The Couch Potato Report - September 13th, 2008
This week The Couch Potato Report peels some films that may change your appetites.
Some films are meant to simply entertain.
They make us laugh or cry, and once they are done, you feel entertained....even emotionally nurished.
Other movies want to do more than that...they want to engage you, feed your brain, stir up feelings or emotions, and possibly even incite change.
This week's HOT POTATO is the latter type of film.
It is the documentary THE FUTURE OF FOOD.
THE FUTURE OF FOOD takes an in-depth investigation into unlabelled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have been making their way on to our grocery store shelves for the past decade or so.
The movie features many farmers who are in disagreement with the food industry, and it shows the impacts that new technology has had on their lives and livlihood.
Some of the farmers in the film are even from Saskatchewan...including Vonda ortganic Farmer Marc Loiselle.
THE FUTURE OF FOOD also shows the costs of a globalised food industry - in dollars, livlihoods and human lives - and it features some of the legal issues that some farmers have faced at the hands of the huge companies who are trying to control the seeds that are out there, and as a result, food itself.
Bruno's Percy and Louise Schmeiser's case against Monsanto is prominantly featured....and their story remains very compelling
Working against THE FUTURE OF FOOD is the fact that the movie doesn't have a strong enough narrator, but that is only a tiny flaw.
It is ultimately a movie I would recommed - to everyone - as it does feature some shocking facts about the food that we eat, and it does a pretty good job showing multiple sides of the issues it raises - especially when talking about Organic farming versus traditional methods - and it did make me think and engage me.
And as I have said before, on several occasions, that is what a documentary is supposed to do.
What a documentary is NOT supposed to do is only give you one side of a story...sadly, that is exactly what THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO does.
Even though there is a short scene explaining why they don't offer MONSANTO's side of their story, the fact that this is a one sided documentary really hurts it...unless you have a grudge against the company, then you will love it!!
If you are unfamiliar with the company, some of Monsanto's "accomplishments" are the production of Agent Orange, PCBs, and genetically modified crops such as Roundup Ready soybeans that, far from being a boon to farmers around the world, threaten their livelihood and undermine biodiversity.
Simply put, they are one of the biggest chemical companies in the world and the provider of the seed technology for 90 percent of the world's genetically engineered crops.
But whether you support the company, or despise them, any documentary has to offer both sides, and THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO just paints a grim picture of a company with a long track record of environmental crimes and health scandals.
Is there a bright side, something - anything positive about what the company is doing?
If there is, this film doesn't show it.
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO has a lot about it that I would recommend, but due to the one sided slant it offers, the fact that the filmmaker is repeatedly seen doing Google searches on a computer to find out the information that she needs, and the fact that she actually does some interviews on the phone instead of traveling to the city where her subject is in - even though she does travel to other cities for other interviews - all of that just added up to a movie that had some interesting stories and facts, but ultimately doesn't make me feel the need to tell you to see it.
If THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO sounds appealing to you, then you should see it. If it doesn't...just skip it.
There are three other titkles for me to tell you about this week, and I will begin with the best of the three, THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON of the quirky, fun and entertaining television show ELI STONE, starring the exceptionally beautiful, lovely and talented Canadian actress Natasha Henstridge.
The show also stars the great Ontario born actor Victor Garber from ALIAS and Jonny Lee Miller from TRAINSPOTTING as Eli Stone, a lawyer who begins to see things - and hear George Michael's music everywhere he goes.
It turns out that he has a brain aneurysm, which are causing his visions, and unless he follows the path that they lay out - a path that offers little monetary gain but a lot of moral goodness - the visions don't stop.
Yes, you gotta have faith.
Ultimately, putting it's gimmick aside, ELI STONE is just another procedural lawyer show where there are cases to be won and lost.
This one is perhaps a bit too preachy and idealistic at times, but I like idealistic, and even though some of the cast outside of Miller, Garber and the exceptionally beautiful, lovely and talented Canadian actress Natasha Henstridge aren't as appealing as the three main stars, I like the show.
