"Food, Inc." (2008)

[agate]

These are not pretty pictures.

This movie made me especially glad I haven't been near meat or poultry for 25 years. The way chickens, pigs and cows are treated as shown here is sickening.

The movie indicates that it is often cheaper to eat at fast-food places than to buy produce and meat at a supermarket and cook it for the family to eat. This is truly appalling though I'm not sure that the movie really demonstrates that it is true.

The movie is intent on piling on the drama, annoyingly so. The sound track is relentlessly ominous music. We get shockeroo glimpses of failing cows being led to the slaughter.

This is one way to get people's attention and emphasize the gravity of the problem of modern farming methods.

I'd have preferred a more factual presentation. For instance, the point about Monsanto may be obscured by the way the movie jumps around from scene to scene.

And, like many documentaries lately--Michael Moore's films come to mind--it flits from scene to scene so fast that important details are left out or just touched on.