Interview with Fast Food Nation actor

November 16, 2006

Sorry for the repeat message but I forgot to share this video--an interview with Esai Morales, star of Fast Food Nation (he was in NYPD Blue):

http://goveg.com/feat/fastfoodnation/interview_morales.asp

Very positive and upbeat, would be a great vid to send to friends and family. The dogs sleeping on his lap as he's interviewed make it a winner in my opinion!

A

On Behalf Of Alex BuryThursday, November 16, 2006 12:11 PM Subject: Fast Food Nation, the movie.

This Friday night the movie Fast Food Nation opens in theatres nationwide. Fox Searchlight – the distributor of the film – will be looking closely at the money the movie brings in on opening weekend. As with all movies, to be a success, the movie has to do well in the first 3 days it plays. Fox Searchlight is not doing any major promotions of the film and the movie didn’t have a lot of financial backing in getting made, possibly because of its controversial nature.

Fast Food Nation is a movie based on the non-fiction book written by Eric Schlosser. It is not a documentary. The book made many, many people go veg, largely due to health reasons. Like the book, the film is NOT an animal rights movie. It is mostly a movie about immigrant workers, but it makes meat seem really dirty and disgusting. The premise of the movie: “how is poop getting in the meat?”

There will be things in this film that you’ll wish they’d done differently. If you are an animal rights person, you may walk away from the film wishing that it had more to do with the animals, but it doesn’t. If you had made the movie, you would have made it very differently but this is the movie that was made and the most controversial of its kind. This movie will, for the first time in history, show real slaughterhouse footage to middle America – the people who are hardest to reach, and most important to reach because of their consumer power. The stars of this movie include Greg Kinnear, Wilmer Valderamma, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Avril Lavigne, Bruce Willis and several others, and their names will pull in theatre goers who never give their eating habits a second thought, but they will after this movie. It was directed by Richard Linklater – a 23 year long vegetarian.

In screenings across the country and abroad, people were educated for the first time and said that they’d never be able to eat meat again – some will and some won’t, but it is having that effect. The slaughterhouse footage is fast and you’ve seen worse so stick with it and notice the reactions in the theatre, and you’ll see that your $7 was well spent. And relax during the movie because it doesn’t come until the very end.

So, please go see this movie this weekend. It is an easy way to send a message to Hollywood that these films can be profitable and that these are the types of films people want to see made. Take your friends and co-workers and family members. Post to this list to arrange a group movie trip, perhaps ending at a veg restaurant or coffee house to discuss the film.

Thanks a lot.

Alex