If you have been looking for a show about lawyers with a twist, ELI STONE might be the show you have been looking for.
Okay....usually when a film is as bad as the next new release I have for you, I would just ignore it. I wouldn't give it a seconds worth of airtime as it doesn't deserve it.
That is certainly true of THE PROMOTION, an absolutely awful film...but due to the fact that it stars some people who you and I usually like to see in films and on our televisions - including Seann William Scott from the AMERICAN PIE films, John C. Reilly of TALLEDEGA NIGHTS and CHICAGO, Fred Armisen from SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, Jenna Fischer from BLADES OF GLORY, and she plays Pam on THE OFFICE and Lili Taylor from the classic 80s film SAY ANYTHING - due to that cast, this film must be mentioned here...just so I can tell you to stay away from it.
This is one of the worst movies ever made...it isn't funny, it has nothing entertaining to offer you, the cast is completely wasted, and it is a complete waste of time.
Again, the movie is called THE PROMOTION...it is about two assistant managers of a corporate grocery store vie for a coveted promotion....and it is garbage...even if you have liked the cast in their past roles...skip it! Ignore it...just walk on past!!
Whatever their intentions, they made a piece of garbage!
Moving on, well my friend, it is time for our annual alternative to the action filled, very loud, check-your-brain-at-the-door summer movie season.
Again this year, I spent some time telling you about at least one current release on DVD that you would need your brain to enjoy.
And now, it is time for the FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD to conclude, and our final entry this year is the Russian film POISONED BY POLONIUM: THE LITVINENKO FILE.
Alexander Litvinenko was a former officer of the Russian State security service, and later a Russian dissident and writer.
On November 1st, 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and was hospitalized. He died three weeks later from lethal poisoning by radioactive Polonium, which was slipped into his tea during a meeting with two visitors from Moscow.
CLIP - POISONED - Asylum
TIME - 15 seconds
POISONED BY POLONIUM allows Litvinenko to tell his own story in this film, in his own words, using never seen before footage and interviews with his widow, his friends and his alleged killers.
The film attempts to recreate a world of intrigue, high-stake politics, love, loyalty and betrayal, and at times it succeeds. At other times, quite unfortunately, this film is just boring.
I liked POISONED BY POLONIUM: THE LITVINENKO FILE, and if espionage or spies intrigue you, then I think you will enjoy it too.
It isn't a must see, but it is an effective way to end this year's FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD!!
But fret not...whenever there are Foreign Films that are worthy of a mention, I will have them for you...no matter what time of year it is!
The Russian film POISONED BY POLONIUM: THE LITVINENKO FILE, the useless film that you should avoid at all costs called THE PROMOTION, THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON of the entertaining show ELI STONE, and the engaging documentary THE FUTURE OF FOOD are all available now on DVD.
The one-sided documentary THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO comes out on Tuesday.
Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report
I will talk about the made-in-Manitoba film THE STONE ANGEL, SEASON ONE of the television series DIRTY SEXY MONEY starring the great Donald Sutherland, and the comedies BABY MAMA, FLETCH and the 10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION of THE BIG LEBOWSKI...starring Mr. Lebowski.
I'm Dan Reynish. I'll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.
For now, that's this week's COUCH POTATO REPORT.
Enjoy the movies and I'll see you back here next time on The Couch!
CANADA POINTS TO OSCARS
TORONTO - If the films unveiled here are any indication, this year's fight for the Best Actress Oscar will pit American Anne Hathaway against Britain's Keira Knightley.
Hathaway, who was passed over at nomination time for both "Brokeback Mountain" and "The Devil Wears Prada," should have more luck with her tour de force as a troubled woman who takes leave from a lengthy stint in rehab to attend her sister's nuptials in "Rachel Getting Married."
