Fast Food Nation
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Movie Reviews of Fast Food Nation
Movie Review: Not really that funny, the F.F.N.
Summary: 4 Stars
Having gotten into the subject of meat-packing a few years back (now I'm on the Holocaust...it's always something like that), I read Schlosser's book by the same title and thought it to be good coverage of that topic plus a lot more, such as human taste and how it's manipulated.
But this film has a hard time really carrying the impact of the book, being just a loose association with an attempt at comedy. You know, just like with "Thank You for Smoking", there are only a few who can do a really good comic documentary...maybe Linklater thinks he's up to Michael Moore grade.
The topics of infected meat, immigrant labor, mass commercialization and homogenization of foodservice and the degradation of the packing house workplace are things that would have hit me a lot harder with a more sober presentation. I suppose if you'd never seen a kill floor in motion (as I've repeatedly done in watching Frederick Wiseman's "Meat", though the color adds a lot), this will hit you as it does the heroine destined to be a kidney-puller.
I suppose I'm jaded and looking for more. But I'll continue to eat at Mickey D.'s, for it gets me by, and wear leather, no matter how they wrench it from the carcass. I have yet to be converted, for I know human beings are perverse and evil, this being the overwhelming message of anyone who attempts to advocate for animals. I'm rather ashamed to be one, but that's what I was dealt. Oh well.
I'll give this one 3.8 stars, rounding up to 4.
Movie Review: The Special Features Make It Worth Watching
Summary: 4 Stars
One oft-cited drawback to "Fast Food Nation" is that the film doesn't focus sharply enough on pragmatic steps that Americans can take to eat more healthfully and support sustainable agriculture. But the March 6 DVD includes an antidote in its "special feature" section: the entire series of the critically astute "Meatrix" videos. Though the "Meatrix" is well-known by ardent Web surfers (deemed "the hottest online hit" [...], for example), its loose satires on "The Matrix" movies haven't been released offline until now. Its animated characters illuminate the same sort of bleak realities that Upton Sinclair did in "The Jungle," but they have something that most such exposes don't: witty humor. In one episode, for instance, Leo, the young pig who wonders if he is "the one," helps rescue "Moopheus," a trench-coat-clad cow who comes inches away from slaughterhouse knives. The "Meatrix" videos also direct viewers to a website, [...], which offers links to sites like [...] that outline practical steps people can take to eat more healthfully and support more humane and environmentally friendly agriculture. Viewers might find such advice useful, because various studies--including one conducted by A.C. Nielsen in late 2006--have reported that while Americans increasingly recognize the moral and nutritional problems inherent in any fast food nation, they nevertheless feel powerless to address those problems in daily life.Movie Review: Welcome to the Meatrix!
Summary: 4 Stars
Following the brilliant success of the documentary "Super Size Me" and the nonfiction book "Fast Food Nation," director Richard Linklater has decided to get in on the movement and co-wrote a script with Eric Schlosser, the book's author. Though rendered as a tale of fiction, the film "Fast Food Nation" remains true to life, and focuses as much on migrant labor as it does on additives or excrement in the meat (a byproduct of butchery lines run too fast.) These works pick up on trends begun a century ago with Upton Sinclair's seminal "The Jungle" that led to Teddy Roosevelt creating the FDA. Alas, in century we cannot claim much progress. The global conglomerates are bigger and more powerful than ever, they own the farms, the labor, and no doubt congressmen too; and the price is paid by the millions who suffer from food-borne illnesses yearly. Playing like "Traffic," but with meat, and with many excellent cameos and another solid performance by Greg Kinnear, "Fast Food Nation," will perhaps awaken many who were asleep to the machinations behind every bite of a burger, or a steak. Also check out some great special features including 3 animated shorts by Mike Judge that smartly play up "The Matrix" as "The Meatrix."Movie Review: Another homerun for Richard Linklater
Summary: 4 Stars
A documentary turned Hollywood big production. Even if you don't like the story you have to give Richard Linklater his props, the man has not made a bad movie to date (going way back to "Slackers" and while working with complicated scripts, such as this one which he was largely responsible for). Yes the movie is slanted to the left. But perhaps for the reason that it opens up the question and dialogue of who is exactly happier/better-off in this relationship? Yes people may be happy in the short run in our ever reaching goal of and for efficient conveniences, but such a situation only degrades social and environmental conditions in the long run. Live short and prosper, eh?
The movie examines the ranchers who raise the cattle, the suppliers who slaughter and ship the meats, the (illegal) workers who work for the suppliers, the company who buys the meat to sale it to the end users, and the end users. And then there are the idealistic youth who don't like the game and talk/plan of change.
Many people will not like this movie due to its highly political nature but judge it as a movie and not an ideal and you probably enjoy it.
Movie Review: Read the book first... then you'll experience the power of visual imagery
Summary: 4 Stars
I suggest you read Fast Food Nation (the book) before you see Fast Food Nation (the movie). The book has a level of detail that cannot be in a movie, and the movie has a visual power that you can't get from the book.
In the movie, there is a non-book story line, but if you buy into the author's facts and arguments in his book, you'll note that the movie works to hit a number of the issues raised in the original book: the effect of fast food on immigrants, health issues, effects on our youth working and not studying, poverty, and more.
This was not a repeat of Super-Size Me, and was not a thinner version of The Omnivore's Dilemma. Fast Food Nation is not "anti-meat" as much as "anti-mass produced hamburger."
We'll save hot dogs and sausages... and politics... for another time.
Rated R for explicit scenes dealing with sex for favors by those who exploit immigrants. Like with Super-Size Me, I wish there was a PG, or even a PG-13 version that could encourage broader use of this movie for educational purposes. Great acting by a surprising collection of A, B, and C movie actors.