Cynical Cinema

Final Destination (4/10):  The first Final Destination movie was two things.  Terrible and great.  In a movie that follows the conventions of the teen-horror genre, it manages to be kind of original.  Sure, there are hot young actors getting into scary situations and so forth.  But Final Destination manages to inject some life into this.  You see, a kid (Devon Sawa) has a premonition about a plane crash.  When he freaks out and demands to be let off the plane, along with several others, the plane does indeed crash.  Then Death has to even the score, and each of those who escaped death on the plane get picked off one by one.  Which means there is no real villain, it’s just Death coming out of nowhere.  Which leads to some crazy, out-of-nowhere, all-of-a-sudden death sings which are genuinely jolting.  The special effects are cheesy and bad, the dialogue is inane, and Devon Sawa is simply dreadful as the lead.  But at least people get killed in really interesting ways.  Final Destination was directed by James Wong.

Final Destination 2 (5/10):  An even more ludicrous plot than the first one, with Ali Larter, the lone survivor from the first movie, locked up in a padded cell, terrified that Death is still coming for her.  When a girl (A.J. Cook) has a premonition about a car accident, she manages to save several people.  Again, Death comes for them, and they enlist Larter’s help to defeat Death.  Then there is some nonsense about a pregnant lady and a birth interrupting the chain of death.  It is an even-more ludicrous premise and idiotic denoument than the first movie.  But what makes this movie better is simply that Cook and Larter are much better actors than Sawa, the dialogue isn’t quite as stupid, and the special effects are better.  Which means those amazing death scenes are that much more jolting.  James Wong is out for this one, and David R. Ellis replaces him as director.  He is slightly less ham-handed, but this movie is still really stupid.  It’s just stupid AND fun.

Final Destination 3 (2/10):  The worst in the series.  At this point, we’re used to the crazy, out-of-nowhere deaths.  We know what to expect.  And of course, they’re still shocking.  But this plot, (now revolving around a roller coaster accident) is amazingly preposterous, even for this series.  After a pretty decent second installment in this series, they have gone back to the people who created the first one.  James Wong is back as director, and brings all of his ineptitude to the table.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays the girl with the premonition this time, and she is average at best.  There is a pretty good death scene involving a tanning bed.  But what makes this movie dreadful is…well many things.  Here are a few of them.  The special effects are, once again, dreadful.  The opening scene with the roller coaster is full of shaky cameras, bizarre camera tricks, and nothing cool.  The movie makes references to Abraham Lincoln and 9/11 when the kids start to investigate what’s going on.  A staggering series of leaps in logic that leaves us really angry.  We get even more angry as the death scenes, which are no longer a surprise, drag on.  And on.  And on.  Just kill them already!  We know what’s coming!  In fact, just kill this movie already.

The three movies came out in a package yesterday, courtesy of Alliance Films.  They are available in a bargain trilogy, all on just one disc.  Final Destination and Final Destination 2 are on one side of the DVD, Final Destination 3 is on the other.  There are no special features worth mentioning.  When it hit stores, there was a 2-disc edition of Final Destination 3 that allowed you to change the movie - choose how the characters die, whether they die at all - that was kind of neat.  But the movie was so bad to begin with that there was no possible way I could care about these special features.  Therefore, the best way to get this series IS on a single disc.  If you want to get it at all.

 Oh, and the FOURTH installment in this series is scheduled to be released in 2009.  Which might well make this “trilogy” incomplete.  Perhaps you’re better off waiting for Alliance to release a thirty-one disc box set of all thirty-one installments once this series has finally bled itself dry.  On the plus side - David R. Ellis will be directing the fourth movie, which means it might be pretty good, like Final Destination 2.

Pick of the week:  Son of Rambow (9/10):  The most charming movie in years.  Two young boys become friends while bonding over Rambo movies and filming one of their own.

What Happens in Vegas:  Ashton Kutcher?  Cameron Diaz?  Sounds a lot like Matthew McConnaughey and Kate Hudson to me.  Which sounds like garbage.

Where In The World is Osama Bin Laden? (4/10):  A sub-par second effort from the director of Super Size Me.  Lots of set-up, no payoff.

The Future of Food (8/10):  A fascinating look at the food we eat, the methods by which it is grown, produced and delivered, and what it means for the world in the future.

Confessions of a Superhero (7/10):  Interesting documentary about the people who dress up as superheroes and walk along Hollywood Boulevard taking pictures with tourists for money.

Redbelt:  A movie about underground prize-fighting, MMA and so forth, where a guy gets sucked into the world against his will…stars Time Allen.  Seriously.  Tim Allen.

The Little Mermaid:  Ariel’s Beginning:  Well, the title about says it all.  More Disney for the Little Mermaid crowd.

Woody Allen:  The Collection (9/10):  Six of Woody Allen’s second-tier movies are packaged together in a terrific collection that features one obscure disc - Wild Man Blues, a great documentary about Allen and his jazz ensemble.

Virgin Territory:  Stars Mischa Barton and Hayden Christensen, and is all about seduction in 14th century Florence.  Sounds dreadful.

Chicago 10 (8/10):  A strange but compelling documentary about the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, the anti-war protests that came with it, the riots that followed the protests, and the arrests and trial that followed the protests.

Postal (1/10):  A religious charlatan, his mild mannered nephew and a gang of bosomy commandos face off against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in an epic battle that will determine the fate of the world.  Whee!!!

Scream Trilogy (9/10):  Alliance Films has a new set of the Scream trilogy coming out tomorrow.  There’s nothing new here, no special features, but the series is still absolutely amazing.

PBS The Presidents Box Set (10/10):  A staggeringly large volume of documentaries about the major American Presidents of the 20th century.  35 hours of information, interviews and in-depth studies of politics.  Incredible.

The Last Winter:  Unseen evil stalks a crew in the tundra of Alaska.  Unseen evil?  Sounds…ugh.

Lucky Luke Go West:  The Movie (7/10):  A French movie based on the old comic books starring Lucky Luke, the Western hero who is the fastest draw in the West.  Bonkers, ridiculous action and incredibly silly humour, but still worthwhile.

Everybody Hates Chris, Season Three (8/10):  Still one of the funniest shows on television.

Best of Comedy Central Presents, Volume Two (7/10):  A definite step up from Volume One.  Few weak moments.

NCIS Season Five (5/10):  This is a show that is exactly like every other similar show.  Cops and crime scenes and forensic investigation.  I just happen to kinda like those shows.

The Untouchables Season Two, Volume Two (8/10):  Still one of the best classic TV shows available on DVD.  Robert Stack, Elliott Ness, Al Capone, guns and babes and booze and gangsters.  Good times.

Also Out:

Heroes:  Season Two
Entourage:  Complete Fourth Season
Prison Break Season Three
Restraint
Artifacts
Bakugan
Care Bears:  Care-A-Lot Collection
Fishtales
Go Diego Go:  Diego’s Hallowe’en
Puzzle
Toxic
When Evil Calls
Boxboarders
Chamber of Death
Final Approach
Gypsy Caravan
Steel Trap
Wasted

Next week:

Married Life
Life Before Her Eyes
The Office:  Season Four
My Sassy Girl
August
Next Avengers:  Heroes of Tomorrow
Desperate Housewives:  Complete Fourth Season
AKA Tommy Chong
Bait Shop
The Forgotten Woman
Life:  Season One
The Morgue
Supernatural:  The Complete Third Season
Ballet Shoes
Genghis Khan:  To the Ends of the Earth and Sea
Lords of the Street
Outlaw

I have watched a lot of movies in my time. 400 or so of those movies are reviewed here on this website. But prior to starting this website, I would venture a guess and say I have seen about five thousand movies, maybe more. Because I am really lame and have no life. And of all those movies, I can honestly say that I have rarely been as charmed with a movie as I am with Son of Rambow. Paramount Home Entertainment releases this gem on Tuesday, August 26th, and I highly recommend picking it up right away. There is no word I can use to describe this movie other than “charming”. A word that could be considered one that indicates faint praise. Like, “oh, that movie was so cute and charming, too bad it involved Meg Ryan and sucked”. But I mean it in a way that conveys the highest praise.

Son Of Rambow is not a great movie. It is not a perfect movie or even an extraordinarily well-crafted movie. But those are merely benchmarks that many movie critics use to give a final rating. Like a judge in Olympic gymnastics. Oh, there’s an awkward cut at the end of the scene. Minus one star. There’s a slight hop at the end of the dismount. Minus one point. What movies aim to do is create a certain emotion, and the technical aspects of a movie can sometimes be totally irrelevant. And Son Of Rambow is one of those movies. Not that it’s ham-handed or poorly directed or anything. But it’s charm comes from elsewhere. What makes the film so wonderful is that the charm is, or at least seems to be, completely effortless. It’s that effortlessness that makes great movies. E.T., The Goonies, and a very few others have managed to do the same.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a young boy, about nine or ten years old, being raised by a single mother in some kind of religious cult. When you go to school, you have to wait outside the classroom whenever the class is watching a movie or something on TV, because your religion forbids it. You have no friends, because making friends with anyone the cult does not approve is forbidden. You have a vivid imagination, and you express this incredible imagination through drawing - on your schoolbooks, your locker, the bathroom stalls at school, anything you can get your hands on. And then, through a series of bizarre circumstances, you end up seeing the only thing you have ever seen, on television or in movies. And it’s First Blood. Seriously, stop and think about that for a moment. When I was very young, about five years old, I saw television for the first time ever. I watched a Raggedy Ann cartoon at, I believe, Megan McLeod’s birthday party. And it affected me. In point of fact, it scared the living hell out of me. I had nightmares for weeks. About Raggedy Ann. Imagine seeing Rambo in that situation.

Now, the only window you have into the world beyond your own is RAMBO. And the only boy willing to talk to you at school is making a movie. You know this boy because every time you’re out in the hall when the class is watching TV, he’s out in the hall because he’s been kicked out of his own class. And now, you are obsessed with Rambo, and you get to play the Son Of Rambo in his movie. The world is opening up to you! In fact, this other boy is so impressed with your drawings that he’s making YOUR movie. When young Will turns to young Lee Carter and says “this is the happiest day of my entire life”, you can’t question the statement for even a second. It’s stating the obvious. Of COURSE this is the happiest day of his life. And we, the audience, are absolutely thrilled for him.

The best thing about this movie are the two young leads. Will Poulter plays Lee Carter, the bad kid in school, a kid who lives alone with his abusive jerk of an older brother because his mom is gallivanting around Europe with some guy. He steals, he wrecks stuff, he tells teachers off, simply because there is no one at home to actually discipline him. So why wouldn’t he? Poulter is fantastic in the role, but it is Bill Milner who turns this film into something great. As Will Proudfoot, the young man under the thumb of this bizarre religious cult, he is pure innocence personified, completely guileless, and so powerfully enthusiastic about this project and his new friend that we are totally sucked in.

The two young men, initially brought together in a sort of friendship-of-convenience, soon become really good friends. As the only two who know about their film project, they become extremely close. Will is sneaking out of his house and plotting convoluted ways to spend time with Lee Carter to make the movie. Lee Carter is sneaking the video camera away from his brother and trying to make him happy while running around with Will. But of course, something has to go wrong in the film, as with any film. And a new kid at school (the Coolest Kid In School) changes the dynamic of their friendship. Lee Carter, more world-wise than Will, sees the new kid for what he is - an irritating poser. But Will, still so amazed by everything in the world around him, can’t understand Lee Carter’s reluctance to involve the new kid, Didier, in the movie.

Of course, their friendship suffers a major setback, and I don’t think it’s giving too much away to tell you that they end up reconciling. But it’s not the end of the movie that matters. It’s the journey that’s amazing. Watching these two kids together is magical. Watching Will perform the stunts that will make up the bulk of their movie is absolutely hilarious. (Especially the one where he jumps out of the tree with the umbrella.) And seeing these kids come of age together merits just one description. Absolutely charming. This is one of the most feel-good movies in years.

Paramount Home Entertainment is coming out with a movie called Chicago 10 on August 26th. It’s a very strange take on the famous Democratic National Convention held in Chicago in 1968, and the anti-war demonstrations at that convention that led to riots, arrests, and a really bizarre trial. Chicago 10 is basically a documentary about that trial, featuring archival footage of Abbie Hoffman, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Bobby Seale, and the rest of the people involved with the trial. Interviews with them at the time, footage of Hoffman and David Dellinger at speaking engagements, and of course footage of the demonstrations, the police response, and the riots that took place. What happened after the disturbance in 1968 was that eight people were put on trial for “crossing state lines for the purposes of inciting a riot”. The trial really was a farce, and film maker Brett Morgen wants to accentuate this by creating a cartoon representation of the trial itself.

Which means that between the archival footage and the documentary pieces, we get a re-enactment of the Chicago trial by cartoon characters. They look like the people they represent, they talk like the people they represent, and Morgen has recruited some big names to help voice these characters. Jeffrey Wright, Amy Adams, Hank Azaria, Nick Nolte, Mark Ruffalo, Liev Schrieber and many others participated in this film. Which is impressive, and really adds punch to the courtroom scenes, which are taken directly from the transcripts of the trial itself. A trial which saw the judge order Bobby Seale, the national leader of the Black Panther Party, to be bound and gagged right in the courtroom because of his frequent outbursts. This was an absolutely crazy time in North American history, and this trial really encapsulates what was craziest about it. And this movie provides a really interesting look into that trial.

Interesting, but not as interesting as it should be. This trial and these events in Chicago in the late sixties fascinate me, and I wanted to learn everything I could. And in watching this movie, I learned an awful lot. But the style of the movie and the “artsy” nature of the animated segments don’t really help. It’s better than one of those cheesy “courtroom re-enactment” scenes from other, worse documentaries, and I frankly don’t know what I would have preferred to see in it’s place. But the style of the movie becomes overpowering, and I found myself getting distracted from the actual story by the animation. It isn’t a major fault, because this movie is still impressive and thorough, but it prevents the film from being a great one.

The Scream trilogy comes out in yet another form, August 26th from Alliance Films. And while the new edition of this trilogy is nothing special in terms of special features or extras or packaging, the series bears revisiting. It has been eight years since the final installment in the Scream trilogy, and there is a chance that the series has become somewhat forgotten, especially among the new generation of horror movie buffs. And this, I feel, is a shame. Because I truly believe that Scream is the best series in the history of horror movies. (Alien is a close second, and had they not gone ahead with Alien Resurrection I think it would be in first place. Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem don’t count.)

Scream (10/10):  The first Scream film is an absolute classic. A magnificent work by Wes Craven that managed to take a very standard genre - the slasher movie - and turn it into something brand new and tremendously exciting. The standard things one expects from a slasher film were kept intact. The hot young cast (with Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and Rose McGowan this cast was hotter than most). The concealment of the killer’s identity until the very end. The creepy phone call that leads to a murder. And the other standard cliches - don’t go upstairs, or you’re dead. Don’t have sex, or you’re dead. Don’t do drugs, or…you’re dead. What made Scream fantastic and new was that it didn’t merely go through the motions with the cliches, it absolutely embraced them. In fact, the film is constantly calling attention to it’s own formulaic nature. It’s not formulaic out of laziness or lack of imagination, it’s formulaic by design. It becomes more than just a well done, genuinely scary horror movie. It also becomes a satire of pop culture, a jab at the debate over violence in movies, and an incredible moment for cultural reference. Scream contains many references to the past - other slasher films like Hallowe’en and Friday the 13th. But it also managed to become a part of that same culture in the future, giving rise to not only two sequels of it’s own, but a whole new genre of slasher film beginning with I Know What You Did Last Summer, and spoof movies beginning with Scary Movie. Very few single movies can boast an influence like that.

