Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009, U.S.)

I can essentially judge this one for itself and not by its book, since I barely remember the picture book.

Basically Flint thinks he's a genius inventor, but something goes wrong with all of his inventions. Sam wants to be a weather reporter but needs a scoop for her career to take off. When the island of Swallow Falls loses its main industry (sardines), Flint's invention that turns water into food takes off, Flint gets the recognition he wants, Sam gets her scoop, and Swallow Falls gets on the map.

This was a cute movie, but it wasn't the funniest animated movie I've ever seen. Some of it was a little over the top, some of it was gross funny (not my kind of funny), and some of it was actually funny. So overall, not bad.

Rating: 3.0

Food, Inc. (2008, U.S.)

What a great (though disturbing) documentary! I learned a lot. I kept a lot of notes of fascinating things I learned that I could share, but you just can't get the full effect if I rattle them off. Food, Inc. is a great documentary that looks into the world of the corporate controlled food industry

The one positive thing they showed was a farm in the Shenandoah Valley (near where I live). It is a beautiful farm with beautiful, grass-eating cows. The cows eat, fertilize, and harvest the grass. Other cows, which are raised in terrible conditions, are corn-fed, which requires altering diet and shipping in corn, hauling away manure, etc. Anyway the point is that this farm was beautiful and I wish I could get all my food there, because all the corporate meat plants and genetically modified seed businesses just make me sick.

I've never known many documentaries to have stellar scores, but this one was pretty great. The music was ominous in beef plants, slow and peaceful in the Shenandoah Valley (kind of like the Brokeback Mountain score), creepy (creeping music like a bad guy's coming, sort of) when they're talking about a surveillance team from a genetically modified soybean company persecuting farmers who save, clean, and reuse seeds.

As the Virginian farmer said, the food we eat may seem like cheap food, but it's expensive in terms of environmental, societal, and health costs. True and fascinating!

Rating: 4.0