Screening Log
This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.
December 2007 activity
Total Log Entries: 47
- Adam (6)
- Chet (0)
- Chiranjit (3)
- Cullen (0)
- David (0)
- Eva (0)
- Evan (0)
- Ian (8)
- Jenny (0)
- Katherine (0)
- Leo (5)
- Megan (1)
- Rumsey (6)
- Teddy (0)
- Thomas (0)
- Victoria (2)
Total Comments: 12
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (4)
- Zodiac (0)
- Charlie Wilson’s War (0)
- The Savages (0)
- Hell and High Water (0)
- The Witnesses (0)
- Keane (0)
- We Own The Night (0)
- The Golden Compass (2)
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (0)
- Michael Clayton (3)
- National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (0)
- Scrooged (1)
- Dangerous Days (0)
- Harvey (0)
- Blade Runner (0)
- The Passing Show (0)
- In The Line Of Fire (0)
- Peeping Tom (0)
- Control (0)
- Rescue Dawn (1)
- The Kingdom (0)
- Superbad (0)
- Mildred Pierce (0)
- Knocked Up (0)
- Beowulf (1)
- Now, Voyager (0)
- A Girl Cut In Two (0)
- Alexandra (0)
- Dune (0)
- Absolute Wilson (0)
- Berserk! (0)
- Fast Food Nation (0)
- Bewitched (0)
- Helvetica (0)
- Kind Hearts and Coronets (0)
- Love Songs (0)
- Lady Chatterley (0)
- No Reservations (0)
- Juno (0)
- Eastern Promises (0)
- Death Proof (0)
- Control (0)
- Southland Tales (0)
- Once (0)
- Blue Velvet (0)
- The Mist (0)
Full Archive
Fast Food Nation / USA / 2006
A grossly ineffective adaptation of the famed book, Eric Schlosser and Richard Linklater have defended their decision to go fictional by praising the unrestrained possibilities of narrative over documentary. And while it’s obvious this choice was motivated more by lawsuit paranoia than simple production—all the big-name buy-and-go restaurants are seen in passing as a sort of glowing roadside panorama—we have to take this film as is: A melodrama book-ended by thoughts on greasy convenience foods. It’s perfectly fine if Linklater wants to structure Fast Food Nation around family life, as long as that domestic peek enhances the overall argument, which it doesn’t. Yes, we understand fast-food workers get paid little for working around mass-produced garbage, and that those working in slaughterhouses are in constant danger—anyone who’s read the book knows this. A film provides us with something a book cannot: visual evidence, which we get very little of (besides those denouement shots of cows). Which is why the preference for fiction doesn’t necessarily work here; in order to keep us interested, Schlosser and Linklater had to create an interesting story, one that couldn’t just be about meat. And so they inundate us with Ethan Hawke and Kris Kristofferson doing their best to enhance the worst, all while the targets of their scorn are left largely unscathed.
by Adam Balz | Source: DVD
17 Dec 2007 8:19 PM | Submit Comment
