While the Eric Schlosser's book, Fast Food Nation, was hailed as a muckraking expose on the food industry in the same mold as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, I thought it failed as a film.
Here now is Food Inc., made by Robert Kenner, produced by the people behind Inconvenient Truth, repackaged from the book's ideas, and presented in documentary form. From the trailer, it looks just as engaging and persuasive as the climate change doc.
Instead of Al Gore, it features two-heavy hitters on the subject of the food industry. There's, of course, Schlosser himself, but also Michael Pollan, modern-day sage and author of The Omnivore's Dilemma.
Where and when can you see it? Well there is a bit of confusion about this. At least one site connected with the studio says that it will be included in the Newport Beach Film Festival, which is starting any day now. But it turns out, another food film, called Food Fight, is the one screening there.
Food Fight is made by Chris Taylor, and it also features Pollan, along with Chez Panisse's Alice Waters, and Lucques' Suzanne Goin as talking heads.
This film is showing for free at 1:15 pm this Sunday, April 26th at the Muth Center in Newport Beach.
Food Inc. is going to open at the Nuart in West L.A. on June 12.
Either way, both films take on the same subject, both are in documentary form, and from the looks of both trailers, both have a similar call to action. It's like a repeat of Armaggedon and Deep Impact, but with more social significance, less meteors.
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.