Jonathan Demme's darkly funny movie, his best in years, has a knowing script by Jenny Lumet, daughter of director Sidney Lumet and granddaughter of Lena Horne. It's out next month.
Knightley, previously nominated for "Pride and Prejudice" - which also had its North American debut at the Toronto International Film Festival - seems a lock for "The Duchess," set for release on Sept. 26.
She shines as the 17th century bride of a powerful British duke (Ralph Fiennes) who became an international style icon - and had other unhappy parallels with her distant relative Lady Diana, including his and her lovers.
There is also Best Actress buzz around two other Brit actresses: Sally Hawkins as the optimistic heroine of Mike Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky" and veteran Kristin Scott-Thomas in the French movie "I've Loved You So Long," as a woman who returns from prison after serving 15 years for murdering her son.
Four contenders also emerged for Best Actor honors. The hottest at the moment is the most unlikely - '80s star Mickey Rourke, who makes a spectacular comeback as a washed-up New Jersey grappler who is forced to re-examine his life after a near-fatal heart attack in Darren Aronofsky's crowd-pleasing "The Wrestler."
Another strong contender is Puerto Rican actor Benecio Del Toro, who previously won Best Supporting Actor for his role in Steven Soderbergh's "Traffic." His charismatic performance as the Argentine doctor-turned-guerilla who became Fidel Castro's right-hand man is the main virtue of Soderbergh's 41/2-hour epic "Che," which turned up in Toronto in a version that was 17 minutes shorter than the one unveiled in May in Cannes.
"Syndedoche, New York," the directing debut of writer Charlie Kaufman ("Adaptation"), is brilliant but challenging. A nomination is quite possible for Philip Seymour Hoffman as the main character, an obsessed playwright who spends two decades writing and rehearsing a play on a scale-model version of New York City he has constructed in a vast warehouse. Hoffman is extremely popular with his fellow actors and he won the Best Actor award for "Capote" over Heath Ledger in "Brokeback Mountain."
More of a long-shot possibility is Greg Kinnear, previously nominated as Best Supporting Actor for "As Good As It Gets" a decade ago. He's warmly excellent as an electrical engineer who invented the intermittent windshield wiper - and spent decades suing Ford and other auto companies who stole his idea - in the fact-based "A Flash of Genius."
Unlike some previous years, there weren't many Best Picture candidates unveiled in Toronto, where "Brokeback Mountain" and "Atonement" both took on front-runner status only to stumble on Oscar night.
The only Best Picture candidate here this year was the hugely popular "Slumdog Millionaire," Danny Boyle's exuberant, fact-based tale of a Mumbai street urchin who won 2 million rupees as a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?" - and then was tortured by authorities who suspected he cheated.
Checker's "Twist" tops all-time singles chart
NEW YORK (Billboard) - The 50th-anniversary Hot 100 Song chart is based on actual performance on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 since the singles chart's inception in August 1958 through July of this year.
Songs are ranked based on an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at No. 100 earning the least.
To ensure equitable representation of the biggest hits from all 50 years, earlier time frames were each weighted to compensate for the differences in the faster turnover rates from those earlier decades, compared with the slower churn the Hot 100 has experienced since the advent of Nielsen Music data.
Here are the top 10 singles on Billboard's 50th-anniversary Hot 100.
1: THE TWIST (CHUBBY CHECKER)
Label: Parkway / Peak Date: 9/19/60 and 1/13/62 / Peak Position: 1 (1 week) and 1 (2 weeks)
"I resurrected a corpse" is how Chubby Checker feels about recording "The Twist" in the early summer of 1960. And Frankenstein's monster had nothing on his achievement.
"The Twist" is the only song in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 to enjoy two separate chart runs to No. 1: September 19, 1960 (one week), and, after an October 1961 appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," January 13, 1962 (two weeks). It also set a record for the most weeks (39) on the Hot 100 by a No. 1 song -- which held until UB40's "Red Red Wine" lasted 40 weeks in 1988. Others since have surpassed the mark.