Scream 2 (10/10):  But Scream is not just the one movie, it is a trilogy. And the series did something unthinkable in horror movie history with their second installment. It got better. (Another nod to the Alien series here - #2 was better than #1.) The first movie was a genuine, scary, thrilling slasher movie while simultaneously being a parody of those same movies. An unbelievable achievement, but Scream 2 goes one better. It is a genuine, scary, thrilling and smart slasher movie. And it is also a parody of the slasher movies of the past. But in an amazingly successful and deft bit of directing by Wes Craven, it is a parody of the first film in the series as well, and becomes a parody of itself on a level the first movie couldn’t hope to attain. Famous satirists in history have attempted this incredibly difficult feat - satirizing one’s own subject matter while still maintaining a smart dialogue and interesting action. Perhaps only Jonathan Swift ever managed to perfect this art, with Gulliver’s Travels in 1726. Since then, maybe only Wes Craven has come close to matching that work. And it’s with Scream 2.

Scream 3 (6/10):  The third Scream movie sucked. Well, it sucked like The Godfather III, more because it couldn’t come close to living up to the previous two. Or, perhaps, like Alien 3. At the very least, however, Scream 3 was still scary and involved Jenny McCarthy and Piper Perabo, and brought back Courtney Cox and Neve Campbell, making it the hottest of the Scream movies. Oh, and it also had a cameo by Jay and Silent Bob. Cool points!

Thrilling, smart, funny, perceptive, contemporary and really truly scary, the Scream trilogy is a must-own for horror fans. If you already own it, don’t bother with this new Alliance Films release. There is nothing extra there. But for those of you who have never seen Scream or it’s two hugely successful sequels, this is a must-have addition to your DVD collection.

Where In The World is Osama Bin Laden comes out August 26th from Alliance Films, and it’s a terrific premise for a movie. After watching The Hunting Party, and witnessing the amazingly easy capture of Radovan Karadzic a month ago in Belgrade, it isn’t actually a giant stretch to think that one guy with a camera crew could conceivably find the man. Or at the very least come pretty close. And certainly one guy with a camera crew who interviews the people closest to Bin Laden would bring out some information as to his whereabouts that would come as a shock to the general public. After all, it has been SEVEN years since September 11th. SEVEN. And has anyone, anywhere, come within sniffing distance of this guy? At the very least, a movie like this one will remind us that Public Enemy Number One is still at large. Like, hey! You remember that guy, who did the thing with the planes? Yeah, we still don’t have him. And perhaps we’ve stopped trying.

And, at the very least, that’s what this movie does. And that’s ALL it’s good for. Morgan Spurlock, the man who brought us the fantastic film Super-Size Me in 2003, has taken his second stab at directing, producing and starring in a documentary. And he has, for the most part, failed. While there is nothing overtly wrong with Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden, there is also nothing particularly right. He talks to people all over the world, in places where Osama Bin Laden may be hiding, and other places where he is obviously not hiding, getting their opinions on American foreign policy, and he talks to soldiers in Afghanistan and he makes a little bit of commentary on the situation. But here’s the thing - this is a documentary. And I learned nothing. Documentaries are supposed to teach you something. Either give you a window into a world you have never heard about, or give you a new insight into something with which you are already familiar. This movie does neither.

In the end, it feels just like one of those TV news pieces where they go out on the street and ask people’s opinions about something. Like high gas prices or Dion’s green shift. It’s just done in other parts of the world rather than in the United States. And Morgan Spurlock, while he has the ability to be funny, attempts to inject humour into this film where it doesn’t really belong, and it ends up being less funny and more irritating. Interspersed in between his interviews with the regular people of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, we get treated to phone calls between Spurlock and his pregnant wife who is waiting at home for him to return. I don’t know if these conversations are thrown in there as a way of justifying the fact that the film maker never really puts himself in harm’s way, or if they are just another way of making the movie more about Spurlock himself. Either way, it’s just distracting.

