Fast Food Nation

[Rudie Obias]

Eric Schlosser was in my store last week doing a book signing.  only 10 people showed up. 

[Pubrick]

only 10 people showed up. 

obviously, everyone else was avoiding SPOILERS.

[modage]

STARZ Behind The Scenes clip...

[MacGuffin]

Teaser Trailer

[MacGuffin]

Linklater courts controversy, headaches with films

Writer-director Richard Linklater arrives at the Cannes Film Festival with two vastly different movie adaptations: "Fast Food Nation" and "A Scanner Darkly."

"Fast Food Nation" (Fox Searchlight; fall release) is a fictionalized version of Eric Schlosser's 2001 restaurant industry expose; while "A Scanner Darkly" (Warner Independent Pictures; July 7 limited release) is an animated version of Philip K. Dick's 1977 sci-fi cult novel and paints stars Keanu Reeves and Robert Downey Jr. in vibrating computer-animated colors.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO MAKE "FAST FOOD NATION" A NARRATIVE FILM?

Richard Linklater: I think that's what Eric Schlosser had in his mind when he thought of it as a movie. When he was in town on his book tour, I sat down with him, started talking about it and asked him that question. I said, "Well, it's kind of a documentary." And he started talking about narratives that cover people in one location, like he had that in mind. Once I grabbed that, it was easy to run with it. We'd take this one town in Colorado and just build it. The book is a wonderful piece of nonfiction, but we sort of tossed it out, and Eric led the charge. I went with him to Colorado on a lot of occasions, met a lot of people and just kind of sniffed around. We developed characters from different walks of life. We got the undocumented workers coming in from Mexico, we got the teenage girl who works at the burger place, we got an executive who works at the company. Those are the three main stories, and they branch off from there.

THR: WHY WAS THE FILMING SO SECRETIVE? DO YOU EXPECT A CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE FILM?

Linklater: It's already happened, actually. Someone leaked to the press that McDonald's has an interior campaign against the film. Eric has a new book out called "Chew on This." It's kind of "Fast Food Nation" for kids. They're sort of on to that, trying to keep ahead with their own spin.

THR: SO, I'M GUESSING THERE'S NO PRODUCT PLACEMENT?

Linklater: No. I don't know why McDonald's is so nervous. We invented our own fast food chain that isn't McDonald's. It's Mickey's.

THR: THIS AND "A SCANNER DARKLY" ARE TWO ADAPTATIONS OF VERY DIFFERENT BOOKS. HOW FAITHFUL DID YOU TRY TO REMAIN TO EACH OF THEM?

Linklater: If you liked "Fast Food Nation," I think you'd definitely like the spirit of the movie. It's just a further human examination of that subject seen from a worker's perspective. "Scanner" was a whole 'nother thing altogether. I tried to stay very true to the source material. That was one of my biggest goals: to try to adapt Philip K. Dick in a way that would encompass what I feel he is, which is very complex. The movie's ultimately a full-blown comedy because the book to me is very funny. It also has very tragic and sad implications, too. That was the challenge there. What's easier to accept in a novel is fairly hard to pull off in a film, tonally. But that was the goal.

THR: YOU GO BACK AND FORTH A LOT BETWEEN STUDIO AND INDEPENDENT FILMS. HOW HAVE THE EXPERIENCES BEEN DIFFERENT FOR YOU?

Linklater: I've never really had studio interference affect my final film. Other than them wanting me to cut a lot -- it's the typical thing -- and you just kind of hit an impasse and say, "This is the movie." And they go, "Well, we don't like the movie." And they sorta don't release it. Several times I've been in that position. But I had the same thing with "Scanner." The same wall-to-wall notes. In my experience, it doesn't matter if you have final cut. I have final cut on a good percentage of my movies but could be treated as badly or worse on a low-budget movie that I have final cut on than on a big studio film I don't have final cut on. It strictly comes down to the people involved, their attitude toward what they're looking at and what their brilliant ideas are. You just gotta deal. It takes up a lot of psychic space, and it's not what you get into filmmaking for. There's a huge political element. I had final cut on both of these films, but like I said, that makes no difference. "Scanner" had a very lengthy, difficult postproduction period.