"'The Twist' brought the world dancing apart (to) the beat," says Checker, now 66, who was born Ernest Evans in South Carolina before moving to Philadelphia. "Then came all our dances -- the Pony, the Mashed Potato, the Fly, the Hucklebuck -- all dancing apart to the beat. Chubby gave us that. How did he do it? With 'The Twist."'
Forty-eight years later, however, Checker fesses up to being a reluctant savior for the song. "The Twist" first came out as the B-side of Hank Ballard & the Midnighters' 1959 single "Teardrops on Your Letter." DJs largely ignored "The Twist," but inner-city youth who had flipped the disc began doing a hip-wiggling dance to the track, which did not go unnoticed by "American Bandstand" host Dick Clark. When he couldn't get Danny & the Juniors to record a version of the song, Clark went to Philadelphia's Cameo-Parkway label and suggested that Checker take it on. Checker had recorded "The Class" for him in 1958 as a holiday single to send to friends.
"I said I didn't want to sing that song," Checker remembers. "It had been out already. Nobody was playing it. But I wanted to make records, and so when they said, 'Come up here and sing "The Twist,"' I said, 'OK."'
"The Twist" was the gift that kept on giving: Five more of Checker's 32 Hot 100 entries mined the dance. He even joined the Fat Boys for "The Twist (Yo, Twist)," which hit No. 16 in 1988.
2: SMOOTH (SANTANA FEATURING ROB THOMAS)
Label: Arista / Peak Date: 10/23/99 / Peak Position: 1
(12)
Exactly 30 years before Santana reached No. 1 with "Smooth," his eponymous band made its first appearance on the Hot 100 with "Jingo." It wasn't an auspicious debut, peaking at No. 56. But if you had told Carlos Santana back then that he would have the biggest hit of his career 30 years later to the week, do you think he would have believed you? Probably not. Co-written by Itaal Shur and Matchbox Twenty's Rob Thomas, "Smooth" introduced Santana's smash album "Supernatural" and became one of the biggest radio monsters of the decade, spending 12 weeks at No. 1.
3: MACK THE KNIFE (BOBBY DARIN)
Label: Atco / Peak Date: 10/5/59 / Peak Position: 1 (9)
In 1958, "Splish Splash" put 22-year-old Bobby Darin on the map, and three more hits in quick succession cemented his teen appeal. But the furiously ambitious Darin wanted the longevity promised by singing in supper clubs, appealing to Frank Sinatra's audience. "In night clubs I lean to other things. I even do 'Mack the Knife' from 'The Threepenny Opera,"' Darin told Billboard at the time. He recorded "Mack" for his standards album "That's All," produced by Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun and Jerry Wexler for Atlantic's Atco imprint. It won the Grammy for record of the year as well as a slightly belated nod for Darin as best new artist.
4: HOW DO I LIVE (LEANN RIMES)
Label: Curb / Peak Date: 12/13/97 / Peak Position: 2
LeAnn Rimes' second Hot 100 entry, after the 1996 No. 26-peaking "Blue," stands as the longest-running Hot 100 title of all time, charting for 69 weeks total between June 1997 and October 1998. The song, recorded when Rimes was only 14, even outlasted two of her follow-up releases on the chart. It also led the Adult Contemporary chart for 11 weeks and has gone on to sell 3.5 million physical singles. On the digital front, it routinely shifts more than 1,000 units per week, for a total to date in excess of 203,000. "It's just one of those songs that lives on in everyone's life," Rimes says today.
5: MACARENA (BAYSIDE BOYS MIX) (LOS DEL RIO)
Label: RCA / Peak Date: 8/3/96 / Peak Position: 1 (14)
This flamenco-flavored party song and accompanying silly dance by two middle-age men named Antonio Romero and Rey Ruiz was a hit in Spain in 1993, and "Macarena" was a favorite on cruise ships before docking in Miami's South Beach clubs by mid-decade, first appearing on the charts in 1995. But the bilingual Bayside Boys Mix of the song exploded on radio, spending 14 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in 1996 and reaching the top several weeks before it was used to introduce -- and provide a punch line for -- Al Gore's speech at that year's Democratic National Convention. Los Del Rio's early version eventually returned to the chart, peaking at No. 23 and spending 21 weeks on the tally.
