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A Serious Man (2009)

Directed by: Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg

**1/2

I can't in good conscience suggest that A Serious Man fails in any way because I know the work of Joel and Ethan Coen well enough to realize that everything (very likely) worked exactly how they intended. That having been said, A Serious Man doesn't top my list of great Coen films. I found it all too frustrating to watch most of the time and that isn't necessarily because Larry Gopnick (Michael Stuhlbarg) can't seem to have anything go right for him, but rather because the idiots that surround him just seem to make everything worse.

I think A Serious Man is about the ups and downs of life. This is why we're tossed right into the mix of Larry's life (opening fable excluded) and suffer through it with him until the end when we don't really get the closure for which we're looking. The Coen's aren't trying to suggest that life sucks, then we die but rather there are stretches of time within one's life when everything seems to be going wrong. Larry is the exaggerated example of this. The less exaggerated and more common example is the story told of Dr. Sussman, a dentist who's life gets complicated because someone has an engraving on the inside of his teeth. Dr. Sussman becomes so fixated on his mystery that it effects his life and a more dramatic way than should have been necessary. Larry does everything he can to prevent his life from continuing its downward spiral but it doesn't mattter.

It must be mentioned that Stuhlbarg is great in this film as Larry Gopnick. Its no surprise that the Coen's found the perfect actor to play a part in their film but Stuhlbarg portrayal of Gopnick I think should be in the same conversation as Goodman's Walter Sobchack, Macy's Jerry Lundegard and dare I say, Bridges' The Dude. Put these performances in a line, Stuhlbarg would likely come in last but its a perfect performance in a Coen movie.

If I'm being completely honest, I didn't really like A Serious Man. Just because I'm certain the Coen's accomplished everything they set out to do, doesn't mean it worked for me. I found myself often bored and even more often fed up with what Larry was going through. Had he just been having a rough patch in his life I think I may have sympathized with him but when he continuously looks for guidence from the least qualified to give guidence people in the world I kind of wonder if what he's dealing with is a direct result of the company he's kept. So many of these characters are not characters at all. Like the Minnesota residents in Fargo the supporting cast are mostly caricatures.... just Jewish instead of Midwestern.

As I touched on, Gopnick himself could be considered a caricature. He's an exaggerated version of and average Joe with the weight of the world on his shoulders. To make this work however, I needed to feel a little bit more compassion and sympathy for him. To keep my attention for the whole more, I kind wanted some light at the end of the tunnel for Gopnick. I chalk A Serious Man up as one of the Coen's setup films for their next masterpiece. I'm hoping Burn After Reading and A Serious Man are the Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers prior to No Country for Old Men.

Mulholland Dr. (2001)

Directed by: David Lynch
Starring: Naomi Watts

****1/2

It took careful attention, a google search for an explanation and then a second viewing for me to understand, appreciate and dare I say, love David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. All I can do is hang my head in embarrassment for my endless claims that the film is pretentious, confusing just to be confusing and could not possibly be as good as so many claim that it is. It had been several years since I first saw Mulholland Dr, after watching for a second time, it was about an hour before watching it a third.

First, what keeps Mulholland Dr. from being perfect, then what makes it great. Despite the fact that I understand the movie now and appreciate what Lynch did, anytime I need to research an explanation of a movie, it is going to hurt that movie's overall rating in my book. That having been said, had this film had a little bit more exposition, had it given its audience a little bit less credit, had it explained everything a little more than not at all, without of course giving up everything that makes it what it is, this could perhaps be one of the best movies ever made. Could that have been done I wonder? What this film is, is as much a mystery as the one the characters are trying to solve. The non-chronological timeline of events leaves you scratching your head but it also divulges information appropriately when necessary. Who these characters are is just as important as who they are not. What we see, is just as important as what we don't see. Without these very intentional techniques used by Lynch, the mood, the pacing and the quality of this movie would be effected. Call it a dream, call it a puzzle with missing pieces, call it pretenious if you really want to, but Lynch never made this movie for people who need to know exactly what's going on, just as Kubrick didn't make The Shining for that audience. Something doesn't have to make sense to be great I guess.

The first hour and forty or so minutes of this movie is film noir at its best. Even the subtle over-acting from Naomi Watts and Laura Herring were reminiscent of the dames from the 40s, 50s and 60s. The lighting was shadowy with deep contrasts. The music, which was used as perfectly as I've seen in a long time, said everything it was supposed to say. This hour and forty minutes is filmmaking perfected. Then, the other shoes falls. Suddenly everything seems backwards. For the next forty-five minutes of the film its difficult to appreciate the filmmaking because the story which I was following so closely and enjoying so thoroughly is a mess. Everytime I thought I might have an idea of what is going on, something else happens to prove my theory wrong. Having read an explanation, or a theory at the very least, I do believe that what I watched does makes sense, but its tricky and its distracting.

