MOVIE REVIEW - Lincoln Lawyer, The (2011)

Great plot. Bad directing. Annoying music. Unpleasant characters, all.

MOVIE REVIEW - Fighter, The (2010)

From a quality perspective, it's probably a 7. From an enjoyment perspective, about a 3. So I'll average it to a 5. If a movie has heavy drug use, I'm almost never a fan; and this is no exception. Christian Bale is getting rave reviews for his crackhead brother role; and while he may have been alright (and lost almost as much weight as he did in The Machinist), his character was so deplorable and unpleasant and self-serving that I couldn't appreciate the role. Similar with Melissa Leo as Marky and Christian's whack-job mom - she did do a great job, but wow, one messed up woman. And those 7 sisters, now that was comic relief! They say Kentucky is full of hicks? Those Massachusetts girls were white trash to the max. Hilarious, though. Also hilarious how Christian kept jumping out the back window. As an homage to X-Files, I wish they had had the mom say to the sisters, "I'm haungry", in her best Mamma Peacock fashion. Mark and Amy were stellar, and the "fight for the dream" story in the movie was appropriately heartwarming. But overall, there was such filth and selfishness run amok, it was hard for me to enjoy it.

MOVIE REVIEW - Unstoppable (2010)

Quite a good thriller, where the "bad guy" is a runaway train with no driver. They did an excellent of job of making an inanimate object menacing. I looked up the supposed "true story" that this was based on, and surprisingly, something similar (though less dramatic, but still extremely dangerous) did occur in 2001 in Ohio - a driverless train going over 50 mph! The film had some mild eye-rolling dialog and overly dramatic melodrama and unrealistic action, but overall, it really had me on the edge of my seat.

I think this movie would easily span gender as enjoyable.

MOVIE REVIEW - Food, Inc. (2008)

Happy to see McLean County, KY playing such an important part of our nation's food supply! That's about an hour and a half from me. The Kentucky farmer, at first, was willing to show the film crew his barn. Why? Because he thought there was nothing wrong with what they were doing - it's farming! The only reason Perdue didn't want them in the barn is because they knew the filmmakers would be perverting the message - which they really, really did. When the filmmaker found the woman farmer who let him in the barn, I kept expecting to see something unnatural, something horrific. No, I saw a chicken barn. She said, "It is nasty in here, there is dust flying everywhere, there are feces in here." Duh, lady, IT'S WHAT CHICKEN BARNS LOOK LIKE! It's pretty close to what chicken barns looked like when I grew up on the farm 30 years ago, except more efficient.

"The industry doesn't want you to know the truth about where your food is coming from; because if you knew, you may not want to eat it." What he should have said is, "America has become so feminine, so whiny, so far removed from anything realistic, that if they saw a slaughterhouse, no matter how perfectly kept and efficient and healthy it is, they would be horrified that meat is really a dead animal." Yes, meat is a dead animal. It's called the food chain, you idiots.

The filmmaker is criticizing McDonalds for having the workers be an assembly line. McDonalds should be praised for revolutionizing the industry and nearly eradicating poverty in our country. GOOD FOR THEM, no matter how much this idiot filmmaker criticizes them.

The filmmaker says our farming is still a "pastoral fantasy", implying that it no longer is that. It's not true. While the pasture is different than it used to be, it is still a pasture, still a farm, and still produces the same product - beef - that it used to. Only better. More efficient. Better tasting. Just as healthy, if not moreso.

"It's just the notion of a tomato", he says. Uh, no, it's still a tomato. Same components, same DNA. Just more efficient, year-round, bigger, plumper.

At most every point, when the filmmaker was trying to make a shocking point, I was cheering on the industry. It is excellent that the food companies have become so efficient. We have a huge demand for food. And these companies have stepped up to the plate and found a way to feed us all. GOOD FOR THEM! Good for all of us. It drives me insane that we are complaining about the factory farms. If we do as this filmmaker wishes and shuts down the farm, that very filmmaker will then be complaining about the MANY MILLIONS of people who are then dying of starvation.

