Category: Newsletters

This lunch has been brought to you by. . . .

The unspoken mantra of consumer culture may as well be “Bigger, better, faster, more!” The American business sector never stops innovating when it comes to meeting customer demand––but just how many “innovators” have gotten to our food before we do?

Fruits, vegetables, and livestock still carry connotations of a farmer waking up with the rooster’s crow to raise fresh, organic life in the fresh, organic air. The pastoral image masks an intensely mechanized, capitalistic system that is as hell-bent on efficiency, revenue, and competitive advantage as any other industry. The nation’s largest food production and distribution companies have amassed enough influence over the years to control every single stage in the lifespan of our purportedly wholesome ingredients––and their wallets may be too big for our stomachs.

Director Robert Kenner connects with Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser and a host of experts––farmers, professors, corporate leaders, politicians, and advocates––to trace just some of the innumerable effects of commercial food production. He casts a wide net, examining everything from chemical applications to the treatment of animals; from sanitation practices to workers’ rights; from disease epidemics to legal battles. At the core of the study is a call to viewers to demand the details of what they put in their mouths. Needless to say, FOOD, INC. will give you plenty of food for thought.

– Sandra L. Frey

In this sequel to Crank (2006), Chev Chelios faces a Chinese mobster who has stolen his nearly indestructible heart and replaced it with a battery-powered ticker that requires regular jolts of electricity to keep working.

“Honduran teenager Sayra (Gaitan) reunites with her father, an opportunity for her to potentially realize her dream of a life in the U.S. Moving to Mexico is the first step in a feateful journey of unexpected events.”

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A funky, self-professedly “funtastic” Pennsylvania amusement park, Adventureland appears to be the bane of recent college graduate James BrennanÂ’s (Jesse Eisenberg) existence. He previously had big plans to spend the summer on a life-altering trek through Europe that would initiate him into real adult life. But when his family suffers an economic downturn in the middle of the Reagan 80s, JamesÂ’ only summer trip is straight to a minimum wage job manning a game booth so existentially bankrupt, no one is even allowed to win the “giant-ass” stuffed panda. Welcome to ADVENTURELAND, where the worst job imaginable is about to inadvertently turn into the summer that changes everything.”

” If the first order of business for any self-respecting film noir is a dead body with a story to tell, Ole Bornedal is quick to oblige. But rest assured that this twisted, visually energized genre… If the first order of business for any self-respecting film noir is a dead body with a story to tell, Ole Bornedal is quick to oblige. But rest assured that this twisted, visually energized genre bender has no further use for “custom,” and Just Another Love Story is anything but.

Jonas is a crime photographer, a family man, and a generally beleaguered resident of suburban malaise until heÂ’s involved in a car accident that leaves a stranger, Julia, unconscious in the hospital. Curiosity compels Jonas to visit her, but when JuliaÂ’s family mistakes him for her boyfriend, Sebastian (whom theyÂ’ve never met), Jonas readily steps into the role. His pretense would be short lived, but Julia awakens with amnesia and, enlivened by the new identity heÂ’s inherited, Jonas maintains the deception. Of course, memories return. And so do boyfriends.

Playing with flashbacks, employing a linearly fractured narrative, and freely manipulating noirÂ’s standard devices and archetypes, BornedalÂ’s dexterity with genre conventions is on full display here. Constantly aware of whatÂ’s predictable, he heads in the opposite direction. Moreover, he latches onto a completely universal impulse–the desire to reinvent ourselves. But fatalism rules in noir, and the cruel irony–tailor made for that dead body–is that living a life that isnÂ’t yours is a dangerous game, an illusory freedom. The truth always comes knocking at your door.”

“In I Love You, Man, a comedy from John Hamburg (Along Came Polly, co-writer of Meet The Parents, Meet The Fockers, Zoolander), Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd, Knocked Up The 40 Year Old Virgin) is a successful real estate agent who, upon getting engaged to the woman of his dreams, Zooey, (The Offices Rashida Jones), discovers, to his dismay and chagrin, that he has no male friend close enough to serve as his Best Man. Peter immediately sets out to rectify the situation, embarking on a series of bizarre and awkward man-dates, before meeting Sydney Fife (Jason Segel, Forgetting Sarah Marshall), a charming, opinionated man with whom he instantly bonds. But the closer the two men get, the more Peters relationship with Zooey suffers, ultimately forcing him to choose between his fiancée and his new found bro, in a story that comically explores what it truly means to be a friend.”