So to enjoy Mulholland Dr. all one needs to do is watch the first half of it. To really appreciate the movie for what it is, it might require some help and certainly needs repeated viewings. So as a whole, I'm on board. Mulholland Dr. is a great movie. Piece by piece, however, how does Mulholland Dr. work? Like any movie that needs to be watched a few times to really recognize how each aspect plays in, Lynch does well to tie things together but I wasn't sure if it was all necessary. And if it was necessary, I wasn't always sure if it worked with the movie as a whole. In other words, yes, there seemed to be a reason for everything but that didn't always mean that something needed to be in the movie. Even upon rewatching the film with a better idea of what was going on, I still questioned how certain scenes were important to the overall story.

It was once a mystery to me how a film so confusing could be considered so great. Now I'm simply fascinated by the mystery that is this film and the one that's within it. It was impossible to turn off from start to finish. Its a challenging movie, not in content but by the way it doesn't allow its audience to take a break. If you miss anything, you could miss out on one of the many aspects of this movie that really make it great.

The Thin Blue Line (1988)

Directed by: Errol Morris

****

Morris' visual style in The Thin Blue Line is unlike any conventional documentary approach. Although his interviews are shot straight on, head and shoulders, there is a way his camera has of framing his subjects so that we look at them very carefully, learning as much by what we see as by what we hear. The words of Roger Ebert describe this film better than I can try to do but my using his quote goes beyond my brain's laziness. The intensity brought forth through the interviews, and really, the only documentary aspect of this film, resonates after seeing it. There's nothing too frightening about these characters but reading Ebert's review just minutes after watching this film made me realize how much I kept trying to look harder at these people, wanting to learn more about what made them tick, wanting to hear more than what they were saying.

Some time ago, I watched a Charlie Rose interview with Charles Manson. Manson's crazy is evident and that creates an intensity that resonates even after watching the interview. Just hearing his views on the world make you think about your own and wonder how they can be so different (or the same, muahaha! - just kidding). The Thin Blue Line gives us interviews with characters who are much more like ourselves than Charles Manson, but the gravity of the situation about which they speak and who they are and why they do things really makes you want to look deep into their eyes and see their soul.

The Thin Blue Line is a documentary that's been starring back at me from my instant Netflix que for a while now. I've heard little bits about it and my always mistaking it for a prequal to Terrance Malik's war film always had me this close to giving it a watch. Finally sitting down to do so, brought with it, somewhat high expectations. Frustration lessened those expectations as there are aspects of this film, especially at the beginning that are kind of confusing. However, its really only getting a grasp on who's who. Once that's nailed down, its a relatively simple film to follow. Randall Adams is one of Morris' two primary subjects for interviews. Adams is the one that this film all but proves innocent of a crime for which he is serving a life sentence. David Harris is the man who probably committed the crime. He too is in prison, on death row for an unrelated murder.

The film teaters on the injustices of the Dallas court system during Adams trial but its more about people. Its about ordinary people mixed up in a real situation. Its not an extraordinary situation by most accounts... the idea that Morris we now know came within days of being executed before being exonerated after this film's release, is extraordinary but really we are fed a court case that convicted a man based on the facts that it had. Whether or not those facts were true or reliable remains to be seen. There are times when Morris suggests that the court system is corrupt and looking for a hard conviction for a cop killer. He points out that the District Attourney wanted a 28-year old man (Adams) so he could give him the death sentence rather than a 16-year old (Harris) who might get some juvenille detention time. Either way, this film stays away from biased opinions and really just feeds you the facts from every angle.

Interviews and photographs are mixed together with somewhat lazy but important reanactments of the murder. We see Dallas Police Officer Robert Woods approach the car and then five shots fired at him and we see this from every possible angle. Some of which give you a better idea of who is responsible, none of which convince you beyond a reasonable doubt. There are aspects of his filmmaking that appear as if a student was behind the camera and there are others that look a little bit too eighties to feel real but as a whole, the dramatizations were effective. However, for that effectiveness, I give more credit to Philip Glass' chilling score. I've yet to read anything about this film that leaves Glass unmentioned and I won't either. Documentaries so often inform, occasionally entertain, but seldom do they create a mood for themselves. Glass' music compliments the intensity of Morris' subject matter.

