Linklater
Fast Food Nation
Customers, workers and animals suffer.
Very few feature films start out as non-fiction books. Linklater’s movie, like Eric Schlosser’s original bestseller, is very informative. You will learn a lot of shit about the American fast-food business; what’s in the burgers ain’t good for your system! Yes, the business stinks. Customers, workers and animals suffer.
Sadly though, Fast Food Nation struggles to be more than informative. The big problem is a fatal mismatch between the main characters and the main events. Too little happens to those at the centre of things, while those caught up in the major dramas – a Mexican man who loses his legs in machinery, a woman who gets into drugs – are peripheral. Sometimes too, as in a bad soap, characters act out of character for plot reasons – so Sylvia, sister of the woman with a drug problem, gives herself to evil Mike, the overseer.
This isn’t quite joined-up filmmaking; and the result, sadly, is a little flat.
- Product information
- directed by Richard Linklater
- Star rating
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Voices from the margins:
Multimedia: video, podcasts, and more.
- Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe
- The House of Hunger poetry slam held in Zimbabwe in 2006, and organised by the Pamberi Trust, showcased young artists performing inspirational work on issues from corporate power to child soldiers. The video features four of the poets.
Published by Pambazuka News.
- Iranian women speak out
- 3 March 2007, London. Women's rights activists marched through the English capital last week to celebrate International Women's Day with a protest against the misogyny of the Islamic regime in Iran and the threat of invasion by the US. Hear the voices of Iranian feminists Azar and Leila Parnian and the sounds of the demonstration as it passed through the heart of the city. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Produced by Heidi Bachram.
- Raised Voices audio:
- Benny from West Papua on Corporate Power
- Vinayan from India on agriculture
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