Food Inc.

Want a sure­fire way to bum your­self out on New Year’s Eve? Watch Food Inc.

I’ve scaled back the num­ber of mind-numb­ing­ly depress­ing doc­u­men­taries I’ve watched in the past few years. Too many of them tread the same ter­ri­to­ry, preach to the choir, and fall far short of inform­ing the broad­er pub­lic of the issues at hand. Food Inc. isn’t one of them.

This is a great doc­u­men­tary for any­one who wants to get a basic under­stand­ing of what’s hap­pen­ing in Amer­i­can food pol­i­cy. Let me put it this way: if Upton Sin­clair would­n’t have words to describe the state of the food indus­try. It’s that bad. I def­i­nite­ly rec­om­mend this flick. It’ll make you think twice about how and what you eat.

The Baader Meinhof Complex

This was an absolute­ly spell­bind­ing film. It’s fas­ci­nat­ing to see the par­al­lels between the splin­ter fac­tions in both Amer­i­ca and Ger­many. How the Weath­er­men and the Baad­er Mein­hof Group became self-appoint­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of a so-called rad­i­cal left is a strange epi­logue to the advances made world­wide dur­ing the Sixties. 

The Baad­er Mein­hof Com­plex does a fine job of show­ing their descent into mad­ness, as botched jobs lead them to take even more des­per­ate mea­sures, irre­spec­tive of the costs. Most inter­est­ing was the man­ner in which the orig­i­nal mem­bers dis­avowed lat­er gen­er­a­tions of the Red Army Fac­tion. The movie goes to great lengths to show how bru­tal polit­i­cal vio­lence is. To sum up: the Baad­er Mein­hof Gruppe went to extreme lengths to protest Amer­i­can impe­ri­al­ism, but those RAF sol­diers who remained were real­ly cuck­oo for cocoa puffs.

If you’re into polit­i­cal thrillers, it’s def­i­nite­ly worth check­ing out.

Turen Går til København!

Helen and I are going on our hon­ey­moon! Yes, we’ve been mar­ried near­ly four years and are just two months away from wel­com­ing our first baby into the world, but we final­ly have the time and mon­ey so we fig­ured, “Why not!?” It’s long overdue.

Where are we head­ed? Den­mark, naturligvis! I spent a year in love­ly Skan­der­borg, Den­mark from 1995 to 1996 as a Rotary exchange stu­dent. It was an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence that I’ve cher­ished since I returned from my exchange. I’ve nev­er total­ly for­got­ten Dan­ish, but I haven’t been back since a quick jaunt to vis­it my sec­ond host fam­i­ly in 1999 after row­ing at Hen­ley Roy­al Regat­ta with the Saint Joseph’s Uni­ver­si­ty light­weight crew. I can’t believe ten years have passed already!

We’ll be on the ground in Copen­hagen at 7 a.m. local time tomor­row, vis­it­ing old friends and my sec­ond host fam­i­ly, whom I’ve man­aged to stay in touch with­out every real­ly writ­ing as often as I ought. Now my host sib­lings are all on Face­book, which is hilar­i­ous when you con­sid­er that the Inter­net was just a baby when I was on exchange. Heck, my eldest host sis­ter just got married!

Helen and I will be post­ing pic­tures and videos in case you’re inter­est­ed in fol­low­ing our com­ings and goings while we’re over­seas. What’s on tap? Every­thing from a canal tour of Copen­hagen — some­thing I’ve nev­er done — to a trip back to my old stomp­ing ground in Skan­der­borg, which I may not rec­og­nize, to all the stan­dard tourist des­ti­na­tions like Den Lille Halvfrue, Fred­eriks­borg Slot, Amalien­borg, and oth­ers. I can’t wait to share this won­der­ful coun­try with Helen!

A.C. Newman @ Johnny Brenda’s


A.C. New­man
Orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by J T. Ramsay

I went out to see A.C. New­man at John­ny Bren­da’s Tues­day night. I had a great time. I’m going to write about the man and his new album, Get Guilty, over at my work blog, Blind­ed by the Hype, today (hope­ful­ly.)

It was an amaz­ing show. Regard­less of how you feel about his most recent stuff with the New Pornog­ra­phers, or his solo work, he’s an unde­ni­able show­man who must be seen to be believed. I can think of few song­writ­ers whose body of work has been so con­sis­tent­ly strong since he came back on the scene with the New Pornog­ra­phers near­ly a decade ago.

If you’re not at SXSW and you’re look­ing to hear some great music, make sure you get your­self out to see A.C. New­man when he comes to town. You won’t be disappointed.

An Avalanche of Entertainment

It’s easy to under­stand why some peo­ple feel com­plete­ly over­whelmed by the enter­tain­ment options at their dis­pos­al. I do, too! When Net­flix and Xbox 360 paired up to stream Watch Instant­ly titles, I sud­den­ly found myself awash in on-demand options. Is it amaz­ing (and a much bet­ter expe­ri­ence than watch­ing on my com­put­er?) Absolute­ly. Do I feel like like I can’t pri­or­i­tize my enter­tain­ment options? Total­ly! All these options are a bless­ing and a curse to some­one who likes more than his fair share of movies. How do I know where to watch them?

Here’s what I’ve watched recent­ly and where:

  • For­get­ting Sarah Mar­shall (Com­cast On Demand)
  • Man on Wire (Net­flix Watch Instant­ly on Xbox 360)
  • The Horse’s Mouth (Com­cast DV‑R)
  • Gomor­rah (actu­al movie theater)
  • Sal­vador (Net­flix DVD)

I’m look­ing for some­one to pull togeth­er all of the enter­tain­ment options I have so I can man­age them from a cen­tral hub. I want to be able to pri­or­i­tize my Net­flix queue by know­ing if some­thing will be avail­able on Turn­er Clas­sic Movies or not. I want to be prompt­ed to record or rent when I search IMDB.com. I know I’m not alone. Who does­n’t want to get the most out of their cable and Net­flix sub­scrip­tions? Isn’t stuff like this at the heart of the seman­tic web?