Super Size Me

"Super Size Me" is a documentary. With that perspective, it's quite engaging and rightly informative. It seems squarely aimed for the high school and college crowd.

While Micheal Moore gets in the face of his adversary, Morgan Spurlock puts them through the paces, and they won't return his call. Glad to see the fast food industry has changed their menu. My boys are enjoying the alternatives in the kid meals. Abe: Did you see any Hot `n Now references? I didn't see any A&W, either. It always amazes me how one item (in this case nutrition/phys. ed) is responsible for test scores...last week it was band. O yeah, Nice menu Appleton!

3 and a half out of 5 caramel covered rice cakes.

Now with stats.

Bottom of page for counts, and link to here to view them.

"Keyword analysis" is the most fun. (In a week or so.)

100 Overlooked Films of the 1990s

The 100 Overlooked Films of the 1990s by the Online Film Critics Society is an interesting list.

As I started watching movies much more regularly than TV in the 90's, there are a lot of my favorites here. Lately we're watching some of these we've missed.

This weekend we watched Lone Star, and previously The Ref. Tam provides the review below. I did not enjoy Waiting for Guffman. Any on here you'd advise to keep away from?

Lone Star:

Impressively scoped film of the mid-90s. A murder mystery/love story/western/social commentary starring Chris Cooper in his break out role with Elisabeth Pena.

I don't even know how to describe this film other than a beautiful ensemble of stories that interlock the present and past of a Texas border town. Cooper plays a modern day sheriff stuck in the middle of murder investigation involving the town's previous sheriff during the 50s and his own legendary father who took the man's place. Legends and stories weave into and out of the tale which no one is too interested in talking about in detail.

While facing his own darkened feelings of his larger than life father he meets up again with the hispanic woman he loved in high school, but was forced to break up with. Again, into and out of the past are woven the racial tensions of the town; anglo, hispanic, black, and even Indian (minorly). It's amazing the director/writer could hold the amount of detail together. Flashbacks aren't cut, they pan to the side of the room...the past never leaves and the characters are living out it's results.

There may be times you wonder why the writer left in so many characters in the story. Occasionally I just wanted to go back to the main characters, but the result is the entire social web of a small border town. The web that catches Cooper and Pena, encourages and foils their love.

After the films two twists, the movie rests on one line from Pena. "Forget the Alamo," she says, we'll start all over again. As the movie fades with that note of hope you wonder...will Texas ever forget the Alamo? Will the characters forget their past? Can they move on?