Fight the Power

Now that the men in brown are back on the road, salute the labor struggles that came before with 1970's The Molly Maguires. It's the Irish sticking it to the man in the coal pits of 1879 Pennsylvania, where though the take-home is twenty-four cents a week, all the positions are full-time. Starring Sean Connery and Richard Harris, it's a face of labor so sooty it should screen at Teamsters meetings, not to mention smoke-out seminars.

But enough about the mail. This century, and this week, the coal mines are closed and the real places to avoid are New York holding cells and Texas pens--and policeman's bathrooms nationwide. Stay out of trouble for a full 150 minutes--and match the candlepower of Connery and Harris with McQueen and Hoffman with the 1973 prison epic Papillon. A good look at Guyana and you'll never jaywalk again. Still fidgety? Catch Paul Newman's two-spot in Cool Hand Luke alongside George Kennedy (who won an Oscar for the role) for cutting the heads off--what was it--gumball machines? Stay away from leaders, and watch your parking meters. I'll see you on the straight and narrow.