Truly Dreadful Film

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Dividing the show into four episodes each named after one of the fundamental elements is very misleading. You would not only have a hard time associating the name of each episode to the content, but also could not name the episode yourself if you had the option. Each episode is a mixture of mostly unrelated cooking tips, biology facts, historical events, and other topics. For instance the episode that is named earth is almost entirely about cheese making in a particular farm in the united states and becomes very boring after a few minutes. The presenter is of the impression that United States is the center of the world and California is the center of United States. He never leaves his front porch in the entire series, except the time he goes to his back yard to make a barbeque. The scenes of him talking are mixed with the footage a crew has taken from different parts of the world.There are a few good scenes in the series but the lack of any coherence makes if very difficult to watch. I believe with a little more research and planing and by using someone with a broader view as the presenter, this could have been a much better show.

Spoiler alert - I couldn't continue watching after an aboriginal woman snapped a giant lizards legs "so he wouldn't scratch" her while she carried him around. If you're going to eat the poor thing at least don't torture it. That scene made me want to vomit. It's disheartening because I was genuinely looking forward to learning about cooking on a meta scale, but I'd rather research on my own without having to view the shocking image of a woman being cruel. It seems that if our brains were so large and advanced that we would stop being so archaic. Anyone who holds reptiles especially close to their hearts will be devastated by the manner in which they are still tortured and killed - even now when this film was made in 2016.

I always like the way Michael Pollan divides him musings into food categories that connect to cultural beliefs and historical discoveries, as he did, for instance in Botany of Desire. He did this in Cooked by devoting each episode to one of the ancient elements of fire, water, air, and earth. I won't say what foods and cultures they correspond to; discover the connections yourself. Allow Pollan to take you to unexpected places of cooking excellence and expertise. I grew up in a large, somewhat stressed family that relied on prepared convenience food much of the time. I am talking Tater Tots, Hamburger Helper, fish sticks, pot pies, and canned chili, so I don't have great role models for cooking food that is fresh and natural, eco-friendly, and nutritious. Nevertheless, I aspire to do so.If you are like me, you can't always cook an evening meal, but this series inspires me to try to do so a little more often.

What I really relished watching this series is when he backtracks the basic inventions like bread making to its best origins. How the modern mass scale industrial production had ruined the basic essence of bread making. How some basic techniques were discarded to speed up the process but in doing so we were actually making a backtracking interms of the nutrition processing in its natural raw form. Its almost as if the importance of sour dough is rediscovered. The gluten scare maybe born of skipping this step.The same journey with that of natural fermentation of cheese.Its a delight to watch.