SIFF: Good Food

Good Food

We all want it.

We should all eat it.

My wonderful wife blogs about it.  In more than one place.  And I take some pride in helping expose her to Seattle's bustling farmer's market experience.  And we both take pride in exposing our friends to the farmer's markets, even those who have been here for a while.

We get the majority of our food at the farmer's markets.  Not just vegetables.  Meat, cheese, dairy, ice cream, even wheat.  We've visited the farms we get a lot of our stuff from.  We are members of a CSA.

To say that I should be predisposed to love this movie, a movie about the organic, local food movements of the Pacific NW is not a stretch.

So...

Did I?

Well, it's funny.  I got to see lots of farmers I knew, some personally, on the big screen.  But this isn't saying if I liked the movie, is it.  I think I'm trying to buy time.

Let me say this.  Content wise, this movie was a 5.  Maybe a 4.9 because they could have talked about so much more.  But, artistically, the film needs some work.

Film quality was a little on the low side.  It could have just been the medium they were using. 

The voiceover, while functional, left a bit to be desired.  It was the voiceover work that was what I would call 'pre-sell'.  A friend of mine made a movie.  Heart of the Game.  The original version had him doing his own voiceover work.  When Mirimax picked up the movie, they were looking at a few different people to redo the voiceover.  They ended up with Ludacris and it sounded leagues better. 

The soundtrack was, again, functional, and had the sound of what you hear at the farmer's markets, none of the actual performers as I saw them scroll by actually appear at the local farmer's markets.  Why not pick a few of them to provide music for the soundtrack?

A very, very minor nitpick.  When they went to various areas, the title card would say something like:

Skagit Valley

northern Washington

Now, I appreciate that in a sentence, northern Washington is accepted.  Or I assume it is.  'Northern' isn't a place, it's just a descriptive term.  But, in a title card, it looks wrong.  It might be right, I'm not a professional editor, but it looks very very wrong.

Should you go see this movie?

I think you should, unless you're my wife, because you already saw it.  It's a great look at local farms, and hopefully will get you out of your house this Tuesday (Crossroads, Renton, Tacoma, Silverdale), Wednesday (Wallingford, Columbia City), Thursday (Bellevue, Lake City, Queen Anne), Friday (Phinney, Kirkland, Madrona), Saturday (University District, Redmond, Issaquah, Magnolia), Sunday (Ballard, Capitol Hill, West Seattle), or just go to http://www.wafarmersmarkets.com/market_directory.html and find one near you.  Well, assuming you live in Washington.  If you live elsewhere, go to http://www.eatwild.com/products/index.html or http://www.localharvest.org/.

You can see Good Food again this Saturday June 7 at 4:30 pm at SIFF Cinema.  It doesn't appear to be sold out, so you can get tickets here.

My score?  A very hesitant 4.  Again, content wise, it could have easily been a 5.