[general_devel] TONIGHT'S MOVIES AT CINEMATHEQUE 22A HAI BA TRUNG, HA NOI

Wed Apr 20 07:32:32 BST 2011

On Apr 19, 2011, at 11:01 PM, ben minot wrote:

The HEG FILM WEEK on climate change continues with a film
very pertinent to Vietnam since this major producer of Agent Orange has set up shop in Siagon with the goal of turning the rice crops GMO and peddling the toxic brands of fertilizer and pesticides.

See attached for deeper research.

Entry 50,000 for members, 60,000 for non-members (suggested donation)

Đêm nay CỦA MOVIES AT Cinematheque 22A HAI BÀTRƯNG

Các HEG FILM TUẦN về biến đổi khí hậu tiếp tục vớimột bộ phim
rất thích hợp cho Việt Nam từ này sản xuất chính của"chất độc da cam" đã mở văn phòng tại Cao ốc Saigonvà với mục tiêu của việc tạo ra cây lúa biến đổi gen độc.

Xem trực thuộc để nghiên cứu sâu hơn.

50.000 vé vào cửa cho các thành viên, 60.000 cho người không thành viên (đề nghị tặng)
7PM

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO
2008     Directed by Marie-Monique Robin     108 minutes
English version.  No Vietnamese translation

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO makes a case that this 100-year-old chemical giant -- which now positions itself as a "life sciences" company -- wants nothing less than a stranglehold over the world's food supply.

Got milk?  If you bought it in the States, it probably got a boost from Monsanto's Bovine Growth Hormone, which apparently has the unfortunate side effect of making cow udders susceptible to an infection called clinical mastitis, giving milk drinkers the added benefit of pus and a full spectrum of antibiotics.

Corn in Mexico, cotton in India, soy in North America (specially bred to resist Roundup, the company's signature herbicide, and to exude a bio-insecticide as well), Monsanto has its hands (and lawyers) everywhere, intent on uprooting the local agri-industries and replacing them with their patented variety by any means necessary.

What this means in Third World countries is a radical change in the culture, requiring subsistence farmers to actually buy seeds annually (under threat of law) instead of using the seeds from the previous crop as they have for centuries.

Director Marie-Monique Robin finds local leaders in Mexico and India who already seem on the verge of armed resistance. There is so much going on in The World According to Monsanto, Robin's French/NFB co-production.

And yet the company chooses to answer none of it. (Its big "no comment" comes at the end of the movie).  This is almost more shocking than the content of the movie itself. It's one thing for McDonald's to have no comment over Supersize Me and its accusation that eating too many Big Macs will make you throw up.
It's another to clam up against accusations of almost monstrous criminality and coverup.

It's possible there is hyperbole in Robin's movie, but we'll never know as long as Monsanto pleads the Fifth.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO posits not only current crimes, but a 70-year-long history of same -- cover-ups of the dangers of PCBs and Dioxin (the supposedly "cooked" studies of the safety of which became a stumbling block for Vietnam veterans seeking compensation after exposure to Agent Orange.)

But the most outrageous revelation in THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO is the fox-guarding-the-chicken-coop aspect -- an extensive revolving door between the U.S. Food & Drug Administration and the company (example: ex FDA deputy commissioner Michael Taylor started at Monsanto, and is now, again, a Monsanto executive).

Definitely not the feel-good movie of the year.

    Review by Jim Slotek, Sun Media:

While Robin’s film is somewhat hampered by clumsy English-language narration, it does contain more effective segments that detail the American agricultural corporation’s efforts to exert its influence over global food production.

Monsanto’s tactics range from twisting rubber arms at the US Food and Drug Administration, suing farmers who violate its new seed patents and smearing scientists whose findings may be contrary to its own often suspect data on its products’ impact on our planet’s collective gene pool — the ramifications for American milk, Mexican corn and Indian cotton are particularly alarming. The strong-arm nature of Robin’s own strategies may not result in great filmmaking but her movie will get you thinking seriously about what’s on the end of your fork.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MONSANTO is an eye-opening documentary.
Your eyes, once opened, soon begin to burn.

