Archive for the ‘Movies’ Category
March 3rd, 2010 | 
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And why it truly sucked.
I can’t say it any better than cowmix, who submitted this to Slashdot this afternoon:
“When TPM came out ten years ago, its utter crappiness shocked me to the core and wounded a entire generation of geeks. My inner child had been abused and betrayed. I moped around, talking to no one, for almost two weeks. I couldn’t bring myself to see #2 or #3, whatever they were called. Now, a decade later, comes Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Review, the ultimate, seven-part, seventy minute analysis of this mother of all train wrecks. Not only does it nail how the film blows, but tells us why. Time, apparently, does not heal all wounds.”
No, no it doesn’t.
When I refer to the Star Wars films, I make a hard distinction between the “good ones” (nominally Eps IV – VI) and the crap that Lucas appears to have released solely to abuse his fan base. After suffering through TPM, I didn’t bother with “Attack of the Clones” and I don’t even recall noticing the release of the third one (I don’t know the name of it and I can’t be bothered looking it up.) I’ve introduced Phil to the good ones and he’s eaten them right up. I have no interest in watching the crappy ones and certainly won’t spend perfectly good money on them.
If you eat, you need to see this movie. The food production reality in North America is nothing close to the myth that the industry spends so much time, effort and money to maintain. It’s all about the allmighty dollar and almost no thought whatsoever is given to nutrition any more.
Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) provide much of the commentary to this look at industrial food production in the US. I’d like to claim that things are different in Canada, but I’d be lying. Factory farms are far more factory than farm and you can imagine the quality of “food” that comes out of them.
It’s an eye opener, to be sure. The solution: vote with your food dollars and support your local farmer. They’re out there, you just have to look. More on that later. 
OK, I didn’t realize that people were waiting for a review. Yeesh.
Greg and I hit Zombieland last Friday. I’ve been looking forward to it for months and Greg’s been a willing participant of late.
Literally, right from the opening, I haven’t laughed like this at a movie in ages. Ages. You’ve seen the rules in the trailer, that’s how it starts. Our hero, a “paranoid shut-in” known as Columbus (no names, just cities), has a list of rules for survival that have gotten him this far in the post-infection world (tainted hamburger, in case you were wondering). As with many things in this life, it all hinges on getting enough exercise:
