King Corn (Green Packaging)
by Aaron Woolf
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DVD details
Actor: Chuck Pyatt, Curt Ellis, Ian Cheney, Michael Pollan, Stephen MackoDirector: Aaron Woolf
Brand: NEW VIDEO GROUP INC
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 90 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-04-29
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: DOCURAMA
DVD Reviews of King Corn (Green Packaging)
DVD Review: Excellent & Thought Provoking
Summary: 5 Stars
If you are at all curious about where our corn goes, this is very, very interesting.DVD Review: Affable, Informative Documentary for the Whole Family
Summary: 4 Stars
Two friends from college decided to track the process of growing America's #1 crop - corn. We see them rent their own acre of land and start, literally from scratch.
They learn some of the evils and the economies of what has become the big business of agriculture - in some ways following in the footsteps of Roger Moore. They produce an eye-opening documentary. However these two pals do their investigating in a hands-on, non-confrontational way. As much as possible, they become a part of the Iowa community where they start their jovially hip adventure.
They usher us through the process of sowing and reaping the corn, as it is done now with giant combines yielding billions of tons of grain every year. Then the friends pursue their crop as it is traded and processed, and as it makes its way to our tables in one form or another.
They show how ubiquitous a part of our lives corn is. It is added as sweetener to almost all the processed food products we eat now, perhaps contributing to the epidemics of obesity and diabetes. It is the staple ingredient in most cattle feed. All of this commercial corn is foul-tasting, almost inedible in its primary raw state.
The two young men do a good job of showing the details of the journey the corn makes from seed to feed. They include the way the crop is fertilized using ammonia. They touch on the herbicides sprayed on the fields and how these chemicals do their work of eradicating weeds without harming the young corn shoots. However, there's one glaring omission. The pals don't discuss pesticides at all, and seem not to have used any on their God's Little Acre.
But the two also take the larger view. They probe the different philosophies that have guided Government programs dealing with farmers. They even track down Earl Butz, the controversial Secretary of Agriculture in the Nixon-Ford Administration, and interview him. He explains how he revamped and reversed the system of incentives given to farmers. He saw that they were paid, not for how much land they withheld from production, but for how much land they planted. This policy has contributed to the near-glut of corn on the market and to the creation of vast monoculture farms.
There's a wealth of information in this documentary, presented in a lively, engaging way. The pals in effect take a cheery road trip with each other and with their corn - but make some sobering discoveries along the way.
DVD Review: King Corn tells it like it is about our food supply
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellent film that should be shown in high school and college classrooms. Few people know how US agriculture has become dangerously unbalanced in terms of the variety of food and the quality of food that is grown in this country. Of course, seeing how corn is grown will also open your eyes as to how terribly the land is managed, and how independent farmers are muscled out by big agri-business. Now, start looking at the ubiquity of high fructose corn syrup in desserts, cereals, packaged meats, etc., and you'll also understand why Americans are so obese. There are no exaggerations in this film--the frightening facts speak for themselves. Wake up, America.DVD Review: Great video
Summary: 5 Stars
This dvd was creative, entertaining and very informative. I learned things I never realized were true.DVD Review: Should Be Shown in Every School Room
Summary: 5 Stars
Having recently made a friend of a person who is very allergic to corn I was "sensitized" into watching this. My friend and this film gave me a whole new appreciation of just how ubiquitous corn is in our diet. It's nearly impossible to avoid corn in so many commercial products it's insane. It also becomes obvious it's certainly not wise to have our nations figurative eggs in so few crop-baskets, virtual mono cultures. I'm old enough to remember grass finished beef, and prefer it, and think it's beyond egregious that animals are subjected to CAFO's and factory slaugher houses that regularly have to recall hundreds of thousands of pounds of meat due to contamination. The waste is totally unacceptable and now Mexico won't accept meat from many of our processors. This traces back to the ubiquitous use of corn and factory farming. Besides the unnatural corn in cattle rations there are other "proteins" including processed road kill and euthanized pets. The epidemic rise if type II diabetes in this country must be tied to so much corn and sweetener/browner/filler/starch as before the use of so much corn, diabetes was fairly UNcommon. The corn syrup seems to upset the metabolic system and contributes to obesity. I do wish that movie had addressed the issues surrounding GMO corn. But then, the lawsuits might have started rolling in. Corn that kills the earworm isn't something I want on my menu. I realize that bacterium thuringensis is fairly harmless when used as a dust on corn silks, but who knows what the effect is when it's built into every single kernel we eat of that particular modificication. That said the movie is easy watching with compassion for those who are being forced out of a way of life lived happily for generations and even out of small towns where generations have lived. It is an appeal for America to come to it's senses and have a good look around. We're very soon going to need the jobs small farms provide AND food we can actually eat might be handy!
Description of King Corn (Green Packaging)
KING CORN is a fun and crusading journey into the digestive tract of our fast food nation where one ultra-industrial, pesticide-laden, heavily-subsidized commodity dominates the food pyramid from top to bottom corn. Fueled by curiosity and a dash of naivete, college buddies Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis return to their ancestral home of Greene, Iowa to figure out how a modest kernel conquered America.With the help of some real farmers, oodles of fertilizer and government aide, and some genetically modified seeds, the friends manage to grow one acre of corn. Along the way, they unlock the hilarious absurdities and scary but hidden truths about America s modern food system in this engrossing and eye-opening documentary.
A graceful and frequently humorous film that captures the idiosyncrasies of its characters and never hectors (Salon), KING CORN shows how and why whenever you eat a hamburger or drink a soda, you re really consuming ... corn.
Picking up where Super Size Me left off, King Corn examines America's health woes through the multifaceted lens of one humble grain. Director Aaron Woolf and co-writers Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis offer irrefutable proof that the US is virtually drowning in the stuff. Corn meal, corn starch, hydrologized corn protein, and high fructose corn syrup fuel a multitude of products, from soft drinks to hamburgers. The starchy vegetable grows with ease and government subsidies insure over-abundant production. Woolf documents the 11-month effort of college friends Cheney and Ellis, who trace their ancestry to the same small Iowa town, to raise their own crop. After finding a farmer willing to lend them an acre, they meet with agronomists, historians, and other experts before plowing, seeding, and spraying. Prior to harvesting, the easygoing Yale grads travel to Colorado to compare the grass-fed cattle of yore with today's corn-fed counterparts; then to New York to explore the links between corn syrup, obesity, and diabetes. With assistance from author Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma), a whimsical score, and stop-motion animation--farm toys and corn kernels--Woolf and associates bring biochemistry to vivid life. On a micro level, this genial eye-opener celebrates friends and farmers; on a macro level, King Corn bemoans the subsidies and genetic modifications that have turned a formerly protein-filled product into the fatty "yellow dent no. 2." Bonus features include a music video, photo gallery, and "The Lost Basement Lectures," an amusingly fake instructional movie about the aims of agriculture. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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