Perhaps Morris' film aided in the exoneration of an innocent man but I think it also gave an example of how a documentary can be done. No where does it say a documentary can't be creative. Well, I guess that's not true as the film was unable to contend for a best Documentary Oscar since it had fictional scenes. Either way, the creativity that Morris blends with the real drama that are these people's lives is compelling enough for at least one viewing... but possible a few.

Beer Wars (2009)

Directed by: Anat Baron

**1/2

I'm not really sure what Anat Baron was trying to say in her documentary Beer Wars. Maybe it was that big businesses hurt the American working man. Maybe its that the bigger the business the worse the product. I really don't know. This documentary lacked specifics and at times direction. However, what it did provide is some interesting information and even if some of that information was already kind of common knowledge, and even if some of it didn't seem relevant towards any type of cause or message, most of it was still interesting and that's what made Beer Wars an interesting documentary.

Anat Baron did her best Michael Moore impression while making this film and tried to star in it. Fortunately, there wasn't quite enough for her to do so she was never really in the way. The highlight of this informational video was the interviews she conducted with several independent brewery founders all over the country. These men and women, once upon a time, struggled to compete with Coors, Miller and Busch and while they still compete, I'm not sure they still struggle. I admit I know a little more about the beer industry than the average Joe but I'm far from an expert. The little that I do know however, allows me to suggest that this film would have been much more suitable for release maybe ten years ago. This isn't to suggest that big business doesn't continue to have a stranglehold on American consumers. It is to suggest that people know are fully aware that they get what they pay for.

Not every independent brewery is Sam Adams of Dogfish Head. These are probably the exceptions rather than the rule. Co-founder of Sam Adams and now CEO of the barely functioning New Century Brewing Company Rhonda Kallman experiences the everyday struggle of financing her business and getting her product to consumers. However, put one of her beers in front of someone and have that person choose between her Moonshot beer and a Bud Light... people may be inclined to try hers. Its no different than putting a good burger in front of someone next to a McDonald's cheese burger. If they have to pay $1 or $9, they might pick McDonald's but if they want a good burger, they'll take the other one. In short, people know they are drinking an inferior product when they choose Bud, Coors, and Miller but its an issue of cost.

Beer Wars is quick to point out that the craft brewing industry is on the rise in America. It can't and won't ever compete with the mass production by the major breweries but I'm not sure its trying to. If it were, it'd be easy enough to sell the rights to their product and slap an Anhauser-Busch label on the side of their six-packs. They are in the business of making good beer. They are more comparable to artists, than entrepanuers. They are the indie world of film, not Hollywood. This isn't to say that Sam Calagione wouldn't like it if people bought cases of Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA for their Superbowl parties, but it's like more important to him if a few people enjoy what they are drinking when they spend $12 on a six-pack. It all comes back to, we get what we pay for and this is something that American consumers understand in this day and age better than anything.

Had this film been released in a time when people were still being duped by clidesdales into thinking that its classy to drink Budweiser, I think there would have been a better message here. Instead, its almost like there has been two seperate industries created. Yes, they compete in some sense, but they also have different markets. Like I said, this film has some interesting information but it fails to cross the treshold into complete documentary. Relaying a message that isn't there makes you seem biased. This film isn't biased as it has the opinions from several different sources, but I kept asking myself, what are they arguing about?

Cold Souls (2009)

Directed by: Sophie Barthes
Starring: Paul Giamatti

**1/2

In 2002 Charlie Kaufman penned a great screenplay adaptation of The Orchid Thief called Adaptation. In this screenplay, Charlie Kaufman wrote himself in as the main character. Two years later, Kaufman penned an even greater screenplay in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in which some weird science allows one to have a part of their memory erased. What does all this have to do with Sophie Barthes' Cold Souls? Cold Souls does its part in combining the two, if only to setup what turns into a relatively uninteresting story more suitable for a Bond movie than a character study starring one of the best actors working today.

In Cold Souls, Paul Giamatti is himself, or a version of himself (who really knows?). He's stressed, anxious, nuerotic and struggling with his performance of Vanya. That is until he reads and article in the New Yorker and makes a visit to Dr. Flintstein played by David Strathairn (this films version of Dr. Mierzwiak played by Tom Wilkinson). Flinstein has developed a method to extract one's soul. Now his science isn't as specific as Mierzwiak's but it does seem to serve a purpose. Without one's soul, one can feel free, uninhibited and stress free. It takes an actor of Giamatti's caliber (the real Giamatti, not the one in the movie) to pull off the subtle differences of he with a soul and he without one. Giamatti does not disappoint as he's really yet to do. He understood the subtly for which the film was looking and he made much of the rest of the film worth watching.

