New Year’s Eve movie fest of flops

I had great plans to take advantage of Netflix’s online movie service to create a theme night for New Year’s Eve, when we watch movies in order to keep our minds off of how sleepy we’re getting as we wait for midnight to arrive. This year, the theme was going to be ‘World War II prisoners in Asia,’ with Empire of the Sun and Seven Years in Tibet. Not the most cheery theme, but I was convinced that these films were underrated gems full of derring-do and historical context that would be both engaging and educational. I can now say with some certainty that they’re not: they’re flops.

To be fair, we never even made it to the end of Empire of the Sun, let alone Seven Years in Tibet. Empire of the Sun was unbearable, and since that film has been largely recognized as Steven Spielberg’s Big Flop, we decided to believe that Seven Years in Tibet was probably actually Brad Pitt’s Big Flop as well and just give it a miss. Which is no doubt why they were both available for free online viewing.

Instead, we regrouped and watched The Princess Bride for the umpteenth time. It remains hilarious, in case you were wondering.

New Year’s Eve movie fest of flops

Food, Inc. screening

A couple of weeks ago, we went to a pre-release screening of Food, Inc., downtown at the E Street Theater. We’d never been; it’s nice and worth the trip downtown to be able to see limited run films in a contemporary setting. Old theaters have a lot of charm, however there’s a lot to be said for being able to feel your kneecaps when you get up to leave.

The film itself was well done. There wasn’t much new information in it, although I was pleased to see that my favorite parts of Pollan’s book—the bit about the pastured chickens and the section about corn corn corn—were apparently everyone’s favorites, as they were the basis for a large segment of the film. I had a reaction similar to my response to The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which was to think that either I was even more unusual than I realized (there is at least one person in our household who is a proponent of this view) or the authors really misunderestimated their audience’s knowledge. In support of seeing the film even if you already know everything it’s telling you, it’s definitely more striking seeing an aerial view of factory cow farms and an up close view of chickens that are simultaneously too big and underdeveloped to be able to hold themselves up than just reading the book (or watching Chicken Run for the gazillionth time). It’s easy to see footage of bushels of potatoes rolling down assembly lines being cleaned and sorted and be lulled into an easy contentment about how nearly Jetson-like our current era is; it’s nearly impossible to do the same when the potatoes are chickens. Similarly, while reading anything about Monsanto is enraging, the segment covering their persecution of an old Hoosier over his seed-cleaning business made me feel more loyalty to where I grew up than ever before. Also, I wanted to fly back home and personally beat to death (this is hyperbole, FBI) the schmuck of a lawyer who was willing to get his minute of fame stating on camera that losing this case would set a terrible precedent, but wasn’t willing to see it through to the end pro bono. [Insert your favorite ass-word derived expletive here.] Yes, it’s true that every time I see an old guy operating somewhat arcane machinery I think of my grandfather, and that makes me sentimental; it’s also true that the Indiana I grew up in may look the same—miles and miles of corn and soybeans destined for industrial processing—but it’s been totally transformed socioeconomically by Monsanto and that idiotic Thomas-driven decision. (If you’re reading this, Supreme Court, that one is high on the list of ‘stupid things that never should have happened, that we can get down to work reversing just as soon as humanly possible.’)

Besides rousing my ire, only moderately soothed by having had the foresight to wear my ‘Food for people, not for profit!’ t-shirt from the UMD food coop, the film did a decent job of highlighting the way in which our food choices are about more than just the concentration of pesticides in our toddlers’ urine. They are about the way the workers who harvest our food are treated, the health of the communities uphill from the slaughterhouses and downstream from the CAFOs, the economic solvency of the farmers who buy the seeds and rent out the chickens, and the preservation of the natural variety that makes our ecosystems more resilient when faced with pests and disease. This is the part where my partner believes I’m the unusual one, because I think about all those things when I decide how to spend our money, and at this point I’m feeling pretty confident about our mish-mash of choices. I know that we are privileged to have the marginal income to choose to spend on food rather than cable TV, and still pay for health care as well. I know that, and I’m not talking about personal economic choices made by the working poor. I’m talking about the choice to take the time to cook something from scratch, rather than buy the thing that’s full of corn syrup made from the corn grown by a guy in Indiana under the yoke of Monsanto and dependent on federal subsidies. I’m talking about the choice to pay more per gallon of milk to know that the money is going to farmers who are treating their animals well rather than to the shareholders of an enormous company that buys up farms and consolidates them just as soon as organic food starts to look profitable. I’m talking about making this balance work by eating less meat and processed food, and shifting the savings toward the budget for organic vegetables and dairy.

