I'm gonna puke...then I'm gonna go eat a Big Mac1. Stick to the chicken.
2. Illegal immigrants: they're just like us.
3. Yes, someone spits in the food.
4. If it makes you feel better, they clean the place where the cows get offed.
5. There are a lot of cheap-o gross out moments, where they show meat being ground and stuff like that, that aren't inherently shocking or alarming, but undoubtedly play to the prejudices of the liberal elitist types (like yours truly) who would seek this movie out.
6. Kris Kristofferson: Hollywood's grizzled old man of choice.
7. Also targeted: sprawl, meth labs, eminent domain. Capitalist machine killing America etc.
8. There are rats.
9. Every movie would be improved by a Bruce Willis cameo. Not a lot, but the difference between a B+ and an A-, certainly. "We all have to eat a little shit from time to time."
10. Ethan Hawke, thanks for dropping by and adding nothing.
11. Predictably, there is a horrible industrial accident at the meatpacking plant. Also "pre-existing condition" in Spanish is "condición pre-existing".
12. Too much undergrad philosophizing, delivered by undergraduates. Also: fuck the Patriot Act.
13. Maybe cattle are meant to be killed and eaten. Nice metaphor for post-industrial society, though.
14. The film's climax on the kill floor, which Linklater's been soft-pedaling the entire preceding 90 minutes, is precisely the grand guinol we've been anticipating, complete with decapitations and intestines rolling down conveyor belts. More of a pro-PETA moment than "I'm never touching hamburgers again" broadside, though. I mean, let's face it, if you eat any meat, regardless of whether or not it comes between a Big Mac bun, some cow is getting his head cut off for your enjoyment.