The introduction to soul extraction is interesting as one would expect. If memory erasing is the backbone of one of the best films of the last decade then a version of that must at least be able to serve as the backbone of a decent one. Unfortunately, Flinstein's work has spawned something known as soul trafficking, practiced by the Russians. They use women who are implanted with other people's souls, then fly to Russia where those souls are again extracted and sold. There are aspects even of this part of the film that are interesting and well thought out but its so poorly executed that again, I felt like I was watching one of the bad Bond movies. I can only take so much unmotivated foreign intrigued.

I got the impression that first time writer, director (feature-wise) Sophie Barthes put too many eggs in one basket. Puns aside, she crafted an idea that souls could be extracted and people could live with another person's soul and executed that idea pretty effectively. It had to be at that point that she realized she perhaps had another short film and not the feature she had planned starring Paul Giamatti as Paul Giamatti. It takes more than a creative idea to make Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and writing a real life character into your movie does not make Adaptation.

Pi (1998)

Directed by: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Sean Gullette

**1/2

There are three ways too look at Darren Aronofsky's Pi. By breaking my critique up this way it kind of makes it difficult to decide how much I liked the movie. There are aspects that I found interesting, others that I found somewhat confusing and thus not nearly as interesting and then finally an aspect that I simply found telling.

As a narrative, Pi tells the story of a man's search for a number and the obstacles he encounters along the way. Max Cohen (Sean Gullette) is such a brilliant mathmatician that he can multiply 753 and 291 correctly in seconds. He looks for numerical patterns everywhere but does so alone with the exception of the little time he spends with Sol Robinson (Mark Margolis) who suffered a stroke as a result of a similar search. When approached by Lenny Meyer (Ben Shenkman), Max is his usual off-putting self until Lenny introduces a numerical pattern in the Tora, a number consistent with Max's previous findings. Max is also harrassed by a mysterious woman, desperate to speak with him. Everyone's search for the number that controls the universe leads them to Max, who apparently has that number in his head. Its not Pi though, which is kind of confusing. Its a 216 digit number that doesn't begin with 3.14.

This idea that there is a number out there that can describe and connect all the patterns of the universe was interesting enough for me to think maybe I should like math more. Its not so far fetched either that it doesn't work. Even I recognize how often math plays a factor in what goes on, whether its simple or more complicated math than I care to understand. So this through line worked for me. Aided by the filmmaking style, I could have considered this movie great, but I believe it was held back by the aspect that dominated overall.

Ultimately, Pi is a character study and one that I didn't particularly understand. Gullette turned in a great performance and made Max's obsession and paranoia real but his actions didn't seem to make much sense to me. I understand the obsession that can come with a goal, especially one that may well be unattainable as Sol explains. Take any number and you'll find it anywhere if you want to. A similar idea was used in the Jim Carey piece of crap, The Number 23. This much I understand. What Max saw, what was real and what was imagined. Why he chose to drill a hole in his head were all aspects that I didn't grasp or embrace thus leaving me ultimately disappointed in so much of what was happening. The bulk of this movie is the study of a character. Said character's search for a number is only consequence of who he is. Had it been the other way around, had Max's search made him who he was, I may have felt differently about this film, if only because I may have understood it more.

Pi is the third of Aronofsky's four films that I've seen. When watching Requiem for a Dream and The Wrestler, you'd be hard pressed to suggest that it was the same director based on the style of each film. Pi on the other had is simply prologue to Requiem. From a filmmaking standpoint, Aronofsky used many of the same techniques he used shooting and editing the two films. The quick pill-popping cuts I once thought were introduced in Requiem and made famous by film students was actually introduced in Pi and made famous in Requiem. I like Aronofsky's style in these two films because its obvious without being too self-aware. He keeps his style consistent with the pacing of his film. That's what film students fail to realize when mimicking such a style. Just because you shoot on a Bolex, doesn't mean quick cuts completely mask your over or under exposed shot. It needs to work within the context of the film. That's what Aronofsky does so well even when using a Bolex.

