Fast Food Nation: our second movie review!

Premise: Exec from fast food chain "Mickey's" travels out west to Colorado, where the company gets its beef, to find out why the level of fecal coliform bacteria on their frozen patties is "off the charts."

Favorite line: "why do you think it costs just 99 cents?"

This movie isn't really eye-opening, and it tackles too many issues at once-- the plight of illegal immigrants (in crossing the border and once they're here), the Patriot Act, workers health/safety/rights, food safety, animal welfare, sexual harassment in the workplace, CAFO pollution of clean water, questionable consumer data "gathering," the encroachment of suburbia into farmland... I'm sure there were some other ones too. Some issues the movie weaves into the plotline very well, some issues it shows a group of college students sitting around talking-- basically a thinly disguised lecture.

I will say I really admire them for showing the actually killing floor. Thankfully I saw this coming since I had accidentally caught the footage while flipping channels one day and covered my eyes horror-movie style. I expected a little more overlap with "Supersize Me" but there really was none, so that was nice. The performance by Wilmer Valderrama was... better than I expected, Ashley Johnson (Chrissy from Growing Pains!) was great, and Avril Lavigne was just kind of there.

Overall, I'd say it was like watching Supersize Me, Thank You for Smoking, and A Day Without a Mexican all at the same time... not necessarily a bad mix.