Yesterday turned out to be a little different than I would have pictured. In the morning, I woke up and was working on my ever growing to do list while watching Good Day LA on Fox. You may have seen the show called Good Day Live in other parts of the country. I rarely watch this show, but as I channel surfed around, I noticed they were cooking burgers. I stopped to see what was going on and quickly found out that Father's Office was showing how to make their famous hamburgers. Father's Office is a bar in Santa Monica on Montana that I do like. I've been there maybe 3 times and always with BoRyan or Pepperdine students. I've never actually had food there though, so I made a note that I should consider having a burger if I find myself there again and then went back to my to do list.
Then I remembered an e-mail that I received a few days before. It was from Brave New Films, the people who made the documentary about Wal-Mart. They had just finished up a new movie and had a few seats remaining at the world premire here in Santa Monica. To me, one of the selling points to go was that the filmmaker, Robert Greenwald, was going to be there afterward to answer questions about the movie.
So after finishing up as much of my to do list as possible, BoRyan and I headed down at around 5:45 last night. We stood in line for a little over an hour I guess, but it was actually quite interesting just to watch all of the interesting people that came. Because of the subject, I expected the people who came to see it to be young and outspoken. Most of them turned out to have white hair. Most of the people there were in their 60's at least. I was surprised. Where's our generation?
Anyway-- you may be wondering what the movie is about. The movie is about the contracting companies that the government hires to help out during war. You may have seen or read a little about this topic in the news. A few of the companies it discussed were Haliburton and CACI. It talked a lot about the danger that the civilian workers are unexpectadly put under, and how it endangers them and our troops. There were people who thought they were going over to do internet research that ended up having to interrogate prisioners, etc. The movie also highlighted the excessive amount of money that the companies appear to be making on the war. They talk some about how in the past it was considered immoral to make a profit on the war, and now corporations seem to be okay with it. The US military seemed to not be a big fan of these companies either, for many of the reasons described above.
The movie was created to start a dialogue. I would be interested to hear more on the other side of the debate too. I think though that this movie is well made, contains more solid facts than some documentaries I've seen, and also honors the families who have lost loved ones in Iraq.
Just like The Wal-Mart Movie, this movie is a grass roots effort. Instead of seeing the movie in a theatre, you are encouraged to host a viewing. You can host one in your home, at your school, at church, anywhere. I think it would be nice to host one with people that have mixed feelings on the issue-- and then host a debate afterward.
If you are interested to host a viewing, you can. Go to www.IraqforSale.com and request a copy of the movie for a showing. Actually, here's a direct link to sign up to do a showing. The cost is around $10. If it's anything like The Wal-Mart Movie, they'll send you a DVD, two movie posters, some stickers (or some other promotional items), and a sheet with questions that you can use to start a discussion after the movie.
I encourage you to give it a try. It's fun!
(Oh yea, and Ariana Huffington from the popular Huffington Post blog was there to ask questions too. I don't see anything in her blog about the movie yet, but I'm betting it will be there soon.)
After the movie, we went to Father's Office and tried their famous hamburgers. They were tasty! As a matter of fact, I'm going to have them for lunch today too. :-) They have a special sauce made with carmelized onions (for 2 days they marinate the sauce). I think it also has some brown sugar and mustard, but that's just my guess. They served it on a fresh baked hoagie with some great french fries. The french fries were those thin, crispy ones that you can tell are home made. They were sprinkled with some kind of herb and served with a dipping sauce that tasted to me like mayo, butter, garlic, and herbs.
Yumm!
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