I'm certain I'll continue to check out Aronofsky's work in the future and I certainly plan to take a look at The Fountain if only for its controversial reviews. However, he's a filmmaker who's yet to make a film that I love. Requiem for a Dream is far and away his best movie as far as I'm concerned, but even that film I only reviewed as a 3 star film in an older post. I though aside from Mickey Rourke's performance, The Wrestler was a huge disappointment. While I'm clearly in a minority with my opinion of his films, I stand by the fact that I appreciate Aronofsky far more than I like his films.

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Directed by: John Huston
Starring: Humphrey Bogart

***

It's been a long time since I first say John Huston's first film, The Maltese Falcon. I remembered very little about it which told me it wasn't nearly as memorable as some of the great films of the forties (i.e. Casablanca and Double Indemnity) even though it possesses so many of the great film noir traits... crime, love and suspense. There was a point during The Maltese Falcon where I'd had enough of the one thing that was keeping the mystery of the film alive and that is the lies that every character seemed to be consistently spitting out. A lying dame is an important aspect to film noir but eventually the story needs to have more substance to drive it forward than the mere fact that women are untrustworthy.

Humphrey Bogart (cool as always) plays Sam Spade, a private detective who's hired for a bogus job by Bridget O'Shaughnessy (Mary Astor). She, as you may have guessed, has much bigger interests than tracking down her (non-existent) sister. Spade's involvement leads him of course to the hunt for the Maltese Falcon, a treasured statue worth a wealth of money for he who not only has his hands on it but he who knows what it is. Even though we're prompted to wonder if Spade's motives alter throughout the film from just doing his job to having his own interest in getting the Falcon, we never doubt that Spade is the good guy and perhaps the only good guy involved.

The wild goose chase is led on by the compulsive lying of O'Shaughnessy. As I mentioned, it got to the point where I was tired of the only thing keeping crimes from being solved and artifacts uncovered was the lies. It seemed like the movie was lying to me about knowing where it was going and those lies were covered up by more lies from the characters. That aside, like all film noir, loose ends are tied up and the conclusions make a whole lot of interesting sense. So that slow portion of the film in the middle could be forgiven thanks to the fact that the film wasn't lying at all, and it knew where it was going, it may have just been buying a little time.

That which I can't forgive this film for is its half-hearted effort at a Double Indemnity style love affair. Old movies have a knack for creating such a love affair based solely on the looks of the characters and the all important aggressive kiss the man lays on the dame shortly into the film. In Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity, the relationship may have seemed unmotivated but that's only because (SPOILER ALERT) it wasn't real. In The Maltese Falcon, the character's continued their claims of love for each other even after they'd successfully (or unsuccessfully) finished their jobs. But simply, I didn't buy the relationship and even worse, considered it completely unnecessary. Spade insists that O'Shaughnessy only intends to buy his trust with money but when she asks what else does she have, he lays the kiss on her... that's what she has. But please, just because they made out a little didn't make me trust her, so why would Sam Spade, a trained and smart private detective.

The Maltese Falcon is disappointing in comparison to its acclaim but its a solid film noir. It has the necessary traits to keep its audience glued and while there's some serious longwindedness to it at times, its never so complicated that a ten minute explanation of it all was needed to make me say, oh I get it. If it was 1941 and I walked out of the theater after seeing this film, I'd without a doubt be looking forward to what this rookie director has to offer in years to come.

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009)

Directed by: Lee Daniels
Starring: Gabourey Sidibe

***1/2

Even though the title is stupid, this is not a stupid movie. Its powerful, dynamic, intense, smartly made and a strange sort of entertaining. Any amount of realism that the story may obtain only increases these traits of the film. But do these traits make a great movie? They make a very good one, but I'm not sure that Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (I'll stop calling it that) is a great movie.

Gabourey Sidibe plays Precious who's life is so bad that the film loses all elements of surprise when introducing a new horror she's forced to face at such a young age. She's pregnant with her second child given to her by her own father and is forced to deal with the daily physical and emotional abuse by her mother (Monique in a well deserved award winning role). There isn't much else within the story. We escape the horrors of her life with Precious as she imagines herself a celebrity or the center of attention, a beautiful woman with a great life. These dreams hide us from the terrible things she's forced to endure and from a storytelling standpoint, they are a very effective way of creating a kind of suspense. To come right out and show us what happens to Precious would not only be hard to watch but additionally, it'd tell us everything. By allowing us to keep watching and not having to look away, we also are forced to let our imaginations describe what has happened to Precious... that can be much more tragic or, we can imagine her life the way Precious does and escape it all.

