Catch A Flick

If you're going to go out and watch a movie, why not make it a movie that will enrich your life?  There are a few different documentaries showings in the area that I want to bring to your attention.  I have these showings chronologically and at the end I have posted the film trailers.

The Music Hall in Portsmouth will be showing No Impact Man on January 21 at 7:00 PM.

Colin Beavan decides to completely eliminate his personal impact on the environment for the next year. It means eating vegetarian, buying only local food, no elevators, no television, no cars, busses, or planes, no toxic cleaning products, no electricity and no garbage. No problem – at least for Colin – but he and his family live in Manhattan. So when his espresso-guzzling, retail-worshipping wife Michelle and their two-year-old daughter are dragged into the fray, the No Impact Project has an unforeseen impact of its own. Film will be followed by a panel discussion featuring local sustainability experts.

Phillips Exeter Academy is showing Dirt! The Movie on January 22 from 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM in the Phelps Academy Center Forum (3rd floor).  Free and open to the public.

Dirt! The Movie is simply a movie about dirt. The real change lies in our notion of what dirt is. The movie teaches us: "When humans arrived 2 million years ago, everything changed for dirt. And from that moment on, the fate of dirt and humans has been intimately linked." But more than the film and the lessons that it teaches, Dirt! The Movie is a call to action. 

Prescott Farm Environmental Education Center in Laconia will be showing Fresh on January 29 from 6:30 - 9 pm in the Samuel Pardoe Building.  The evening will start with a potluck followed by screening of Fresh and discussion. Open to public, free of charge with $4 per person donation suggested to cover costs. Whole, organic, and local foods encouraged in potluck offerings.

Congregational Church in Exeter is showing King Corn on January 29 at 7 pm with director Ian Cheney in attendance.  Free and open to the public.

King Corn is a documentary movie about two-friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that that drives our fast-food nation. The two friends from the east coast move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, corn on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raised troubling questions about how we eat -- and how we farm.

Congregational Church in Exeter is also showing Flow February 9 at 7 PM.  Free and open to the public.

Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis. Salina documents the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.  FLOW also gives viewers a look at practical solutions to the water crisis and developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround.

The last film being shown at the Congregational Church in Exeter is No Impact Man on February 9 at 7 PM.  Free and open to the public.  See above for film description.

Food, Inc. will be shown at Christ Church in Exeter on February 19th with the time to be announced.  Free and open to the public.

Filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on America's food industry.  Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

CONSUMING KIDS: The Commercialization of Childhood  will be shown at the Rye Public Library on February 11 at 6:30 PM.

Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing machine that now sells kids and their parents everything from junk food and violent video games to bogus educational products and the family car. Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children's advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world. Consuming Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children's marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of kids.