Don't listen to the negative reviews

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This is the best documentary on GMO's I've ever seen, and I've seen about 5 or so, not all of them, but a respectable amount. Other reviewers poorly rate the film because there is little-to-no evidence that GMO's are harmful. Yeah, that is true, but that's not the point. GMO crops are best friends with pesticides and herbicides which they bath in, both of which have been linked to harmful health effects. Supporting GMO's means you support the increased use of harmful pesticides.This documentary is well made. It's very stylistic and shot in a very interesting fashion. Visuals aside, plenty of normal and professional people are interviewed and questioned. It's a good mix of people's opinions on the matter, some being supporters of GMO's. The kid/family stuff gets a tad excessive at times, but that's not a huge complaint. It actually provided a decent backbone to the story: a father's journey. When they all dressed up in make-shift hazmat suits and ran through the pesticide corn field--I found that quite clever. Speaking of MONSANTO... What stumps me is why on earth would anyone support such a dirty corporation (Monsanto) that refuses to label their products, kicks away anyone wanting an interview, has people who work in the govt to push forward Monsanto GMO's, messes with farmers NOT using Monsanto products, and who creates some of the most harmful and hazardous chemicals known to man and puts it on our food and in our homes all of which they're too afraid to release real data of.Remember all those defoliants (known as AGENT ORANGE) the US used against the Vietnamese in the Vietnam War? Yeah, some of those were made by Monsanto. 20 million gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed over Vietnam between 1962 and 1971. Agent Orange killed or harmed every living thing it touched, and the Vietnam people are still suffering from it. 400,000 people were killed from Agent Orange. 500,000 people were deformed. Millions more still suffer today. That is all the work of, yes... you guessed it: MONSANTO.They STILL could care LESS about people. It's all about money, as this documentary said. Monsanto is corruption at its finest. THAT is why they shouldn't be supported.

I had no idea why GMO was a big fuss until I watched this documentary. It clearly explained what a GMO is, how it was introduced,the history, and the problems we face today with the farmers and Monsanto specifically. The narrator interviewed both sides so that you could hear the other side's argument. It is a bit one sided, but the narrator wants to make a point. The experts at Monsanto refused any interviews. The interviews he did with his kids were not to be taken seriously. They were to show what children think of GMO and their understanding. It upsets me that organic farmers have been forced to buy Monsanto's seeds because Monsanto threatened to sue them. The overall movie was very informational, and I recommend watching it before judging.

Jeremy Seifert's documentary GMO OMG has a strong approach to its subject matter, stringing along a thesis of a father's concern for the health and wellbeing of his two young children. Seifert explains his son's love for collecting seeds and his fascination that something so big and impacting on a person's life emerges from something so tiny. Seifert then states how he went on to learn about genetically- modified organisms (GMOs), which are manipulations to agriculture in order to increase the longevity and sustainability of crops. Immediately, he breaks down the information to two key types of GMOs, which are "pesticide producers" and "herbicide resistors." The former occurs when a crop is injected with a special chemical that allows it to produce a toxin to kill off invasive insects, while the former occurs when a crop is made immune to weed killer, allowing it to be entirely submerged in widely-distributed fertilizer and still remain unharmed.This prompts concern for Seifert as a father and, well, a consumer, as he begins to question the contents of everything he is eating. Because the presence and use of GMOs need not be labeled on food in America, it brings question as to whether or not the common phrase of "all natural" holds any leverage. On top of that, what are the effects of GMOs on the human body in the long run? If they are safe and harmless, what's the issue in labeling them? Have we all become involuntary participants in a large, global experiment at the expense of humongous seed corporations?Such questions are either directly or indirectly peddled by the documentary, and its big point of attack goes in the direction of Monsanto, one of the largest seed/chemical manufacturers in the world. Monsanto kickstarts a lot of farms and agriculture by forcing farmers to trade their natural seeds in order to use the exclusive Monsanto seeds. The company made headlines following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, when it sent over four-hundred tons of seeds to their community, gifting the seeds and allowing them to use them only if the country agreed to stop using their own natural seed. The Haitian community saw this as a backhanded attempt at kindness, as the natural seed holds immense importance in the country, and Monsanto's genetically-modified seed seemed far less attractive.Seifert persists on to show the impact of Monsanto, through colorful, legible graphs, along with batting off startling statistics. For one, eighty perfect of all processed foods contain GMOs, with eight-five and ninety-one percent of corn and soy being genetically-modified as well. About one-hundred and sixty-five acres in the United States contain genetically-modified crops with about four-hundred and twenty acres housing them all over the world. One of the most alarming things presented in the film is how farms with non-GMO crops are affected negatively by those bearing GMOs. When crops are injected with special chemicals, they shed or bear the chemicals, and when the wind blows, spread the chemicals to other locations. Non-GMO farms in close proximity with GMO farms are often affected by the latter's unintentional spread of chemicals, allowing tests for the quality of the crops to become skewed, which are then met with repercussions from Monsanto's legal team.Seifert presents all of this to us in a way that, while sometimes too hardened on statistical data, is digestible and easy to follow, especially given the fact that, judging to the beginning of the film, few know what GMOs are and where they can be found. Whether you support the use of genetically-modified organisms and see no harm in it, or find they're an abhorrent route for mankind to make an attempt to "play God," as Seifert bills it in the film, I don't see a harm in wanting to know the health effects of something found in an overwhelming majority of the foods we eat. This is part of the reason I enjoy Seifert's approach to the subject matter, as it forms a thoughtful outline and conversation.What I didn't enjoy, however, was Seifert's rapid descent into negativity over GMOs, which seemed to happen all too quickly. From the beginning, we see a concerned father wanting to get to the bottom of what's in his food. By the half hour mark, we can see Seifert has clearly taken the pathway to being against the use of GMOs, which is fine if the film had started out by taking that stance rather than trying to travel down the middle of the road. Once Seifert starts digging into the potential harms of GMOs, he never revisits or adheres to what one thought he would in the beginning of the film, which is a fair analysis of both sides. In an age where prolific fact-checking has made every documentary at least questionably authentic, GMO OMG would've benefited from an equal examination not only for intellectual purposes but for consistency purposes as well.Yet, it's sophomoric to dismiss GMO OMG has a film with no substance or thought-provoking questions whatsoever. Seifert gets almost philosophical and contemplative when he talks about the pervasive patenting and trademarking of seeds and wildlife that is occurring with big seed corporations like Monsanto, Du Point, and Syngenta, saying these companies are in a "race to own the building blocks of life." He questions the ethical behavior of corporations - in a way that's very popular right now - about their evasive ways to avoid questioning on the GMOs used in their products in a way that would lead any reasonable person to assume there is something to hide. The only detractor to GMO OMG is that Seifert picks a side far too easily and, in turn, compromises hope for a mostly-unbiased analysis.Directed by: Jeremy Seifert.

The concerning aspect of genetically modified organisms in food is examined in this surprisingly sweet documentary. Pesticides, herbicides and frankenfoods are unpleasant subjects, but this film softens the blow of bad news about what we eat by using the narrative thread of a father out to find answers about what's in the food he feeds his kids. It was news to me that countries as non-citizen-loving as Russia and China require labeling on GMO food products, while the US does not. With anti-Monsanto marches happening around the country, this film provides a good capsule of information about the GMO issue. The dry science is offset by a range of easy-on-the-eye locations such as Haiti, Norway and France.