Really, I’m talking about putting your money where your mouth is and making a commitment to a way of participating in the food provision system in this country that reflects your core values about workplaces, environmental impacts, and product quality. Yes, I know not everyone cares as much as I do about whose pockets the profits from my dollars go into at the end of the day (or the quarter), and that’s fine. But everyone cares about something that can be reflected in how we spend our money and obtain our food, and that’s really the larger point that Food, Inc. is making. Figure out what that thing is for you, and let it guide the way you shop and eat, whether it be workers or green spaces or farmers or pesticides. It may take longer and appear to cost more than the alternatives, but we’ll all be part of a happier and healthier society for it.

Food, Inc. screening

ringing in the new year with Neo


Salud!

Having received the third DVD as a holiday gift this year, we’re planning to ring out 2007 with a Matrix movie marathon. I’ve seen the first one several times, but I think I only saw the later two in the theater.

To go with our movies, we’ll have nuts (thank you, stocking stuffers!) and a very nice bottle of champagne given to us in 2006 as a housewarming gift. According to the interwebs, it should be even nicer now having aged in our basement for 18 months, and I am greatly looking forward to it, being the champagne junkie that I am.

Here’s wishing you a happy end to 2007 and a joyful 2008. Peace.

ringing in the new year with Neo

music I thought I’d forgotten

One of my gifts this year was Mental Jewelry on CD. The band, Live, is one of my favorite bands, largely on the strength of this first album. I have a weakness for debut albums, believing they represent an artist’s hopes and dreams that they’ve been tweaking and polishing for years up until the point of recording. Plus, they frequently remain the best of a band’s discography, unless the artist dramatically changes their sound.

At any rate, Live is one of my favorite bands, and Mental Jewelry is one of my all-time favorite albums, and up until now I have only had the album dubbed on tape. It’s true that I have two copies, each given to me by the two people I was closest to that year. Which is perhaps a clue as to my affinity for the album: it reflects my ethics and sensibilities regarding living in the world in many ways. I suppose that’s why the two people who knew me best in 1992 passed it along. To some degree, selections from their first album have an energy similar to that of other recordings from that year: EMF, Jesus Jones, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. Which is fine by me, I am of my age and I liked all of them as well. Just not as much as I still like Live.

I started hankering to have a copy of Mental Jewelry on CD after seeing them at Meadowbrook this past summer. I happened to be in LaSalle, and to see an ad for the concert on TV. As it happened, I could have picked up a voucher at any gas station in the Detroit area and gone for five bucks, but I didn’t; I bought a single ticket and showed up early to pick it up at the box office. The guy in the seat next to me had done the same thing—he’d also driven nearly 4 hours to come to the show, and had never seen them in concert before. This made the fourth time I’d seen them, and it was definitely the biggest venue. Well, the Palace was comparable, but they were the opener.

I am a bad fan. Despite having loved the music for 15 years now, I knew very little about them, and still couldn’t really tell you who’s who in the band. I’ve always known they were my age, I remembered that much from having interviewed them after the show at my college my first year. But I only recently learned they were from Pennsylvania, and I couldn’t tell you any kind of trivia about them. I do know that they’ve been together as a band since junior high, and that may explain some of the fondness I have for them. That aspect reminds me of people I know who’ve been playing together just about that long, and have succeeded in leaving the garage sound behind. I have to say, knowing a lot of people who played music in garages growing up pretty much ruined me for garage bands in my adult life.

But, back to Live. I got the CD as a gift, I listened to it on our car trip across the Midwest, and I thought to myself ‘I must have listened to this tape A Lot, because I know every word of every song and I would have sworn I couldn’t even tell you what was on this album with any degree of reliability.’ I still couldn’t tell you the names of half of the songs, but the brain cells that contain the actual music have not been reallocated after all.

So now, this week, I’ve been listening to the CD on my wee shuffle. I’m sure I’ll get sick of it again at some point. So far, though, all it’s really done is give me a strong craving to hear the version of ‘I Walk the Line’ that they performed at the concert last summer. Which in turn is giving me a strong craving to see the film again; one of the rare instances when I thoroughly enjoyment Reese’s acting, in addition to being impressed with both of their voices. Even the interjections of my friends to the tune of ‘he wasn’t that good-looking, was he? I don’t remember him looking like Joaquin Phoenix, did he? Can we find a picture online?’ didn’t take away my appreciation.

But June Carter Cash is a topic for another day.

music I thought I’d forgotten