WAS1 Productions

The documentary movie King Corn is a study of how processed corn enters the food system and where it ends up. It was even-handed and thought-provoking and approached the situation from an interesting perspective.

College graduates Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis move from Boston to Iowa, the center of the Corn Belt, to investigate the question. The documentary has a nice personal feel. Where other filmmakers could fall into predictable archetypes of the smart-assed liberal youths pitted against the conservative small-town farmers, there was thankfully none of that. The documentarians were earnest and friendly and they were welcomed by the community. It also helped that both Ian and Curt had family roots from three generations ago which came from the town they settled in, so they were able to add a personal side to the story as they connected with distant relatives and examined how their great grandfathers had farmed the land.

The two of them rented an acre of land to plant and tend a corn crop and the film followed them for a year, from planting to harvest. During that time they interviewed farmers and towns people to get a good picture of everyone involved in the corn market, from those growing it, to the distributors and consumers, from factories making high-fructose corn syrup to big cattle feed yards. The film goes over changes in farm subsidies and economics which have lead to bigger farms owned by fewer families, and the downsides of corn-fed beef and corn syrup as used in processed food.

However, the documentary remains mostly neutral, also showing how food has become cheaper and more plentiful. Processed food is not as healthy, but it also allows Americans to get more for their budgets. Like anything it’s a complex issue, a story of unintended consequences and high-fructose corn syrup is a genie that will not go back into the bottle. The film does not offer any answers on what to do with the chain of corn in the current food supply. At the same time it presents the issues in a straight-forward and even-handed way, keeping the discussion civil and refraining from political rants. That tone, and the personalized feel of the documentary make it a movie worth checking out.

I caught The Wizard of Oz while I was home on Thanksgiving. My parents’ Tivo picked it up and I watched part of it with my dad. It’s a fun classic to curl up with, but there’s one thing that always bugs me.

Being a nerd, I always catch this goof at the end, when the Wizard is giving out the gifts. After he gives Scarecrow his honorary diploma, Scarecrow spouts off the Pythagoearn Theroem, which is the sum of the squares of two shorter sides of a right triangle, equals the square of the hypotenuse. However, he flubs it and instead says isosceles triangle.

I wonder if that was intentional. Most-likely the screen writer was looking for something that sounded like what an egghead would say, and being a theater type instead of a math and sciene type, just made a mistake. It would be wonderful if it was an intentional gag though.

The whole joke at the end is that the Wizard’s gifts are pure chicanery and he’s giving the characters symbolic tokens to make them feel better, even though they went through the hero’s journey themselves. They are imperfect, but they still rose to the challenge. It would’ve been neat if the math flub was intentional to wink at the audience for that. That’s probably not the case, but geeking out on plot structure, it’s fun to think that it could be.

Paranormal Activity 2 was essentially the same movie as the first one, so it wasn’t as affective. They did a couple of things I liked, but with mixed results. 

This movie had better explanation and use of the cameras, especially with security camera footage showing more of the house. The father, while initially being skeptical and a jerk, was at least more likable than the boyfriend in the first film.

They did tie this movie in with the first one, which was a good idea. However in using that narrative the film felt more like a conventional horror movie than a documentary and because of that felt less scary. It was easier to get sucked in to the first film and imagine yourself in that scenario, so for that and seeing it the first time, the original was much more affective.

I didn’t not like the film, it was fairly entertaining, but nothing special. Some of the enjoyment of it was being amused at the group of teenagers freaking out watching it in the row behind us.

Megamind is quite a fun movie and a wonderful deconstruction of the superhero genre. It’s essentially a spoof on the Superman story, going into the roles of the hero and arch villain, but it references lot of comics and sci-fi movies along the way.

The more I see of Will Ferrel, the more I appreciate him. His movies used to be hit or miss for me, but he’s been knocking more balls out of the park in recent years. He has some familiar comedic trappings in the role of Megamind, such as the amusing mispronunciation of common words, but he also imbues the character with some genuine emotion and makes him sympathetic as well as entertaining. Brad Pitt also does a great job riffing on Superman.

I was happy to see David Cross voicing the sidekick character Minion, a talking angler fish. I loved the design of his mecha suit too, referencing science fiction films Robot Monster and Forbidden Planet.

The only weak character in the film was that played by Jonah Hill. He’s a likable guy and I enjoy his movies, but he essentially plays the same character in every film. They even made his character look like him. He was fun here, but they could’ve tried a little harder with him.

Otherwise though, the film was a lot of fun. It’s clever and inventive and just a fun ride.

I went and saw Predators in the theater a couple of weeks ago. It’s an action movie, but a good one and stands up to the original quite well. As a reboot of sorts it managed to recreate the same mood and excitement as the first movie. I got a bit tired of it near the end as the third act wore on, but it was a fun ride. It’s a nice step a way from the underwhelming AvP films of late too.

It did a good job bringing a disparate group of people together, throwing them in the situation and letting that help drive the story. That’s always fun. They also played with familiar tropes to both sci-fi in general and the franchise in particular. It was fun seeing them tick off certain points as the movie revealed more and more of the setting to the characters, such as when they figure out where the jungle they’ve found themselves in actually is. There were some good creature designs here as well.

Like the original, it’s an action movie, but with some nice dressings and it makes for an entertaining ride.

I finally got around to watching Speed Racer at a friend’s house last night. I hadn’t been itching to see it because of middling reviews and also because I never watched the cartoon as a kid, so I wasn’t in the target audience. The movie was decent though. It’s no Citizen Kane but it was entertaining.

The visuals of course were the movies strong suit. The graphics and colors popped and the Wachowski brothers did a wonderful job in giving the movie a hyper stylized look inspired by the anime. Some of the race sequences were confusing and dizzying on the verge of seizure-inducing, but I have to give them props for the movie as a whole. All of the sets and props had that same design aesthetic and that was pretty cool.

The story wasn’t all that complex, but it served the movie well and from what I know of the anime it hit all the right spots and captured the story elements in a good package. I did like how they didn’t try and explain some of the oddities of the situation, they just ran with it like it was normal. A good example of that was one character outside the family giving a single askance glance at the monkey, but nothing being said about it. The little brother and monkey characters were kind of annoying in their antics, but they looked to be spot-on in their depiction.

So while Speed Racer was not something beloved from my childhood, and it’s not a movie I need to see again, I will say that it’s a fun diversion and the visual style of the movie is entertaining. It’s worth watching for that if you just roll with it.

Another film I saw recently had a much heavier and involved story. Below was a really interesting tale of a WW2 sub crew picking up survivors of medical ship sank by a U boat. Soon after the mysterious passengers are brought on board, things start going wrong… I don’t want to say too much to give anything away, but I will say that this is a movie definitely worth watching. It’s got a nice mix of atmospheric horror, military action and psychological thriller.

I wanted to see it as I remembered it was written by Darren Aronofsky, whose known for cerebral work. Pi ran a little long for me and I didn’t bother with The Fountain as it sounded too ponderous, but I like his ideas. While he didn’t direct this movie, his touch was still visible and it’s likely one of his more accessible films too, intelligent without being too overwhelmingly arty.