The one woman (supposedly a Republican - yeah, right) whose son died from ecoli needs to go back home and deal with her very legitimate and sad loss. She is the Cindy Sheehan of the food industry. Yes, it is very sad and tragic that her kid died. But would she really have us believe that the prior farming methods were better, less susceptible to disease, less likely to kill a random kid? In addition to the added starvation (in droves), the prior methods were TONS more disease-ridden, dirtier, unsanitary. Every time the filmmaker snuck in and got a snapshot of the modern day barn or factory or slaughterhouse, I was amazed at how excellent the conditions were. Have these people never seen a pre-factory-farm farm? They are dirty! They have dead chickens and deformed cows and sickly pigs. Of course the filmmaker was able to find a random chicken falling over. There were thousands of chickens, it ain't tough finding one that's sick!

I was talking to a prosecuting attorney last week for my job, and she said that emotions need to be removed from law. She said that there should never, ever, be a law named after some victim. Because those laws tend to be made out of emotion, but usually over-extend their potential good by a lot; and that the laws are seldom used for their original purpose. For instance, Kentucky has just passed Amanda's Law, after a lady sort of knew that was killed last year by her ex-fiance. Amanda's law is supposed to now protect women from domestic abuse. The prosecuting attorney said that this law will instead be used as revenge by girlfriends mad at their boyfriends, who they want to keep from going hunting. She said that when emotion gets into the law, logic and fairness goes out the door. The woman in this movie who lost her son is not a conservative - conservatives deal with their tragedy, rather than forcing their tragedy on the entire population.

I'm sad to see WalMart caving into the Organic Market. It means that the irrational liberals are making enough ground so that stupid people who believe the lies about factory farms are buying enough to somewhat change the competitive market. Makes me sad and mad.

Certainly, there are a couple of points in the film that I agree with. The huge food companies are taking over the industry, and they are doing so largely by lobbying to government on their own behalf. I hate that reality. But I don't just hate it in the food industry. I hate it in all industries. Government should not, constitutionally, be in bed with business in any way. The food companies are stealing when they do this (e.g., getting government subsidies to encourage grain). But so is every other industry - pharmaceuticals, energy, manufacturing, everyone. It's all outrageous, and the food industry no less. Even as a farmer, I've always vehemently disagreed with the agriculture subsidies the government gives - to the point of paying farmers NOT to grow crops in many instances - insane. So, yes, I want that eliminated. I also agree that the companies should be severely fined for hiring illegal aliengs. But these are complaints I have with government policies in general.

The other point I was unaware of, and agreed with the side of the filmmaker, was the Monsanto seed patent issue. It's insane that the patent office granted Monsanto that patent - so that every small or large farmer is now subservient to Monsanto. Since the seed propagates through pollination, no one can keep the seed out of their fields. Thus, they can no longer save their seeds to plant next year's crops - something that has been done (thanks to Nature) since the beginning of time. Those small, older farmers, are getting screwed. This is not acceptable policy.

Filmmakers like these just have no conception of what farming is like, and what it's been like throughout history. Animals are herded for the purpose of being food for us. That's just reality. It's not a new reality, it's historic reality - historic since the beginning of MAN. If you want to be a vegetarian, then cool, that's another discussion. But these guys were trying to make me horrified at the factory farm specifically; and instead, I was just really, really impressed at their accomplishments, for everyone's benefit. Good for them. Good for the filmmaker, too, since he gets to eat a lot better than he otherwise would.

I was already furious at the filmmakers. And then came the closing credits, which made my eyes bleed. "You can vote to change this system. Three times a day. Buy from companies that treat workers, animals, and the environment with respect. When you go to the supermarket, choose foods that are in season. Buy foods that are organic. Know what's in your food. Read the labels. The average meal travels 1500 miles from the farm to the supermarket. Buy foods that are grown locally. Shop at farmer's markets. Plant a garden (even a small one). Cook a meal with your family and eat together. Everyone has a right to healthy food. Make sure your farmer's market takes good stamps. Ask your school board to provide healthy school lunches. The FDA and USDA are supposed to protect you and your family. Tell Congress to enforce food safety standards and re-introduce Kevin's Law. If you say grace, ask for food that will keep us, and the planet, healthy. You can change the world with every bite. Hungry for change? go to takepart.com/foodinc."

