Touches on food problems I’ve heard (and read) before in Fast Food Nation and The Future of Food, then adds more. Food seems terribly dangerous! We celebrating by eating at Farm Burger afterwards.

Eric Schlosser steals the movie – he’s an impressively engaging speaker – although depressed farmers get more screen time. If only Farmer John had been invited to lighten things up. High production values and well paced, a good documentary all around. No oscar though, thanks to The Cove. Featured speaker Michael Pollan supposedly showed the movie to secretary of agriculture Tom Vilsack, “a screening that Mr. Pollan described as uncomfortable” (NY Times) – wish there were more details on that.

The Times:

Because Food, Inc. was produced by Participant Media (among others), the company that backed An Inconvenient Truth, comparisons are inevitable. But there’s a big difference. After watching Al Gore explain the horrors of climate change, moviegoers can turn off a few lights, think about a Prius and call it a day. People who leave Food, Inc. still have to eat.

Indiewire:

Food Inc. is important in scope if not discovery, and the large territory it surveys allows it to make crucial connections between the act of buying groceries and illegal immigration, corporate patented seed, and tainted food.

The party poopers at Bright Lights call it “political pornography for environmentalists, vegans, socialists, and others already predisposed to agreeing with its argument and following its advice, while others are likely to interpret it as patronizing propaganda and get mad at the filmmakers instead of the corporations that are ruining the food supply.”