And I don’t think he needed to put himself in harm’s way. He seems to be doing so, at certain points in the movie, but you get the sense that at no time is he really in any danger at all. And if you’re going to make a movie like this, you have to do one of two things. Either go all the way - search through the mountains, dodge bullets, and talk to potentially dangerous terrorist targets. Or, make a movie that is so insightful and compelling that no one will care about the fact that you aren’t really trying to catch Osama Bin Laden. Spurlock has done neither, and therefore the movie doesn’t work. To find a really good movie about this conflict and this sort of subject matter, check out Blood Of My Brother. And ignore Where In The World is Osama Bin Laden.

With Alliance Films’ release of Morgan Spurlock’s disappointing Where In The World is Osama Bin Laden, two other documentaries have been released through Alliance with Spurlock’s stamp of approval. The excellent The Future Of Food, and the charming Confessions of a Superhero. It’s the story of four people who dress up as superheroes on Hollywood boulevard, working for tips as tourists take pictures with them. Many documentaries have been made about similar people, characters with limited talent but powerful delusions of grandeur. The best of these documentaries remains American Movie, one of the all-time great examinations of people whose dreams are far greater than their skills. And Confessions of a Superhero manages to convey the same charm as the best of these documentaries.

These men and women in costumes are, really, no more than extra-innovative panhandlers. They have a gimmick, tourists take their pictures, and they ask for “tips”. Sometimes they might make thirty dollars a day, sometimes several hundred. Jennifer Gehrt (Wonder Woman) is a beautiful young woman who moved from her small town out to Hollywood with dreams of stardom, but managed to get only this far. Joe McQueen (The Hulk) is the most compelling character in the film, a man who makes his living dressing up as The Hulk while hating the whole experience. It’s a way to make ends meet for now, but McQueen hasn’t given up, and he continues attending screen tests and auditions with the hopes of making it big. Maximus “Batman” Allen is a bit of a powder keg whose temper is barely kept under control and whose stories of his murderous youth are either slightly exaggerated, VERY exaggerated, or downright terrifying. And then there’s Superman. Christopher Lloyd Dennis is…unusual, to say the least. This is a man who buys into the Superman persona to a degree that can be described only as “obsessive”. He figures he has about a million dollars worth of Superman memorabilia in his apartment. That figure may be largely exaggerated. He also claims to be the son of actress Sandy Dennis. That claim (may) be largely…untrue. He says that on her deathbed, she told him she had a dream for him to become a famous actor, and he has been trying to attain that goal ever since. By dressing up as Superman and looking a little like Christopher Reeve.

The movie takes us back to Wonder Woman’s hometown of Maynardville, where we meet her parents. They say they always knew she would end up being a superstar. We travel with Superman to a major Superman convention in Metropolis, Illinois. We learn that The Hulk feels the only thing preventing him from getting movie work is that his teeth aren’t perfect. We also learn that he arrived in Hollywood in the middle of the LA riots, and fled to the hills to avoid the craziness. He was then homeless for four years. We get to meet the cops who crack down on the superheroes when they panhandling becomes too aggressive. The movie expands a little to feature the arrests of Elmo and Mr. Incredible for aggressive panhandling, the arrest of Batman for going berserk, and the appearances on the Jimmy Kimmel show of a few of these characters in the wake of the Elmo arrest.

And it’s the segments on the Kimmel show that are the saddest. We realize that fame is the motivating factor behind the decision to dress up in superhero gear, and that this fame is more important than anything else. There is no such thing as bad publicity - any appearance is a good one - Superman tells us before he wrestles Batman in from of a national audience in what amounts to be a very small step up from a hobo fight. And the idea that fame will come to them if they become well known as impersonators is fairly sad. Superman is convinced that a casting agent will someday walk by him and realize that he has the look they need for a part of some kind, and will offer it to him. Batman has actually appeared in a truly awful movie that disappeared as soon as it was released, but appears to have given up the dream of being a real actor. Wonder Woman has an agent, and goes to some casting calls for commercials, but still seems like a lost little girl. The only guy who still has some ambition AND an idea of how to get somewhere with it is The Hulk, who closes out the movie when he gets an actual part in a film - Finishing The Game, also out on DVD right now from Alliance Films.

