're looking for that sort of book here, I'm sorry, my friend. This is the wrong book.

Instead of looking at the information stored in the movie, this is a making-of document. It goes point-by-point through initial research and primary shooting up to about halfway through post-production. Also there are little pointers interspersed through the film on how to make politically motivated documentaries, in case the reader wants to be the Cecil B. DeMille of political harangues.

I'm sure there are people who are interested in the internal controversies that accompanied designing the poster for this film. I'm sure some people are interested on why one of the principal interviews, with a former Wal-Mart manager, takes place in a car and looks so incredibly cramped. But that's not why I bought this book, and that's probably not why you're considering it. This is E! True Hollywood Story stuff, not the content of a companion volume for a political diatribe.

Where this should be a book of hard facts that can be used in arguments against the continued invasion of the Wal-Martians, instead we get backlot gossip and pelf. Perhaps another book is in the offing in the near future, containing a more detailed look at the information in the movie. In the meantime, unless you hope to be a documentarian yourself, save your money. This isn't the book for which you're looking.

It is how they made the movie and their struggle to get it out. I guess it may help those hoping to do the same thing.

I learned of the subject matter through my brother, who advised me that I "had to" learn about this information. I went to Amazon to buy the book, admittedly not scanning the reviews first. Big mistake. This book involves a behind the scenes at the "making of" the documentary film. It does not discuss with any great detail the issues or criticisms of Walmart, which is what I was really looking to know. As anxious as I was to receive and read the book, I am disappointed now. If anyone is interested in these issues, it would be my advice to get and watch the film---do not buy this book.

First of all, I don't have an agenda regarding Walmart. I'm not a fan, and I avoid shopping at Walmart when I can. Living in a small town, sometimes Walmart is the only option when an item is needed immediately.

Some casual browsers may be confused by the cover of this book...it is NOT about Walmart, rather it's primary purpose is detailing the making of the film/DVD "Wal*Mart - The High Cost of Low Prices".

After the first few pages of the book, it becomes quite obvious that Greg Spots (the book's author) is an enthusiastic fan of film director Robert Greenwald. Nearly every page celebrates the director in some way. The book is interesting in that it explains how an "attack film" can be constructed, but ends up sounding like a "fan-zine". I have not seen the film, but there is zero effort on behalf of the director and producers to present a balance in their research and reporting.

The "Walmart-haters" might find some value in sifting through these 220 pages, but I think most readers will grow bored rather quickly.

At the time of this review, the best "used" price on Amazon was 39-cents...maybe even cheaper at Walmart!

This companion to Robert Greenwald's documentary WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE provides a behind-the-scenes focus on both the making of the film and the grass-roots pressure campaign challenging the world's biggest business. Greenwald and his crew went on a nine-month underground investigation kept secret from Wal-Mart as they put together their film: Spotts received unlimited access to the filmmakers and reveals their tactics, objectives, and how political filmmaking is changing businesses and the film world alike. It's hard to easily categorize this book - it could just as easily have been featured in our film column - but businesses shouldn't miss the discussion of the film methods and focus, which hold wide-reaching implications for future political film surveys of business inner circles.

Yes! I have finally found it! A book that is WORSE than the movie. After believing for years that books were always better than the movie, I have finally been proven wrong! SO wrong!

I haven't actually seen the movie, but it can't possibly be any worse than the book I just forced myself to read through to the end.

A while back, I bought a bunch of books on some sort of clearance sale for cheap (this makes me feel a little better, knowing that I didn't spend too much on this book). Anyway, by the cover, I thought for sure this book would be informative and interesting. The title? Walmart: the high cost of low price. It had to be good, right? I mean a book slamming the place I hate most! I know a lot of people hate Walmart because it comes in to a city, and forces small businesses to close. I know that Walmart will sell items below their local competitors cost, and when they are trying to win the market on a certain product, they will even sell below THEIR cost. So, this book seemed like it would be a great source of facts and research on how horrible the company is. I was hoping that the book would further support my extreme hatred of the place that just the mention of will put me in a bad mood, besides my argument that the place is full of idiots.

So, I open the book. As with all books, I force myself through the foreword, insisting that some day, I WILL find something interesting in a foreword. As with most books, I am disappointed. The foreword is written by the producer of the movie, Robert, and he just goes on and on and on and on and on and on about him making this movie, or documentary.

Chapter 1, it HAS to get better. It doesn't, now the author, Greg, goes on and on and on and on and on and on about how Robert is making this documentary. Okay, so they're making a movie! Great! Now Chapter 2, NOW they'll get to the dirt on Walmart, right? No. Chapter 3? No. Chapter 4? No! Chapter 16? NO! The whole damn book was about Robert and his cronies making a movie. Of 217 pages, it finally got a teency bit interesting on page 156 (however that might have been induced by my knowledge that the book was almost over). Then around page 183, it died again. And by page 200, I couldn't force myself to pay attention.

I finally finished the book, but still have no factual dirt on Walmart. I guess I've gotta get the movie for that. Or is the movie about Greg writing this book?

Wow - what a great window into the new docs that seem to be springing up like mushrooms in response to the political and social issues of the day. Along with Michael Moore, there's no doubt that Robert Greenwald is the leading director in the genre and this book provides a fascinating insider's account of his process, both on the making of the film and the making of the grass roots campaign promoting it and the larger effort to push Wal-Mart to change its business practices. Top Marks - Highly Recommended!

Unfortunately this book was a waste of money & as a piece of literature a distinct waste of time & effort. Little wonder it was brand new & $3.99.
We were trying to do unbiased research on the WalMart effect but of all the books we bought & reviewed this particular book was very disappointing and lacked any substance.
It was no more than a stroke the poor film-makers ego and why it was necessary to infiltrate WalMart with an 'embedded employee' with significant bias to "reveal" how tough it is to work for a living at the bottom of the employment food chain. They admit it was difficult to find current employees willing to talk out about the perceived 'evils of the anti-Union employee enslaving company'. You will always find the disgruntled ex employee whom of course they admitted exploiting to the limit. Any service industry employment that low on the social pay scale is nothing but self imposed slavery regardless of who the 'company' is.
I could go on but it would be a waste of time as was the time spent struggling to finish reading this book.