Educational as well as motivational film about where our food comes from and where else we can turn. Documentarian Robert Kenner, guided largely by activist authors Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma), goes behind the persistent “pastoral fantasy” of agrarian America (“The reality is a factory. It’s not a farm, it’s a factory”), explores the monopolization by multinational corporations, takes offshoots into health hazards like E. coli, diabetes, and obesity, avoids the easy temptation to turn stomachs, maintains the whole while a calm and rational tone, and wraps things up with Springsteen’s rendition of “This Land Is Your Land.” All in all, a useful introduction or summary, depending on your initial level of awareness. (2009) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.