Because really - where are people getting all this extra time?
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/review/best-food-cooking-movies
There are a few movies here I'd like to see. Some again, but not Chef. I couldn't figure out why people raved about it. I think Big Night is among my most watched movies ever.
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Food, Inc. on PBS
The movie Food, Inc. will be broadcast on PBS Point of View (POV) tonight. It will also be streamed on the PBS web site for one week, starting tomorrow, according to a spam blast from the Center for Food Safety.
This was not my favorite food movie, being heavily oriented to middle class consumers, but there are some fun and interesting parts. I reviewed the movie here on January 11.
If you've got PBS broadcast or cable or a high speed modem, you can watch it for free this week.
This was not my favorite food movie, being heavily oriented to middle class consumers, but there are some fun and interesting parts. I reviewed the movie here on January 11.
If you've got PBS broadcast or cable or a high speed modem, you can watch it for free this week.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Food Inc.
Friday evening I downloaded Food Inc. from Netflix because I realized I couldn't keep saying I didn't need to see it, but needed instead to have something to say about it to folks who ask.
My overall reaction? It's probably the best made movie of this sort I have seen,
but I am tired of focusing on the negative.
One note I wrote myself:
Is the foodie critique a luxury? not just foodie choices, but the time spent on critiquing the system?
I also wondered about the focus on animal foods. One more shot of a slaughterhouse or CAFO would be two or three too many.
My favorite part of the movie was actually getting to see Polyface Farms - even a shot of a Polyface kitty! It was just a second, and it just had one face, but it reminded me of all the photos of cats I took on the tour of organic farms in Iowa in the fall of 2008. I still look at them from time to time.
As long as I'm into quoting this evening, a couple of things from Joel Saladin of Polyface:
>>How far are you from the consequences of your decisions? [about what you eat]
>>We've been successful at hitting the bull's eye of the wrong target.
(How many time could you use that line?)
I found the CEO of Stonyfield a little shifty, personally - must have been the little smirk - and I felt the movie not strong enough in its critique of industrial organic. I mean, if you are going to do the foodie critique, do it.
Finally, the movie as a whole left me with a renewed commitment to advocate for more than consumer solutions - but not because the movie did. It isn't just about what you buy when you go to the store and how you vote with your dollars. It's about becoming producers ourselves, and about informed work on issues.
My overall reaction? It's probably the best made movie of this sort I have seen,
but I am tired of focusing on the negative.
One note I wrote myself:
Is the foodie critique a luxury? not just foodie choices, but the time spent on critiquing the system?
I also wondered about the focus on animal foods. One more shot of a slaughterhouse or CAFO would be two or three too many.
My favorite part of the movie was actually getting to see Polyface Farms - even a shot of a Polyface kitty! It was just a second, and it just had one face, but it reminded me of all the photos of cats I took on the tour of organic farms in Iowa in the fall of 2008. I still look at them from time to time.
As long as I'm into quoting this evening, a couple of things from Joel Saladin of Polyface:
>>How far are you from the consequences of your decisions? [about what you eat]
>>We've been successful at hitting the bull's eye of the wrong target.
(How many time could you use that line?)
I found the CEO of Stonyfield a little shifty, personally - must have been the little smirk - and I felt the movie not strong enough in its critique of industrial organic. I mean, if you are going to do the foodie critique, do it.
Finally, the movie as a whole left me with a renewed commitment to advocate for more than consumer solutions - but not because the movie did. It isn't just about what you buy when you go to the store and how you vote with your dollars. It's about becoming producers ourselves, and about informed work on issues.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
movie reviews en francais
The movies, not the reviews, are in French.
In the television dead zone that is Advent I have been happy about the existence of Netflix and Hulu. So much so that I may, after a dozen years, go back to being without a television.
The Gleaners and I is a 2000 treatment, with a 2002 update, of gleaners in France, inspired by Millais's painting. Agnes Varda documents her own attempts at gleaning and those of others. Not limited to fields, vineyards and orchards, gleaning goes on at farmers' markets, at the shore, in dumpsters and metaphorically. Vargas also explores the legal framework that permits gleaning.
I found Vargas' discoveries charming and never condescending - and I felt encouraged to see what more I might do to undertake some organized gleaning here. But I'm not sure I have the courage or the fitness levels required for dumpster diving!
The problem with watching French movies, of course, is that while I catch some of the language, I do depend on the subtitles, and that means I don't get much knitting done while watching them. Food Beware: the French Organic Revolution did leave me some moments to tune out a bit - it's a very heavy health and food-caused illness emphasis, which for me is not the primary reason to eat organic food. What I really liked, in this movie centered on reforming a school lunch program in an agricultural area of France, was watching the children eat. They sat at tables for eight or so, mixed ages, with the food served family style. The cooks actually came out of the kitchen, prodding some children to eat their vegetables, interviewing others about their reactions to what was being served. Oh that we would have a little more of this human community around our institutional food here in the U.S. Or even our family meals, dare I say it. Seeing the kids in their vegetable patch, watching the whole community get behind the transition to organics, and listening the challenges of agriculturalists in the area did hold my interest for much of the movie.
This coming week I will mostly be doing "my own work" which will include more blog updates including movie reviews.
In the television dead zone that is Advent I have been happy about the existence of Netflix and Hulu. So much so that I may, after a dozen years, go back to being without a television.
The Gleaners and I is a 2000 treatment, with a 2002 update, of gleaners in France, inspired by Millais's painting. Agnes Varda documents her own attempts at gleaning and those of others. Not limited to fields, vineyards and orchards, gleaning goes on at farmers' markets, at the shore, in dumpsters and metaphorically. Vargas also explores the legal framework that permits gleaning.