6: PHYSICAL (OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN)
Label: MCA / Peak Date: 11/21/81 / Peak Position: 1 (10)
Olivia Newton-John was weary of the sweet love songs that had defined her career for more than a decade. With longtime producer John Farrar, she decided to up the tempo for the title track of 1981's "Physical." The song also stirred up controversy for its lyrical nod to sexual intimacy, ultimately fueling a 10-week stay atop the Hot 100 to become Newton-John's biggest career hit. It had immense crossover appeal, scoring on the pop, adult contemporary, club play and black charts. After all was said and done, "Physical" was the No. 1 song of 1982.
7: YOU LIGHT UP MY LIFE (DEBBY BOONE)
Label: Warner Bros./Curb / Peak Date: 10/15/77 / Peak Position: 1 (10)
Pat Boone's four daughters tried for years to forge a music career as the Boone Sisters, with no luck. Label honcho Mike Curb was determined to launch lead Debby as a solo artist and found the ideal song at a screening of the movie "You Light Up My Life." Curb borrowed the instrumental track and had Boone's vocal recorded over it. His instincts were right on: "Light" remained at No. 1 on the Hot 100 for 10 weeks beginning in October 1977, a record at the time for a female artist, and won an Academy Award for best original song and a Grammy Award for Boone as best new artist.
8: HEY JUDE (THE BEATLES)
Label: Apple / Peak Date: 9/28/68 / Peak Position: 1 (9)
The first single the Beatles released on their Apple Records label, "Hey Jude," was written in 1968 by Paul McCartney to comfort John Lennon's son Julian during the divorce of his parents. "I started with the idea, 'Hey Jules,' which was, 'Julian, don't make it bad, take a sad song and make it better,"' McCartney told biographer Barry Miles. "Hey Jude" entered the Hot 100 for the week ending September 14, 1968, at No. 10 and rose to No. 1 two weeks later. It held the top spot for nine weeks, making it the most successful hit of the band's career. It remains a staple of McCartney's live shows to this day.
9: WE BELONG TOGETHER (MARIAH CAREY)
Label: Island/IDJMG / Peak Date: 6/4/05 / Peak Position: 1
(14)
Early in the decade, Mariah Carey experienced a prolonged dry spell of hits that coincided with some bizarre public appearances, a film flop and a disastrous $80 million deal with Virgin. But she regrouped spectacularly on Island Def Jam with "The Emancipation of Mimi." "We Belong Together," the album's monster second single, was produced by Jermaine Dupri. It spent 14 weeks at No. 1 and helped the album shift 5.9 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. "I prayed to get through everything I got through, and I prayed for this record to be really good and really strong and for me to be proud of it," she told Billboard in 2005. "God always answers my prayers." Carey now has 18 No. 1 Hot 100 hits, second only to the Beatles' all-time record of 20.
10: UN-BREAK MY HEART (TONI BRAXTON)
Label: LaFace/Arista / Peak Date: 12/7/96 / Peak Position: 1 (11)
Three years after winning the 1993 best new artist Grammy Award, Toni Braxton released her second consecutive multiplatinum album, "Secrets." The follow-up to her self-titled LaFace Records debut spun off the preacher's daughter's first Hot 100 No. 1 ("You're Makin' Me High") and this, the biggest hit of her career. The song -- written by Diane Warren, produced by David Foster and rendered in Braxton's distinctive, husky alto -- spent 11 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100. A "Diva Mix" of the track, inspired by her show-opening performance at the 1996 Billboard Music Awards, spread "Heart" to overseas success as well.