Red Carpet Diaries -- Fast Food Nation

Video cameras and microphones, flashing lights and still cameras; and then a lone iPod...that was the scene at the red carpet event prior to the Los Angeles premiere of Richard Linklater's rendering of Eric Schlosser's ground-breaking non-fiction book Fast Food Nation. As reporters for Pirate Pods, I ventured up to LA with two other pirates to cover the 3rd Annual Artivist Film Festival. As press covering this event, I had the opportunity to interview several film directors, activists and also for very brief moments some of the stars of FFN as the exited the red carpet. We pirates attended the screening of the Fast Food Nation and other films which I will review shortly.

The red carpet is a crazy place. This was a minor even compared to the enormity of some premiers but it still looked unenviable to be an actor repeatedly taking questions which were essentially a new iteration of the same inquiry and smiling constantly so as not be caught looking "normal" by one of the cameras. Having never covered a red carpet, none of us knew where to position ourselves and we were at the end of the carpet so I only got to ask one or two questions of each person who would talk to me. The last person down the carpet, Greg Kinnear, didn't stop but I walked with him up to the theater door, nervously formulating and asking a question but successfully getting an answer. Next time I'll have questions written out!

Check out the Pirate Pods in a week or so to catch the interviews from the festival. My Fast Food Nation interviews include Greg Kinnear, Wilmer Valderrama, Ashley Johnson and the Catalina Sandino Moreno. Hopefully my audio came out! As a group we also conducted interviews with directors of films and the producer of the festival.

And now, the Fast Food Nation review: Like the book, the film is disruptive to the idea that what we eat and where we choose to eat had no effect on anyone other than ourselves. Basically, it is about the true cost of a hamburger from the worker in the slaughterhouse to the teenager in the restaurant to the consumer. It was interesting to see a non-fiction book turn into a fiction story and is a worthwhile film.

Forgive my misuse of html below as I show you pictures of my L.A. adventure. Hopefully these pictures will be straightened out by the week's end. :)