Random Movie Review – In the Land of Milk and Money

Yeah…I know.

In the Land of Milk and Money

Director/Writer:
Susan Emshwiller

Cast:
Christopher Coulson – Dr. Peter Cochran
Kim Gillingham – Laurie Shallot
Tom Bower – Lenny Cochran
Janice Davies – Mrs. Cochran
Keith Mills – Mr. Brand
Jesse Harper – Melvin Trevors
Stoney Emshwiller – Tyler Wagner
Amy Madigan – Arlyne

Country: USA

Language: English

Release Dates:
USA – 20 April 2004 (Newport Beach International Film Festival)
Argentina –11 March 2005 (Mar del Plata Film Festival)

Ratings:
USA: Not Rated
IMDb: 4.6/10
Netflix: 2/5

Get it? Instead of “the land of milk and honey,” “it’s milk and money!” Huh? See what they did there?

Trust me…the title is the only thing that even resembles cleverness in this entire wretched thing.

True story. As this movie arrived from Netflix, I have been packing up my remaining stuff in Mother’s house and preparing to move next door to live with Iris until I head back to Cali. The Olympics have been on. I thought I would miss most of them because we cut off the cable at the house, but fortunately the NBC affiliate is one of the few that I can pick up with an antenna.

Anyway, I was up late the other night watching the Games and not sleepy yet. When the Games went off and they went to the local news, I put this DVD in and watched about an hour. I then went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about this movie, scouring my brain to remember if it had all been a bizarre dream or if I had actually been watching a movie that was this bad. Sadly (or for the sake of my sanity, happily), it was not the result of a fevered dream. This actually is a movie that was produced, released, and is readily available on disk.

But…for the love of all things holy…why???

In the Land of Milk and Money is obviously an attempt at black comedy and social satire. An attempt. A major conglomerate called…are you ready for this?…the Brand Corporation has injected their dairy cows to increase production. The unfortunate side effect is that consumption of this milk causes women to freak out and become homicidal maniacs, but they only attack their own children. Now if that isn’t a setup for a sure-fire laugh a minute movie then I don’t know what is.

Yeah. This is a movie in which a woman kicks a ball into the street, causing her own child to run after it and (offscreen thankfully) get hit by a car. Hilarious!

And there’s more where that came from. It’s implied that children are poisoned and put through a meat grinder, a baby is left in a car, and it looks like a mother is about to throw her baby onto a spiky wrought iron fence. Did I mention this is an attempt at a black comedy? I think I might almost respect it more if they had went for it David Lynch style, but they try to take a light approach with slapstick characters and silly Green Acres style music.

The actors are a mixed bag. I recognize some character actors from much better films, but the leads all seem to be personal friends of the director, judging by the quality of their…um…performances. And what the flying fart is Emmy and Oscar nominated Amy Madigan doing in this debacle? Did she lose a bet or something?

One thing I will give a point to ITLOMAM for, it seems to embrace it’s low budget. Eventually they start rounding up mothers and send them to World War II style internment camps; instead of showing ladies being herded onto trains by soldiers, we just see a General demonstrating this roundup via action figures and toy tanks and trains.

Other than that, there is absolutely nothing going on in this movie.

The Misplaced Boy MST3K Scale:

The above mentioned toy train scene keeps In the Land of Milk and Money from getting a full Dr. F, but that is a gift. This movie is a new low for the Random Movie Reviews. This makes Zombie Lake look like Citizen Kane.

Pearl

Random Quote Whore Quote:

In the Land of Milk and Money is a pleading, cohesive, signore of a movie! Christopher Coulson is incommunicative!!!

Closing Love Theme:

Sorry, no closing love theme this time. If I could think of a song dreadful enough to match this movie, I certainly wouldn’t subject my fervent readers to it.