Two friends with one year to spare and a deep curiosity about the American food distribution system set out to grow an acre of corn and see what becomes of their crop in director Aaron Woolf's agriculturally themed documentary. Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis are best friends from college who have decided to move from the East Coast to the Midwest in hopes of getting a better idea where the food they consume on a daily basis actually comes from. Corn is America's most productive and subsidized grain.
Upon relocating to Iowa, the pair seeks out the assistance of friends and neighbors in procuring the land, seeds, fertilizers, and herbicides needed to grow a one-acre bumper crop of this highly versatile commodity. As their maize is harvested and the sometimes-troubling realities of modern faming begin to emerge, the pair sets off on a mission to track the progress of their product and find out just how it is used to create a variety of different food products. What emerges is an informative and at times disturbing account of both the food Americans so readily consume without so much as a second thought, and the alarming state of the contemporary agricultural industry. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
A breezy diary from a pair of first-time farmers, as well as a wry rebuke to a nation devoted to eating cheaply but not necessarily well, King Corn makes its points without much finger-wagging.
While there's no startling news here -- most people know that high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a staple in food processing and isn't particularly good for us -- this documentary neatly, and often humorously, summarizes a very unhealthy situation.
entertaining and even a little mischievous, it finds perverse outcomes, but no villains. It is informative, without creating partisanship, respectful without being patronizing, entertaining without being dumbed-down
An occasionally interesting look at the food industry concerning two guys from Boston journeying to Iowa to plant a crop of corn. What's most impressive about the film is it's ability to derive answers without going Michael Moore finger-pointing style. It does drag from time to time and it lacks a firm, solid
resolution, but certainly not a bad documentary at all, but definitely one that could've been more interesting if it had tried to be.
Any documentary that has stop and go animation with fischer price and corn kernals is a good one in my book. I guess you hear 'high fructose corn syrup' in everything you eat, but I never really thought about what it was. You eat pretty much nothing but corn if you eat what most people do. Makes you want to eat
hippie food instead, if only it cost less. Yikes.
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