FOOD, INC.: You are what they eat!

FOOD, INC.
Directed by Robert Kenner
Magnolia Home Entertainment
Review by Louis Fowler

I purposefully, and on a regular basis, ingest foods with E. coli or salmonella. Whether it be undercooked pork or unwashed spinach, raw egg or questionable beef, I will eat it, daring the dread disease to infest my body and throwing my fists up to Heaven in defiance!

And you know what? With the exception of a few minor cases of diarrhea when I first started this wholly abhorrent practice, I have never gotten sick. Like our pioneer forefathers did, I have trained my body to adapt to the changes in the molecular make-up of the current state of our food products and I am a better man for it. We could all be better for it!

Everyday, our nation's best, smartest food scientists are constantly finding new ways to make food last longer, repel more bugs, taste better than ever and, best of all, have fewer natural ingredients. Before you know it, a whole nourishing meal will come complete as a tiny, flat cracker, man-made and, thanks to artificial flavors and preservatives, utterly delicious. You call this tampering in God's domain, I call it progress!

The makers of the documentary FOOD, INC. (touted with the dubious selling-point as being “from the company that brought you AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH”) would probably brand me a deluded monster, spreading misinformation as sick joke of some sort, and they would be right. Especially after watching the damn thing, I'm actually more inclined to start my own chicken-slaughtering business, complete with aberrant living conditions, uncountable illegal alien workers and a big ol' subsidy from my good friends in the Bush, uh, I mean Obama, Administration.

Don't get me wrong: I wanted to like FOOD, INC. I wanted to be enthralled and educated, but, like so many docs of its politically-leaning ilk, it falls prey to the usual ruiner of such things: its own constant self-congratulatory back-pats. These docs, with their proudly unsheathed lib agenda, don't care about giving you facts or informing you; they emotionally manipulate and play on your worst fears. It's important to know about food safety and food handling procedures and the like, but, when it's done with such wank-off arrogance, what's the point of putting the time, effort and energy behind a movie like this? All you're doing is preaching to the converted! (But maybe that's why you do it? Maybe you knew you had a built-in fan-base so your return on investment was guaranteed? Egotism for a better tomorrow!)

I will say this, though: presented in the second-half is an expose of Monsanto's devious practices against soybean farmers. This was shocking and, when you learn the government is in cahoots with them, you wonder if our civil liberties are really dead. In Colorado, where I live, it is actually against the law to besmirch any agricultural product publicly, lest you want a hefty fine and possible jail time. This news angers me juuuuuuust enough when...

Yep, there we go. FOOD, INC. once again manages to lose sight of its purpose and goes back into playing the same-old blame game, pointing fingers, offering absolutely no answers. Smug jerk-off Eric Schlosser shows up eating a hamburger (Do as I say, don't do as I do, right?). Poor overweight Mexicans-American are exploited as they are buying some Burger King. And, worst of all, director Robert Kenner stoops low and does the unthinkable: he uses that ol' Michael Moore ploy of a crying mom talking about her dead kid in order to gain sympathy for his agenda.

Too bad that, for many viewers smart enough to see through this heavy cloying mist of DDT, all it really does is reinforce that growing, ever-present cynicism. You realize just how empty and hollow the whole thing is. You realize that the purpose of the movie was nothing more than a masturbatory soapbox based on the lone fact that Kenner just must love to hear the sound of his own voice, eyes shut, nose in the air, Prius fully recharged!

Special features include deleted scenes, an episode of Nightline, tips for eating healthy and, best of all, horrifically hilarious and awesomely embarrassing “Celebrity Public Service Announcements”, some of which star Alyssa Milano, who's nude breasts I have seen in various erotic thrillers, so, of course, I have no respect for her opinion.

Do food laws and regulations need to change? Yes! Should people know what they're putting into their bodies? Without a doubt! Is education on the facts the answer? You bet! But let's be honest: no one is going to honestly listen to these guys. Sure, upon theatrical release FOOD, INC. might have been a minor darling with the hippie-indie-lib crowd, but we all know it'll soon be long-forgotten and, eventually, most of the science proven wrong, just like that other political-agenda doc, oh, what was it called...that's right, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.

Or, you know what? Why not cut out the middle-man? Why don't you get into the spirit of self-preservation and self-efficiency? Why not just quit your non-stop whining, grow a pair and have a bite of my homemade sushi tar-tar casserole, now with extra Velveeta! It's Monsan-tasty!

BIG LOTS, BIGGER DEALS: My Big Lots Closeout DVD Purchases for 12.21.09!!!

I know, I know. Many of you may think you're "too good" for discount store Big Lots. I was once like you, until one day a year or two ago I wandered in and found so many great DVDeals. And while they always had great stuff, for some reason in the past six months, Big Lots' acquisitions have gone from great to insane in the membrane. Insane in the brain, if you will. They are getting real DVDs from real studios and, best of all, all for only three bucks! Here's my haul from this week--feel free to post yours in the comments!



Tha Lotz had a bit of a dry spell there for a while, with very few new titles worth purchasing, even for three bucks. I was having to settle for just going in there and leaving with a $1 Hunt's Butterscotch Snack-Pack to justify the gas used to get there. Luckily, over the past few weeks, they've started picking up the pace again, with a ton of Warner Brothers and Universal titles showing up. I actually think most of these title are from those companies, so someone is getting a great deal. Especially me.

