Fast Food Nation
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.92 You Save: $9.06 (60%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $2.20 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Fast Food Nation
Movie Review: "The Jungle" Revisited
Summary: 5 Stars
I was somewhat surprised that they decided to make this into a fictional drama rather than a straight documentary of the book. After watching it, however, I'm very glad they did!
Fast Food Nation is phenomenal, not just because of it's message, but as a film. The characters are real and engaging and the directorial work was excellent. The acting was also superb, and I was not expecting performances by Bruce Willis and some other well-known celebs. The actor who played the character "Fez" from "That 70's Show" has a leading role and proves that he has ample talent for dramatic as well as comedic projects.
The film also works excellently as a piece of social commentary. This is the modern day cinematic equivalent to Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle". This is not just limited to fast food; it's about the wider issue of the corporate consumerist society we now live in ("the machine" as it's referred to in the movie). We not only see the ugly underbelly of fast food, of the disfigured reality of the shared pursuit of the modern American Dream. The film criticizes our "bigger is better" culture of greed and takes a rather harsh look at how exploitative that ethos really is. The extent of subjects this film touches on is much wider than I anticipated, and before one labels this film as having a purely "liberal" or "left wing" message, he or she would do well to actually view it with an open mind. There are actually quite a few social statements present that a lot of rural conservatives I know would tend to agree with.
The film is informative and vividly honest about the fast food industry, while also asking us to question the morality and the virtues of a civilization based on mass consumption rather than integrity. These sociological components are alluded to in the context of the plot and terrific use of imagery and symbolism (such as a wonderful scene where the cows don't try to escape even after the fence has been cut: they are complacent in their existence because their sad existences are all they know and they have been bred to accept this reality).
All in all, I thought this film really impressed me.
Movie Review: Two Sisters
Summary: 5 Stars
In this zesty, exuberant telenovela of a family turned on itself, two sisters battle it out for control of their heritage and their destiny. Exciting Mexican superstar Ana Claudia Talancon headlines an international cast as Coco, a life-affirming young woman with big dreams, who doesn't mind using her sensational body and classically beautiful face to help her get her way. Life's too short, is Coco's motto, and she proves it by entering the US illegally, via a thirty-six hour border crossing led by everyone's best friend Luis Guzman. Once her feet are firmly on US soil, Coco quickly finds work at a food processing plant where she encounters tall, smoldering foreman Mike (Bobby Cannavale, from TV's WILL AND GRACE) and their passion lights up the screen!
But even closer to her is her staid, repressed older sister Silvia (Catalina Sandino Moreno, Colombian-born Oscar nominee for MARIA FUILL OF GRACE), who has perhaps the more difficult role as a woman who loves her sister dearly but hates the choices she's making. Silvia has a stable, loving relationship with Wilmer Valderrama, as if such a thing were possible with the notorious Hollywood heartthrob, and leaves the food service industry to work as a maid in a local hotel, learning the tricks of the trade from a kindly older woman who oversees her entrance into the hospitality business. Meanwhile Coco slides into drugs as she and Mike carry on their extracurricular affair to the despair of her family.
In the film's most shocking scene, Coco and Silvia really get into it in the beautifully furnished apartment Silvia shares with Raul, while he watches open-mouthed at the shocking crevasse he sees developing between the two sisters. Where's the love, he wonders? I don't want to reveal any spoilers, for this is the kind of meaty, full blooded soap opera that Maria Felix and Dolores Del Rio might once have acted in, while Richard Linklater once again proves that he is the finest US "women's director" since the heyday of Sirk and Cukor.
Movie Review: A brilliant mutli-layered exploration of human beings linked by the fast food business
Summary: 5 Stars
"Fast Food Nation" is a superb reworking of Eric Schlosser's 2001 book by Schlosser and director Richard Linklater.
Set mostly in and around the fictional town of Cody on the Mexican-American border, "Fast Food Nation" follows three story threads all linked by the fast food business.
Mickey's burger chain has a problem - fecal matter in its burger patties -so it sends out its new marketing manager Don Henderson (Greg Kinnear) to find out what is going on at the meat packing plant that supplies all their patties.
Uni-Globe Meat Packers employes many illegal Mexican immigrants. The immigrants are exploited and brutalised by a the company - treated little better than the animals processed at the plant. An evil supervisor at the factory Mike (Bobby Cannavale) drives around in a red pickup, treats the Mexicans with contempt, and coerces women staff members into sex - he is like the devil himself and the factory can be seen as a kind of hell for the animals and workers.
Amber (Ashley Johnson) works on the counter at the Mickey's restaurant in Cody oblivious to the evils of the nearby meat-packing plant. Through some college friends and her uncle she is slowly awakened to the plight of the workers and animals, and prompted to take action.
"Fast Food Nation" features a number of brilliant cameos by Kris Kristofferson (rancher), Bruce Willis (tough company negotiator) and Ethan Hawke (Amber's uncle) but the entire cast is excellent. It also features a great score from "The Friends of Dean Martinez".
"Fast Food Nation" succeeds because - save for the evil supervisor Mike - it doesn't paint the good and bad guys in black and white. A brilliant, multi-layered film from creators Linklater and Schlosser.
Movie Review: Entertaining and Enlightening
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie was very well done and accessible. The fiction format appeals to a broader movie-watching audience than a documentary would, yet it's the way things really ARE. Whether you're a Democrat or Republican, a minimum-wage earner or a business owner, a citizen or an immigrant, the fact is that we all eat, we all want clean food and decent, safe jobs, and we all have hopes and dreams for our future and a better life.
The last scene was especially symbolic, and wrapped up the film beautifully, when the immigrant Mexican children were told, "Welcome to the United States," and handed Mickey's kids' meals. It portends a future of laboring in service to the corporate food machine, and it sadly represents what America has become: McDepotMart from sea to polluted sea.
The scene of the slaughterhouse killing floor made me cry and gag. Yet, for those who say it's too disturbing, my answer is that you should be disturbed, because it's reality and you're eating it and buying into it. Vegetarianism is no longer a cultural oddity or a liberal movement. It's a way of eating with mindfulness and attention to the truth, and with a respect for your body, animal life, the environment, and hard-working people. If this movie didn't affect you and at least make you swear off fast food, you're sadly in denial.
Movie Review: Fast Food Nation Movie - Awakening & Inspiring
Summary: 5 Stars
I wouldn't be surprised if big businesses, lobbyists and activists begin to rally against this film. It makes a strong and profound statement about the state of our culture, how corporations disguise the elements that go into our fast food, from cheap immigrant labor to unhealthy diseases, so that we as consumers aren't distracted from buying a 'happy' meal.
I hadn't read the book, but saw the movie. At first I thought was a documentary, but it's in fact a fictional version of the book, which makes it more effective in tying together all the aspects of the fast food industry (there's 3 stories: A 'Mickey's' Marketing Exec, some Immigrant workers at the meat packing plant and teenagers who work in the restaurant).
The best part of the movie is the scene with Bruce Willis, who balances any amount of preachiness or left wing diatribes this film may seem to have (which it doesn't... at least not too much). He has one line that stuck with me, saying something about the immigrant workers like, "they make more up here in a day than they would in a whole month. Isn't that what the American dream is all about?"
I think this movie balances the politics, business and reality in a way that we've never seen in filmmaking before, and it tells more 'truth' through fiction.