MONEY FOR NOTHING

D: Sut Jhally.

Documentary Feature Special Screenings, Regional Premiere If you’ve ever wondered why it seems musicians are always complaining about being broke, even when you, your friends, and your friends’ friends have bought all those gold and platinum albums, then Money for Nothing is for you. As part of Noam Chomsky’s Media Education Foundation — an educational foundation at the University of Massachusettes that isn’t half as dry as it sounds — professor and documentary filmmaker Jhally makes short order of the music industry and shows how it systematically deprives all but the most popular pop-culture entertainers of a real wage, career, and the rights to their art. Between Public Enemy’s Chuck D., rock critic Dave Marsh, and Island Record’s Chris Blackwell, Jhally’s digital doc shows how a consortium of mammoth business interests have stifled the creative drive of an entire art form. (3/16, ACC, 10:45pm)

This article appears in March 15 • 2002.

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