While the characters in Confessions of a Superhero are all, to some degree, deluded, it is a charming delusion. It certainly doesn’t hurt anyone to dress up as a superhero and entertain tourists for tips. Unless you’re Batman and you go crazy on someone during a dispute over the use of a port-a-potty. And while this film isn’t nearly as compelling and inspirational as other, similar films (American Movie), it remains good solid entertainment and a fascinating look at four people you would otherwise know nothing about.

Alliance Films is releasing the Morgan Spurlock documentary Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden on August 26th. It’s a pretty weak second effort after his excellent 2003 film Super-Size Me. But it has had a very beneficial side-effect, that being the release of a terrific 2005 documentary under Spurlock’s name. I guess he’s the Tarantino of documentaries now, adding his name to those films he feels are worth watching. And in the case of The Future of Food, he’s absolutely right. This film, also being released by Alliance Films on the 26th, is magnificent. While it’s called The Future of Food, it really deals with the history of food. The amazing corporate greed in the United States that has affected the food of the entire world. The documentary examines how farming used to be one of the most common professions in America, but now the food that reaches dinner tables, both in the States and in Canada, comes from a handful of large agricultural corporations.

We meet farmers who have been sued by these massive corporations. You see, the corporation has created a certain type of seed, one that resists the pesticide that they also sell. Meaning that farmers must purchase those seeds from that corporation once they start using their pesticide. And the corporation owns the patent on those seeds. If a farmer doesn’t want to use their seeds, that farmer is not allowed to have any of those seeds. Which means that if his neighbour DOES use those seeds, and those canola crops cross-pollinate with his own canola crops, that means that now his own canola contains the genetically engineered seeds owned by the corporation. So now the giant company can come to his farm, test his seeds, and sue him for illegally using their patent. And get this - the corporations WIN these court cases. There is absolutely no way for a small farmer to prevent his own crops from mixing with the genetically modified ones, so he has two choices. He can either pay a massive settlement to the big company, (in most cases that company is Monsanto), or he can settle out of court and start buying their seeds so as to be in compliance. Well, three choices. He can also just quit farming.

Why is this a problem? Well, it isn’t merely the idea that a company can patent something which is a part of nature. And it isn’t the fact that this same company can successfully go after small-time farmers for something that they can’t possibly avoid. In short, it isn’t the lousy, underhanded way they conduct business. It’s the genetic engineering itself that is the problem. When crops all come from the exact same genetically engineered seeds, then they are unusually susceptible to diseases and pests. Anything that would destroy one of those plants would destroy them all. Also, there is painfully inadequate testing and laughable controls on these products. Which means that if a genetically engineered food, say a tomato, was making certain people sick with an allergic reaction, there would be no real way to prove it. Because there is no label on the food that states that it is genetically engineered in such-and-such a place by such-and-such a company, there is no way to check across the board to find out if all the sick people ate the same tomatoes from the same company, or if it’s just all tomatoes in the U.S. that are contaminated, or in fact whether it is tomatoes that are to blame at all.

Then there is the “terminator” gene. Much like the concept of “planned obsolescence” in everything electronic or mechanical we buy now. (Cars are designed to last, say, eight years. Because that way, after eight years, you must buy another.) Now crops are being engineered the same way. They last one year. And after that one year, they basically commit suicide. They are now useless. Which means the farmer has to buy more of the same seeds. Every year. Which, again, doesn’t sound so bad until we think about the cross-pollination that occurs with the crops in America. What happens when the starving countries in the world, the countries that grow all of their own food and farm just to barely manage to eat, come across these plants? Suppose the suicide plants cross-breed with the plants in Sudan? And after one year, 2 percent of their crops are dead, never to return. And after two years, four percent are gone. We see commercials touting “genetic engineering” of food as a way to help starving countries. But in fact it could well cause an amount of devastation we can only imagine.

The Future Of Food ends, as do most politically or socially motivated documentaries, with a message of hope. An look toward the actual future of food. And what we learn is that although these giant corporations are basically controlling every aspect of what we eat, in the end the consumers are always in control. To some degree, anyway. There is a revolution going on in the fields of America. And this movie, having been made in 2005, hasn’t seen the full measure of this revolution yet, while we consumers are just beginning to see it. A wonderful, informative film, The Future of Food is well worth picking up on Tuesday.