* BRONCO BILLY - Great early 80s Clint Eastwood drama about an aging ace sharpshooter and his cadre of traveling Wild West actors. A bit goofy, sure, but, as usual, Eastwood owns the screen. This is kinda what THE WRESTLER would have been like if it was made in 1980 by a guy who's not a pretentious prick. Aronofsky.

* OUT OF SIGHT / INTOLERABLE CRUELTY DOUBLE FEATURE - Clooney's best flick (and Steven Soderbergh's, as well) economically paired with Clooney's worst (which, crazy enough, is also the Coens' worst).

* WALKING TALL: LONE JUSTICE - Finally, my double-feature of the Kevin Sorbo-starring WALKING TALL quasi-sequels are complete. Oh, you didn't know that he made some? You have lost out, my friend!

* RED SONJA - Eff yes, RED SONJA! Man, I used to have the biggest crush on Brigitte Nielsen. God... what happened there?

* HARD TARGET / SUDDEN DEATH DOUBLE FEATURE - Now this is a great deal. Two fun, action-packed Van Damme movies for $3. One's the US debut of director John Woo while the other has terrorists attacking during a Stanley Cup game. Double the Van Dammage!

* TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS DEMON KNIGHT - A few months ago I picked up the silly-but-fun BORDELLO OF BLOOD, and it really made me wish I had the first TALES movie DEMON KNIGHT and, as if someone was listening to my hopes and dreams, guess what's the first movie I find on my first trip back to BL!

* DAYLIGHT - Stallone, a former EMT with a "tragic past", saves a great group of stereotypes trapped in an underground tunnel that collapses due to city incompetence. This is one of Sly's forgotten 90s actioners, which is sad, because it is extremely entertaining and would have been a huge hit if they had filmed it in 3-D. But they didn't, so who cares, right?

* BLACK DRAGON - You might know this Jackie Chan film as MIRACLES, but I know it as the movie I have yet to make it through. I'll always pick up a Chan movie when I see it and, you know, sometimes you win, and, as in this case, you lose. I wish I could get into it, but I just can't. I ain't gonna complain over $3, though.

* COP AND A HALF - So, get this: Burt Reynolds is a hard-boiled cop... you buy that, right? Well, what happens when this said cop is teamed with a sassy little black kid who's witnessed a mob murder? If you guessed pants-pissing comedy, you'd be right! My favorite line: "I'm your worst nightmare: an eight-year-old with a badge!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That's good stuff!

* POISON IVY: THE NEW SEDUCTION - Trying to find spank material at Deez Lottz is not only utterly pathetic, but damn near impossible. Whoever is doing the DVD acquisitions must know that this is an issue with the masturbator on a budget, adding different "erotic thrillers" to the pile, including some with Angie Everhart, Andrew Stevens and this second follow-up to Drew Barrymore's POISON IVY (the first sequel had Alyssa Milano, GAG), starring Southern-fried skank Jaime Pressly as a whore who gets naked a lot. Good work!

* OUT FOR JUSTICE / FIRE DOWN BELOW - (Not a double-feature, mind you, but two separate discs.) Thanks to BL I have reaffirmed my fandom of Steven Seagal, picking up, over the course of a year, at least six other Seagal "classics", including these two titles. FIRE features the lifelong practitioner of the martial arts as an undercover EPA agent taking down toxic waste dumpers in the Appalachian hills, while all you need to know about JUSTICE is this tagline: "He's a cop. It's a dirty job... but somebody's got to take out the garbage." If I was a cop, that would be my tagline.

DAMAGED Cooking: FAJYROS!

I recently came into possession of about 50 pounds of lamb chops. Don't ask me from who or how, that's none of your business. You don't question where my mass quantities of meat come from and I won't question you about yours. Give me a little space, will ya?



Now I love love LOVE lamb, but get it rarely, which, if you ask me, is a GD crying shame. It's so tender, so juicy and, best of all, has a slight greasy-gamy flavor that is quite unique and uncopyable. But, after a couple of days of cooking straight lamb-chops for dinner, the old-fashioned way, I started craving something a little different...

Enter: FAJYROS!

Lamb-based gyros have always pleased my palate far more than pork-based ones, but try finding that here in Ft. Whitebread. But, with the no meat-grinder in sight, it was going to be damn-near impossible to ground the lamb-cuts the traditional way to make a traditional gyro, so, I figured WHAT WOULD A CRAFTY MEXICAN DO? Being Mexican, the answer came easily enough: go on welfare! But, after that was accomplished, I decided to cut the lamb up into chunks and pan-fry it, fajita-style! Oompah and ole'!





Throw in three different kinds of bell peppers (green, red and, if you're adventurous, orange), a couple of cloves of garlic, white and yellow onions and various Mexican secret spices and just lean back and enjoy the incredible smell that wafts from the sizzling cast-iron frying pan.



Serve on fresh pita bread with tomatoes, Feta cheese, Monterey Jack cheese and some liberally applied Tzatziki sauce. As a side, some simple rice with a bit of Sriracha is geographically anachronistic, but very complimentary. It may be healthy too, I don't know. I didn't really check. Sorry.