9PM

THE 11th HOUR
2009   Directed by Leslie and Nadia Conners    95 minutes
English only.  No Vietnamese translation

THE 11th HOUR is the last moment when change is possible. The film explores how we’ve arrived at this moment -- how we live, how we impact the earth’s ecosystems, and what we can do to change our course. Featuring ongoing dialogues of experts from all over the world, including former Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, former head of the CIA R. James Woolsey and sustainable design experts William McDonough and Bruce Mau in addition to over 50 leading scientists, thinkers and leaders who discuss the most important issues that face our planet and people.

    Review by Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor:

For audiences, the big question about the documentary THE 11th HOUR undoubtedly is: How is it different from AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH? Well, the latter was very much an Al Gore production, while the chief eco-activist and talking head here is Leonardo DiCaprio, who also co-wrote the script. However, despite the presence of a bona fide movie star, THE 11th HOUR is considerably less slick than AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, but no less urgent.

Co-directed by the sisters Leslie Conners Peterson and Nadia Conners, the film features interviews with everyone from Mikhail Gorbachev to Stephen Hawking and in its final section lays out some remarkably innovative ways for designers to integrate renewable energy sources into buildings.

    Review by Wesley Morris, Boston Globe:

I don't know how things are in your life. But no matter what's going on, this planet has got you beat. We've made it sick, and it, in turn, is sick and tired of us. We have the floods, fires, droughts, heat waves, melting ice caps, and endangered or extinct species to prove it.

THE 11th HOUR, the exhaustively depressing documentary (there's no dressing this up) that brings us this news, has the misfortune to be yet another global warming warning. But the word bears repeating, so everyone from Andrew Weil to Stephen Hawking to Mikhail Gorbachev is here to speak the still-inconvenient truth. The filmmaking, however, is far more relentless than in that Oscar-winning Al Gore slide show.

A deep bench of environmentalists, microbiologists, activists, religious figures, government bigwigs, and one plain-old American Indian wise man make vividly clear that we're trashing the planet. There are so many faces in this petition of talking heads, including narrator and producer Leonardo DiCaprio, that no one is called on more than a few times. The lack of dissent is powerful and shaming, since it's agreed that, at the very least, global warming is a real, man-made catastrophe.

Mixed in with stock footage, graphics, and scenes from various disasters, the film's participants make a jarring case for mankind's smallness, its temporariness, its heedless destruction of the planet. They explain the brief history of humanity, then tell us what an aberration we are. Our survival strategies are a Darwinian nightmare since, in an industrial and now technological age, they've not only divorced us from nature, they've essentially pitted us against it.

As the negative statistics pile up, the grim prognoses mount and assessments of exactly where mankind went wrong unfurl. Our enslavement to fossil fuels and our emphasis on economy over environment are, well, unnatural. Without trading in conspiracy or paranoia, the movie makes clear that business interests have made it politically unfeasible, for example, to consider expanding the Constitution to further protect the environment.

A bohemian spirit hovers over THE 11th HOUR; the movie says we have to get back to the garden before complacency and ignorance hasten our demise. This is a hard argument to make without sounding kooky, but the documentary is too dire to turn dippy, cheesy, or sentimental. Sentiment is what AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH relied on when the director thought the truth was a cold reality we couldn't entirely handle. Nadia Conners and Leila Conners Petersen, the directors of THE 11th HOUR don't care whether we can handle the truth. There's no time to worry about our feelings.

The curious effect of such a sugarless, unvarnished approach is that, while it's meant to rouse you to action, you watch the movie in a kind of spiritual, moral, and ethical paralysis: What can we do to stop this in time? You're even more demoralized after it's suggested that the film's title might be inaccurate: This is actually "The 11th hour, 59th minute, and 59th second."

When the movie introduces several well-known ecologically minded designers and architects who are serious about building sustainably, a silver lining starts to shimmer. Still, certain realities keep you from jumping for joy. More than once, we're reminded that 99 percent of species that have ever appeared on this planet in the last few billion years haven't lasted. Extinction is part of life. So, hey Earth: Things might be looking up for you after all. We won't be around to torture you much longer.

www.hegroup.posterous.com

"HEG is what you make of it"

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