I appreciated the style Lee Daniels used in this film. He didn't go with filmmaking 101 even though he could have. He had a powerful enough story to carry itself but he added his own touch and gave it an original feeling both in the way its shot and the way the stories unfold. There's nothing spetacular but there's not a lot that is routine. His work isn't without flaws however and it mostly comes down the the story he's telling. I've read that certain people consider the film to be emotionally inconsistent and I understand and agree with that to a point. Often times, very dark and disturbing movies don't stop hammering its audience with one horrible thing after another but in those cases we are given characters who put them in the position to receive such punishment. Precious has done nothing to deserve all the problems she has and its admirable to see her deal with them the way she does and its powerful to see more and more problems mount for her but there is only so much an audience can take. Realism is a dangerous line to walk with films. You can be realistic without casting away your audience because they don't want to see anymore and Precious teaters on that line a bit too much.

Everything having been said, the film that Precious is comes down to the two main performances by Sidibe and Monique. Both are so good and so emotionally on que the whole movie that they create the drama, the suspence and the dynamic quality that this film possesses. Without great performances this movie would come across as not only weak but perhaps unsympathetic. It took Oscar quality work from these two (two unseasoned actresses) to give this movie the strength it needed to get away with the subject matter.

As good as these performances were and as much as they made the film what it was, its easy to give them credit. As I mentioned, I really respected the decisions that Daniels made even though I didn't always agree with or understand some of them. There was a lot about the story that went left alone and at times I wondered how I felt about it. A film so detailed and true to the drama of domestic abuse and social services, it seemed awfully easy for Precious to get sole custody of her children but that's a completely different story. The film picked and chose its battles and I think it chose wisely enough to compile a powerful and strange sort of entertaining film.

Food, Inc. (2008)

Directed by: Robert Kenner

I'm not sure if Food, Inc,'s primary objective is to scare its audience or to inform it. When its doing the latter, the film is effective and interesting. While, for me, I wasn't learned a lot of new information, it is information everyone should hear and understand fully. When the film attempts to scare us, its much less effective and across preachy and frustrating, more like the Best Documentary Oscar winner, The Cove, an incredibly overrated film that gave its audience no credit at all.

Food, Inc. lets us know what it is that we are eating, where its coming from and who's profiting but it also understands that a lot of times, we don't have a choice what we eat. Often times its a financial boundary that separates families from paying bills and eating healthy. Yes, McDonald's is a cheap lunch, but it could also be a ticket to an early grave. So we're introduced the mother who lost her three year old child to E Coli after eating a bad burger. Yes, its a sad story and a shame that this kind of thing is happening as a result of doing something that should be harmless, but when overdone (often in Documentaries) sob stories aren't heartbreaking or influential but rather obnoxious and overbearing. Learning how and why we can get sick from eating beef is much more informative and effective. Everyone knows cigarettes can give you lung cancer and kill you, but I don't want to watch a documentary with testimonies from everyone who's lost loved ones to cigarettes. I'd rather see who's really responsible and why corporations don't seem to care if they are killing people. Is money really that powerful?

I may sound unsympathetic but the death of a three year isn't really what Food, Inc. is about. It is about what we eat and where it comes from. Much of the story surrounds farmers, crop farmers, cow farmers, chicken farmers. I had much more sympathy for them in this film than the mother of a dead child. Let me finish... their entire livelihood relies on selling that which they grow, whether its dairy, beef, corn, chicken or anything. If it was as simple as growing it and selling it, whether or not they made money would be their own problem. However, the way they are controlled by the very few but extremely big and powerful food distribution corporations is disturbing. I'm always hesitant to completely jump on board with the apparent victims when documentaries don't include all sides of the stories but I can't blame this one for that as they point out that every one of these corporations refused to be interviewed. Interpret that however you'd like, but that speaks pretty loudly on its own.

When reviewing a documentary, its not so much what the film is about as it is how its made. I compared it briefly to The Cove. In my review of the Cove I pointed out that it gave no choices about how to feel about the situation. Yes, its very likely that what is going on with those dolphins is terrible but I'd like to decide that on my own. Food, Inc. (for the most part) informs, thus allowing me to continue making my own decisions. It outlines the consequences of those decisions but it doesn't tell me that I'd better eat healthy or else! It does its best to explore every side of the story that it can. It shows us the differences between the way organic foods are processed compared to everything else. Sometimes its as simple as the way the animals are treated when alive and sometimes its what they're injected with so they grow faster. Either way, I was presented with accurate information that made me think about the choices I make as I eat. Am I going to stop eating meat? No. Am I going to buy Organic foods? When I can afford it, yes. But even when I don't, I understand the risks and what I'm supporting.