There is an absolutely phenomenal box set being released on August 26th. Woody Allen has been one of the greatest American directors for many years, and while he is mostly remembered for his all-time classics, Manhattan and Annie Hall, every one of his films is worth watching for one reason or another. With his latest, Vicky Cristina Barcelona in theatres, Alliance Films decided to release Woody Allen: The Collection today, August 26th. Every movie in this box is good, some are great. And while six of the discs have been readily available before this on DVD, the seventh is the bonus.

Wild Man Blues, a 1997 documentary film about Woody Allen, has been a hard-to-find item for some time. Not a film about Allen the film maker, but a film about Woody Allen the jazz musician. Allen, when not making films, plays jazz clarinet at a New York club. This film, directed by Barbara Kopple, follows Allen around as he takes the jazz ensemble on the road. The documentary was made right around the time when the public image of Allen was at it’s lowest. He had just left Mia Farrow for their stepdaughter Soon Yi Previn, and people were beginning to look on him as some kind of sexual predator. This film was accused of apple-polishing by some critics upon it’s release. As though it were some kind of brown-nosing attempt by Kopple to repair Allen’s tarnished image, and the movie was quickly forgotten. But in watching it now, it is merely a window into the man’s private life, his relationship with Soon-Yi, which really does appear to be pretty normal, and his relationship with his parents, which is eye-opening.

The other films in the set are all second-rate Woody Allen films, which would be first-rate films by almost anyone else. Mighty Aphrodite, the film for which Mira Sorvino won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, is a pretty fluffy film that works best as a reminder that Mira Sorvino CAN actually act. Bullets Over Broadway is a brilliantly funny comedy about gangsterism and the roaring twenties, featuring terrific performances by Chazz Palminteri and Dianne Wiest. Everyone Says I Love You is a musical comedy that is absolutely jammed with star power, and as such is one of the only Julia Roberts movies, AND one of the only Drew Barrymore movies, that I actually enjoy. Deconstructing Harry is a very dark comedy that is equally star-studded, with Robin Williams, Demi Moore, Billy Crystal and dozens of others in perhaps Woody Allen’s most under-rated movie. Celebrity is also jammed with big names, but isn’t one of Allen’s best efforts. And Scoop is likely the low point of the box set, with Scarlett Johanssen turning in a surprisingly mediocre performance and Hugh Jackman being a little more irritating than necessary. Not a horrible movie, but weak by Woody Allen standards.

Woody Allen: The Collection is a must for fans of his work, with Wild Man Blues being the icing on the cake. Get this box set, then pick up Annie Hall, Manhattan and Crimes And Misdemeanors, and you have all the Woody Allen you’ll ever need.

I have always wanted to get onto Jeopardy, but the biggest problem I have is that I just don’t know enough about American politics and history. At least twice a week, there is a category on American Presidents where I am unable to answer any questions at all. But now my problems have been solved. Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing The Presidents on Tuesday August 26th. This is a massive PBS box set from their series The American Experience that features 10 20th century presidents, from Teddy Roosevelt to George H.W. Bush. Massive doesn’t begin to describe this box. Ten presidents on fifteen discs, each one exhaustively researched and incredibly complete. Their early lives and their post-presidential lives are shown in great detail, but the most information, appropriately, is reserved for their presidencies themselves. Each disc features in-depth interviews with the people closest to that president, and each is an in-depth examination worthy of Ken Burns (who, incidentally, does most of his work with PBS as well).

Some of the presidents get two discs, others just one. Some get just three hours worth of film, others get four and a half. (FDR and Truman each get 4 ½ hours, I suppose because more happened during their presidencies than during others.) If, after 35 hours of learning about presidents, and a further ten plus hours of special features, you are not ready to take on Jeopardy, then you never will be. And even if you don’t care at all about Jeopardy, pick this box set up anyway if you have even a passing interest in American history. It could give you something to watch for a whole year.