Reviews of Food, Inc.
Displaying all 3 reviews
MovieFreak4702
4Feb10
I think I’d feel better about this film if the film got into more detail about all foods and not just the meat industry. I don’t think it was the intent of the filmmakers to paint a sympathetic picture of vegetarians or anything like that, as they show chickens being slaughtered without judgement or any question of morality, but I have to say that the emphasis on impure meat was heavy handed and without a balance on the rest of our diet as a culture. While presenting many valid facts, I have to say that it didn’t move me like a documentary should. The story of the young boy who died of e-coli poisoning was heartbreaking and painful to watch, genuinely, but beyond that one isolated case I didn’t find much to get behind with this film. Hell, even Eric Schlosser, the man in the film who seems to be most against the secretive processing of meat, admits his favorite meal is the hamburger and french fries. He, maybe unknowingly, becomes a contradiction of the message he’s trying to preach to his audience with a single action, and it’s that kind of hypocritical nature that discredits a lot of the film.
- Currently 3.0/5 Stars.
Josef K.
1Oct09
Welp, guess i am never eating again…
Food inc was a pretty good film, however, i don’t really think it taught me anything new, i was pretty aware of the disarray that our food industry is in. however, the film did emphasize what i already know with visual aids, which are pretty powerful. Food Inc is a documentary, for all intensive purposes, but it could also be labeled a horror movie. it is scary to see how money and the love of power is essentially killing us. I am not a full-fledged vegetarian but, i rarely eat meat and i even more infrequently eat processed food. this is not to sound conceded but, i guess i have already jumped on the band wagon and hopefully the rest of America will jump on board and stop corporate cronies from killing us slowly. maybe we should let them know that the less of us there are, the less money they can make.
Eat Local, Eat Organic.
- Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
Byron Brubaker
22Jul09
Not a vegetarian message movie specifically, since Pollan wrote “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” Pollan and Schlosser being the two main commentators on America’s food industry for the purposes of this doc. The movie is anti-big corporations, anti-food industry status quo, and anti-science for changing and trying to manage food production. The movie reveals to customers where their food comes from, how farmers cope with corporations controlling their operations, the cause of a couple food related illnesses, and the natural way a minority of farmers still produce food. Two things stand out to me. First, there were gasps and murmurs from the audience whenever animals (mostly chickens) were shown to be mistreated. But then when the movie presents it’s segment on a farmer raising his livestock humanely, most people in the audience were still audibly uncomfortable when a chicken was killed for food. This one farmer was portrayed as a good guy who was well spoken. He speaks of the intimacy of animals giving their lives to feed us. It is a very natural thing for us to eat meat. I can’t help but think that it is a spoiled, childishly picky attitude that vegetarians take, which shows how distanced we in the modern world have become from the blood and guts and bones that our ancestors learned to handle. Second, I have enjoyed the History Channel’s Modern Marvels show. This show has focused on food production for several of their episodes, so I was not surprised by the factory assembly line style of food processing today, the genetic modifications and computerized operations, or the fact that corn is so cheap and prevalent throughout the food industry. While there are obvious problems, I’m quite cynical of the movie’s approach in generally bashing science.
I thought the movie made great points in the food industry needing better regulations. This includes more objective outsiders running the FDA and USDA rather than past executives from the big food corporations. And also food labeling needs to be more revealing to the customers in the grocery stores. The movie also does a great job of showing natural farming and organic foods in a positive light. With the cost to consumer issue and the fact that most organic food companies are finding themselves under the same umbrellas of the huge corporations, it is still not an easy decision to make as to what you are going to put in your refrigerator, on your plate, and in your body.
- Currently 3.0/5 Stars.