I found Vargas' discoveries charming and never condescending - and I felt encouraged to see what more I might do to undertake some organized gleaning here. But I'm not sure I have the courage or the fitness levels required for dumpster diving!
The problem with watching French movies, of course, is that while I catch some of the language, I do depend on the subtitles, and that means I don't get much knitting done while watching them. Food Beware: the French Organic Revolution did leave me some moments to tune out a bit - it's a very heavy health and food-caused illness emphasis, which for me is not the primary reason to eat organic food. What I really liked, in this movie centered on reforming a school lunch program in an agricultural area of France, was watching the children eat. They sat at tables for eight or so, mixed ages, with the food served family style. The cooks actually came out of the kitchen, prodding some children to eat their vegetables, interviewing others about their reactions to what was being served. Oh that we would have a little more of this human community around our institutional food here in the U.S. Or even our family meals, dare I say it. Seeing the kids in their vegetable patch, watching the whole community get behind the transition to organics, and listening the challenges of agriculturalists in the area did hold my interest for much of the movie.
This coming week I will mostly be doing "my own work" which will include more blog updates including movie reviews.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
What is sane? what is green?
Yesterday, after coping with my hmo and doing some necessary things at my desk I decided I needed to escape for a while to the movies. I saw Michael Clayton which seemed the best classic sort of movie I have seen in a while. I thought going to the movies might even be an escape from the thinking and writing about food issues which I ought to be doing, but not so. The food system is everywhere.
An attorney who has been working for years on a liability suit against an agribusiness company goes off the rail - he's bipolar - and begins taking the plaintiffs' part. The huge corporate law firm's "janitor" (Michael Clayton / George Clooney) is sent in to manage the attorney having the meltdown. There are many interesting twists and turns involving things like an idealistic Iowa farm girl who has lost parents and siblings to the offending herbicide and is living with her older sister's family, the fantasy novel which Clayton's young son is reading, and the dysfunctional, addicted, but ultimately redemptive bonds of Clayton's cop culture family.
One is left wondering if the crazy attorney might not have been the sanest one after all, his break a break out of amorality. And the backdrop of greenwashing in the agrichem ads has to make us all wonder if we are all the crazy ones, buying into their system in the many ways we do.
Enough. The food system is everywhere, and it's a good movie. Go see it.
An attorney who has been working for years on a liability suit against an agribusiness company goes off the rail - he's bipolar - and begins taking the plaintiffs' part. The huge corporate law firm's "janitor" (Michael Clayton / George Clooney) is sent in to manage the attorney having the meltdown. There are many interesting twists and turns involving things like an idealistic Iowa farm girl who has lost parents and siblings to the offending herbicide and is living with her older sister's family, the fantasy novel which Clayton's young son is reading, and the dysfunctional, addicted, but ultimately redemptive bonds of Clayton's cop culture family.
One is left wondering if the crazy attorney might not have been the sanest one after all, his break a break out of amorality. And the backdrop of greenwashing in the agrichem ads has to make us all wonder if we are all the crazy ones, buying into their system in the many ways we do.
Enough. The food system is everywhere, and it's a good movie. Go see it.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
When I began writing here, my thought was to move through the topics I had set for seven lessons in an on-line course that did not go. But somewhere along the line I got derailed by the latest news and recipes, the Farm Bill issues, etc., etc., etc.
This being Holy Week and Passover, though, seems a good time to pick up one thread from the course I haven't done much with, and that's food and culture.
One of the best ways to explore this, to stretch beyond one's own culture to others, and then move back to thinking about one's own ways with food with fresh eyes, is to watch a food movie.
You could begin by checking out the list here under "Yummy"
http://www.eatgrub.org/learn-films.cfm
To that list add Tortilla Soup. It's Eat, Drink, Man, Woman with a Mexican American flavor - truly, it’s exactly the same film with different accents.
Another film to consider is Avalon, a Barry Levinson film about a multi-generational Jewish family’s engagement with American Thanksgiving, a sad journey of trying to learn a new culture's feasts, and then over the generations losing all habits of shared meals.
Big Night is one of my favorite food movies, perhaps because I like Italian food. The struggle between integrity and success has great appeal as a theme, too. The last scene between the two brothers is a wonderful snap shot of reconciliation
I liked Mostly Martha, too - but it’s mostly not about food, but the young woman chef's neuroses.
Some of the more political films listed on the Eat Grub site also have a clear cultural context. Super Size Me certainly does, though we'd probably rather not think about it as "culture" unless we're anthropologists.
If you know of other films with food and culture themes, please post a comment with a thumbnail review.
This being Holy Week and Passover, though, seems a good time to pick up one thread from the course I haven't done much with, and that's food and culture.
One of the best ways to explore this, to stretch beyond one's own culture to others, and then move back to thinking about one's own ways with food with fresh eyes, is to watch a food movie.
You could begin by checking out the list here under "Yummy"
http://www.eatgrub.org/learn-films.cfm
To that list add Tortilla Soup. It's Eat, Drink, Man, Woman with a Mexican American flavor - truly, it’s exactly the same film with different accents.
Another film to consider is Avalon, a Barry Levinson film about a multi-generational Jewish family’s engagement with American Thanksgiving, a sad journey of trying to learn a new culture's feasts, and then over the generations losing all habits of shared meals.
Big Night is one of my favorite food movies, perhaps because I like Italian food. The struggle between integrity and success has great appeal as a theme, too. The last scene between the two brothers is a wonderful snap shot of reconciliation
I liked Mostly Martha, too - but it’s mostly not about food, but the young woman chef's neuroses.
Some of the more political films listed on the Eat Grub site also have a clear cultural context. Super Size Me certainly does, though we'd probably rather not think about it as "culture" unless we're anthropologists.
If you know of other films with food and culture themes, please post a comment with a thumbnail review.
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