west coast tiiiime
Top 5 2006

Best (more like favorite) Movies
Quinceanera
The Departed
Fast Food Nation (review after the break)
Clerks II
Snakes on a Plane

Best Albums
Bob Dylan - Modern Times
best song - Workingman's Blues #2
Rosewood Thieves - From the Decker House
best song - Los Angeles
Bruce Springsteen - We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
best song- Mrs. McGrath
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
best song - Dirty Whirl
Manu Katche - Neighbourhood
best song - Take Off and Land

I'd do best books but I didn't really read any that came out in 2006.

There aren't any good new tv shows so, I'll do 5 memorable (good/bad) TV moments:
1. The last minute of the 24 season where you think everything is calm again but some guy jumps out and Jack's ABDUCTED. I almost had a heart attack.

2. Deadwood was cancelled :(
3. I guess I should do a sports list but sports are on tv so here are my sports moments:
- August 13 Russell Martin walk-off homerun in the tenth versus the giants
- September 18 blah bloah everyone knows
- last night was very exciting, and is just going on this list cause it's fresh in my mind but whatever, USC upset Washington in double overtime
- well, the world cup, but specifically...Portugal beating England in free kicks, actually I hate games that go to free kicks, but I hate England's team more. Trinidad and Tobago qualifying. (Sweden sucked. sucked. sucked. sucked. sucked.)
4 and 5. I don't have two more, I don't really watch tv.

best best list:
http://www.papermag.com/?section=article&parid=1720
personal favorite:
Best song to play while dumping your Swedish girlfriend:
"This Piece of Poetry Is Meant to Do Harm," The Ark




Fast Food Nation – Food For Thought
By Elisabeth Gustafson ’08

I consider myself to be an aware person; I’m vegetarian, I belong to PETA [lie], and I’ve eaten at McDonald’s a total of two times in my life. Even so, this movie Fast Food Nation was one big slap in the face. It’s gripping, powerful, shocking, and sheds light upon aspects of the meat industry I hadn’t even considered.

Previously to viewing this film, I was fully aware of the horrendous cruelty present in meat production, but what the movie brought to my attention was the people the industry affects. Director Richard Linklater alludes to his Slacker roots with several intermingling story lines all circulating around the production of Mickey’s (the McDonald’s equivalent) “Big Ones” (read: Big Mac). The movie explores the lives of the meat packers, the high powered executives, the cow farmers, the activists, and the hamburger-flippers who are all located in a small town in Colorado. The most poignant of the tales was that of a group of migrant workers. The film begs the question, how awful were their former lives for these people to view meat-packing jobs as opportunities? From tyrannical managers, dangerous conditions, and the corporate manipulation that continuously takes advantage of them, this storyline heightens awareness and evokes sympathy for the immigrant worker especially resonant at this time of political indecision.

The movie also explores the corrupt and deceitful nature of major corporations whose looming and influential presence prevents truth from reaching blissfully oblivious Americans. Social commentary in the film that will ring true with our school population is the idea that teenage activism is largely futile.

The younger generation’s activist antics (and even those of the credible organizations) pale in comparison to the major fast food powers that be. Fast food is an American institution and as long as greed trumps moral compasses, corruption will continue to exist.

On one hand, the scenes from the meat-packing factory reassured me of my decision to be vegetarian, but on the other hand, in the imposing shadow of corporations like Mickey’s, my social statement seems almost insignificant. Even so, the visuals present in the movie, such as scenes of cow livers sliding off conveyor belts and hacksaws mangling animal corpses, are too much for anyone to endure without rethinking their eating habits.

The movie has some idealistic monologues, and at times, it teeters on the brink of preaching, but it never veers into the realm of boring. If you keep sight of the fact that you are watching the movie version of Fast Food Nation, a harrowing nonfiction account of the meat industry, the speeches don’t seem out of place. I considered myself an informed person, yet I still walked out of the theater dizzy with realization. I suggest everyone sees this movie for the knowledge it lends, but also because it’s a compelling, fascinating, and impeccably well-done film.