This is statist philosophy to a tee. It's total crap. Uninformed, manipulative, evil crap.

MOVIE REVIEW - Lovely Bones, The (2009)

This awful adaptation of the apparently awful book by Alice Sebold stars two of my favorite actors in Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz. This hideous script and hideous execution of said script so wasted their admirable talents.

Things I hated about the movie (spoiler alerts, galore!):
* Ridiculous "theology" of the in-between world, where people who have all been murdered by the same person apparently go until that person has been, um, not caught, but found out. As soon as they are found out, the murdered sisterhood gets to happily move on to heaven, full of rainbows and water and changing seasons and light. Yee haw.
* The ultra-annoying Saoirse Ronan, who is no less awful here than she was in her hideous Oscar-nominated Atonement.
* Mark Wahlberg, with his ultra-huge biceps, elevated sense of vengeance, and BASEBALL BAT, gets beaten up by an unsuspecting wimpy teenager trying to have sex in a cornfield. Yeah, that's realistic.
* Said wimpy teenager and his now-pregnant cornfield girlfriend are part of the ""lovely bones"" that followed in the wake of Saoirse's murder. Hey, the cornfield girlfriend may think his bones are lovely, but I think they're all just white trash.
* The unbelievably long haul of the leaded safe from Tucci's truck to the sinkpit. Uh, could that have been drawn out any longer? Couldn't the truck have been moved back about 20 yards? Wouldn't those thumps have been better used thumping the director's head? And with all that "suspense", Saoirse (in said leaded safe) still ends up unfound in the pit? UGH!
* Saoirse, instead of coming back to avenge the killer, came back to - seriously??? - kiss her boyfriend, via the mystic? And by boyfriend, I mean ""kid who she had one conversation with, once""???!!! UGH!
* Karma gets Tucci. Yay. Ugh, how hideous.
* Sister, in the only decent scene in the entire movie, breaks into Tucci's house to find the evidence. And she does - but only as Tucci comes into the house. But wait - instead of taking the evidence and running, she - seriously??? - turns the page in the book. Yes, killer is downstairs, but I'm gonna turn a couple more pages just to see what I've got. This is just an awful movie.
* Sister finally has the evidence back in her house, and lo and behold, mom is back home from a long-spent emotional sabbatical. So no, let's not call the police yet, let's not let everyone know the urgent evidence in my hand; let's have family time first. Oh. My. God. I really hate this movie.
* The Asian "murdered sisterhood" girl was almost as annoying as Saoirse.
* Also as annoying as Saoirse was the not-so-young couple who sat behind me and brought their INFANT to the theater. Yes, infant - the kid could not have been more than 2 months old. Cried, cooed, and stared at the way-too-much-stimulation-for-an-infant movie. Worse, the couple constantly TALKED (not whispered) to each other about how next to deal with their crying infant. After the movie, I considered running them over with my car, just to spare the child of the next 20 years of horror being raised by these rednecks.

MOVIE REVIEW - Sunshine Cleaning (2009)

Amy Adams stars in this inspiring, difficult, and sometimes dreary indie film about a maid who starts a new business cleaning crime scenes. Her entrepreneurial spirit was admirable.

MOVIE REVIEW - Blind Side, The (2009)

Sandra Bullock finally carries a movie competently. She plays a real-life wealthy Southerner who takes in a homeless black kid, who ultimately becomes NFL player Michael Oher. This is an inspiring story, heavy on the sap, but also heavy on the laughs. This story shows compassion in action, and I know of several real-life families who have made similar choices. Good for them.