THR: HOW DID YOU JUGGLE THAT PRODUCTION WITH "FAST FOOD NATION?"

Linklater: They sort of came to the finish line at exactly the same moment. I shot "Scanner" a year and a half ahead of "Fast Food." By the time I was shooting "Fast Food Nation" this fall, I was done with "Scanner" more or less. I was still futzing around with music, and there were a lot of animation tweaks to be done but were in the final correcting-type phase. With "Fast Food," we had one screening, it went well. Had some ideas, couple little trims, finished the movie, great. "Scanner" was just the opposite. Done with it, "Oh, let's have another screening, here's notes" . . . it just went on forever. I couldn't have had two more opposite postproduction experiences on both films. "Scanner," due to the animation, the lengthy process and no apparent deadlines, it just sort of went on and on.

THR: WHAT CAN PEOPLE EXPECT FROM "FAST FOOD NATION?"

Linklater: Wow. You're gonna get pulled into a world, see things behind the scenes that you don't see much. But it's really just a human drama. It kind of packs a wallop, too, at the end. I don't think I've ever made a movie that is . . . I don't know if the word devastating is too big. But by the end, you're really taken on a journey. It's tough. When you get into this world, there are certainly labor issues and definitely health issues and environmental issues. It's a complex system that's so huge, and we kind of hit on all of it. I had access to some stuff you really haven't seen in a movie before. Some of the working conditions in the meat industry, where your meat comes from. I think the power of cinema is that you can show the people behind your products and behind everything -- there's the people who make your cars, the people who sell you drugs, the little immigrant, the undocumented kid selling a flower on the street. There's a human story there.

[takitani]

Manohla Dargis' take on the film

And you can see the premiere right now on the online IFC cam.

It's kinda surreal hearing Avril Lavigne's name announced on the Cannes red carpet

[Split Infinitive]

Just a gut feeling: 2006 will be a great year for Linklater.

And an even better one for his fans.  Does anyone else think he's one of the most exciting American directors working today, or am I swimming upstream alone and without a paddle on this one?

[Gold Trumpet]

Just a gut feeling: 2006 will be a great year for Linklater.

And an even better one for his fans.  Does anyone else think he's one of the most exciting American directors working today, or am I swimming upstream alone and without a paddle on this one?

Haha, I actually was going to comment how this is the first Linklater film I'm excited to see because I found out today Bruce Willis makes an appearance in it.

So naw, not much of a Linklater fan at all.

[matt35mm]

Just a gut feeling: 2006 will be a great year for Linklater.

And an even better one for his fans.  Does anyone else think he's one of the most exciting American directors working today, or am I swimming upstream alone and without a paddle on this one?

You are not alone, sir.

[takitani]

A very mixed review from Time Out London
Excerpt:

At best, 'Fast Food Nation' offers an amusing if hollow satire on the American corporation. At worst, it feels like a didactic public information film of the sort employed in schools to warn you of the danger of venereal disease.

Worst of all, while Schlosser assumed a savvy, mature and intelligent readership, 'Fast Food Nation' the movie pitches itself squarely at the sort of American teenager who would be shocked to learn that McDonalds, Burger King et al were anything but outstanding pillars of the community.

[Pubrick]

A very mixed review from Time Out London
Excerpt:

At best, 'Fast Food Nation' offers an amusing if hollow satire on the American corporation. At worst, it feels like a didactic public information film of the sort employed in schools to warn you of the danger of venereal disease.

Worst of all, while Schlosser assumed a savvy, mature and intelligent readership, the movie pitches itself squarely at the sort of American teenager who would be shocked to learn that McDonalds, Burger King et al were anything but outstanding pillars of the community.

looks like linklater has another hit on his hands.

[takitani]

A mixed notice from the Telegraph (UK):

Unusually for Linklater, who has been on a terrific roll of late (Before Sunset, School of Rock, Bad News Bears), the film is almost as indigestible as its subject matter. He and co-writer Schlosser have steered away from documentary in order to create a series of character sketches that dramatise some of the key themes of the book.

