Food Inc.

Before ending my long road trip, I managed to squeeze in one last movie. Having stopped at a Starbucks in downtown Colorado Springs, I used my Asus EEE PC with the wi-fi there to find out that Food Inc., a dcoumentary that I had wanted to see back in Maine, was showing that evening at the historic Boulder Theater in downton Boulder. It wasn't too far off my route, and the showtime gave me plenty of time to get there.

I don't get to Boulder that often. It has a lot of strange memories for me, and in any case, it had been over a year. It always brings back a mix of feelings to go there.

I managed to beat the rush hour coming out of Denver by using the Colorado 460 beltway along the foothills, then backroads up through Golden. I parked in a parking garage downtime and perused Pearl Street in the waning sunlight, grabbing a bite to eat a Lebanese take-out place.

The ticket cost fifteen bucks, because it was a special showing sponsored by the local school district, with a forum afterwards on the diet offered to the school children. This is Boulder, after all.

The Boulder Theater used to be a gem of a place to see a movie, and it still retains its beautiful marquee, but the interior is less than optimal for films. They have converted the ground floor into moveable chair seating in order to make it mostly a concert venue. I don't like seeing movies on chairs, so I went up the wide plush carpeted stairs to the balcony. This wasn't bad, but the traditional seats there are crammed too close together to give my legs any room (reminded me of Galway), so I sat in the first row behind the horizontal aisle. At that point, I felt very far from the screen, however. It was clear from the table and chairs set up on stage that the movie was going to be shown on only part of the screen.

Still, the experience wasn't a disaster, and the movie was pretty good. I thought it made its case very well.

The first fifteen minutes lays out the facts about how almost all our food comes from factory farm operations, and so much of it comes from "the same corn field in Iowa." (my first real job was in a corn field in Iowa, by the way, and the movie had lots of interviews with people from Iowa State University, where my parents went).

The director was smart, however, by posing the question "So what? What's wrong with all this? We feed lots and lots of people? What's so bad about it all?"

Then we get to hear what's bad about it all, point by point, until at the end, the case is made very well that there is something seriously wrong with the way we grow our food, and the way we treat agriculture in general in our society. It was very stirring and I recommend it to everyone.

By far the most entertaining part of the documentary were the interview portions of the natural organic farmer in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. He was very down-to-earth and always had something funny to say that was also very enlightening. At one point, this farmer made a comment about why factory farming is bad, saying a society that treats animals this way during slaughter will eventually start treating human beings this way.

It went straight to heart of everything I believe about eugenics, and I started clapping. I think I was the first one, but then the entire auditorium burst out into open applause. I think it was the only time in the movie that there was that kind of ovation for anything on screen.

All in all, I didn't mind spending fifteen bucks on it. Everyone should see it, either in the theater or on DVD.

And Boulder wasn't bad. For a couple hours every once in a while, I don't mind it. I suppose I'll be back in the near future, but I think once every couple years at the Boulder Theater is enough for me.

With that, I drove up to Fort Collins in the dark, following the familiar route along the Longmont. When I got to my folks' door, it was like I had never left. I think being away from a place exactly a year is sort of mind trick that way. My dad was home and I sat down and told him, "I just saw a movie with a bunch of people from Iowa State..." It was good to catch up.