The action shuttles between the boardroom of Mickey's Fast Food Restaurant chain, whose execs are trying to keep quiet reports that their burgers contain fecal matter, a meat factory in which Hispanic workers are under-paid and under-trained for their dangerous work, and a burger joint where college kids earn a dime or two.

Linklater isn't a naturally political movie-maker. The extended ideological debates here are closer in tone to those normally found in a Ken Loach film than in his own breezy pictures. Though the film streamlines its source material, it still tries to cover so many issues - patriotism, immigration, corporate malfeasance, labour exploitation, to name but a few - that it's hard to engage with any of the characters.

It doesn't channel or hone its admirable energy half as effectively as Super Size Me or Maria Full Of Grace. The star of the latter, Catalina Sandino Moreno, is just one of the top-notch cast: among them Ethan Hawke, Luis Guzman, and Ashley Johnson as an idealistic undergrad who wants to free all the cows in Colorado.

Despite its flaws, it's a fascinating exercise in marrying feature film-making and journalism. Some of its abattoir scenes are as compelling cases for vegetarianism as can have been seen on the big screen.

Lukewarm from the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw (the dude is usually pretty critical though):

Now Schlosser's book has been turned into a feature film. It's reasonably watchable, but there is something obtuse and self-defeating about turning a factual exposé into a fictional film about a fictional corporation: it undermines the central message that all this is really happening.
...
The movie ticks along reasonably enough, but lacks the arrowhead of the original. Kinnear's face is perpetually creased with a frown, but the question of what he will do with this information becomes more and more nagging. Will he quit? Will he tell the media? The outcome is less satisfying, and this, too, betrays the original's spirit of disclosure. There are some funny moments, especially in the company's lab, where the down-home cooking smells are created in a test-tube. But where's the beef?

Mixed from ScreenDaily (UK):

Amusing and informative but also hectoring and didactic, the wide-ranging film is not as tasty as one might have hoped and consequently will struggle to win hearts and minds.
...
Individual moments shine and sparkle but the film becomes harder to digest when characters start delivering speeches rather than having natural conversations and the humanity of the piece is eroded by the need for one more sermon on the evils of the world. There is so much information and insight to try and squeeze into Fast Food Nation that it cannot help but lack the tightness and bullseye effectiveness of something like Super Size Me.
...
Attempting to comment on everything from the politics of food consumption to the plight of the poor and powerless and the moral meltdown of corporate American, Fast Food Nation has bitten off more than it can comfortably chew. There simply isn't the same pithiness and fluidity that marked Linklater's most successful ensemble piece Dazed And Confused. Fast Food Nation may be more thought-provoking but the entertainment comes with a side order of conscience-prodding and the kind of bitter ironies that lack subtlety.

And mildly positive from Variety:

The vigorous muckraking sensibility that informed Eric Schlosser's 2001 nonfiction bestseller keeps this fictionalized screen version of "Fast Food Nation" bobbing along despite its overly slackerish narrative organization. Richard Linklater's rough-hewn tapestry of assorted lives that feed off of and into the American meat industry is both rangy and mangy; it remains appealing for its subversive motives and revelations even as one wishes its knife would have been sharper.
...
All this, along with relaxed pacing and a laid-back visual style, creates the sense of a laissez faire approach to storytelling, one that's not off-putting but nevertheless does not fully serve the attack mode suggested by Schlosser's systematic original approach.

In the end, viewers waiting for an emotional and/or dramatic payoff will be disappointed. As a call-to-arms, it's highly sympathetic but surprisingly mild-mannered.

[modage]

ooh, mildly positive!  now i can't WAIT to see this!  i have a feeling this is going to be a real lukewarm year for linklater fans!

[Split Infinitive]

ooh, mildly positive!  now i can't WAIT to see this!  i have a feeling this is going to be a real lukewarm year for linklater fans!

*ahem*

http://wip.warnerbros.com/ascannerdarkly/

[MacGuffin]

Does anyone else think he's one of the most exciting American directors working today, or am I swimming upstream alone and without a paddle on this one?

*ahem*

http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=708.0