Wow! Such a good movie.

People are voting emotionally.

Disturbing yet enthralling

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Not earning enough money to be able to feed yourself and your family is NOT the issue, it's a lack of education and discipline. The fact that the most obese segment of our population is also the poorest and "hungriest" is SO frustrating. These people buy soda, sweets, fast food etc. but then claim they don't have enough money for vegetables...bull. It's just an excuse to say poor me and still indulge in gratifying yet unhealthy foods. I go to the store and buy 5 POUNDS of carrots for $5. 10 pounds of beans for $12. 5 pounds of brown rice for $3. This is a TREMENDOUS amount of nutritious food for only $20 that can feed me for a WEEK. This is obviously not ideal since we're still missing green leafy vegetables and fruit, but it's WAY WAY better than the junk food most of these people were eating. I say again, it's not a money issue, it's an education and discipline issue. Beans are packed with protein, rice gives you energy, and vegetables give your body the needed nutrition. Cookies, cakes, soda, chef boyardee, fast food etc. are all addiction foods that are very costly on your wallet and body, the solution is so stupidly simple that all the people complicating it should be ASHAMED! As a side note, the waitress in the first scene was complaining about how little her paycheck was every two weeks, shame on her for not telling the whole truth. You don't waitress for the paychecks, you do it for the cash tips, how many cash did you accumulate in two weeks? Didn't want to mention that one did ya? The same family also said they don't buy vegetables anymore because it's too costly, well then, STOP making cakes and pies and start buying carrots and celery if you really care. Otherwise, don't act like you can't afford it when the reality of the situation is you don't want to buy the healthy stuff because it doesn't taste as good.

"A Place at the Table" completely transformed my paradigm of America. When I hear the words "hunger" and "starvation," images of ravenous, malnourished, dying children in Africa instantly pop into my head. However, this poignant, simple, and impacting documentary showed me that "hunger" could be sitting right next to me in school. This 84-minute documentary details with moving austerity how and why even in America, the world's richest nation, children are going hungry.Featuring Academy Award winner Jeff Bridges, the founder of the End Hunger Network, "A Place at the Table" follows people, all from different towns and cultural backgrounds, who are food insecure. In other words, they have no idea when and how their next meal is going to come in. 50 million people in America are food insecure. This not only stunts physical development but mental development as well. Take Rosie, a fifth-grader growing up in rural Colorado. She tries to focus in school, but hunger pains cause her to zone out or to imagine her friends and teachers as fruits. Her dream is that one day, her kids can do what they want to do and what they need to do without going hungry. Another instance is Barbie, a single working mother with two kids. Her toddler son mumbles and has an attention-deficit symptom. This is because of the lack of food for Barbie and her family when he was born. The lasting effects of hunger in a child's first years impact a child much more deeply in the brain than the body. It's an emotional moment to see Barbie break down into tears in front of her kids, exhausted of the intense struggle to make ends meet.The documentary grippingly touches on so many different issues. It clears up myths and breaks stereotypes. A false paradigm that America blindly looks through is that hunger doesn't exist because children struggle with obesity. However, obesity, hunger, and being food insecure go hand-in-hand. Because of a low income, families on a very limited budget shop for the cheapest foods in store – chips, cookies, and ice cream. Produce is simply too expensive. Hunger exists not because there is not enough food. Hunger exists because it isn't a big enough issue on the political agenda. The documentary is packed with real statistics and visuals that are not just standard, cold numbers, but the toll of hunger is shown in the glimpses of families scrambling to break the cycle of poverty. This film calls out to audiences to end hunger in America by alerting politicians and the government. "It's just appalling," says actor Jeff Bridges. "You know if another country was doing this to our kids we would be at war. It's just insane and it doesn't have to be that way.""A Place at the Table" will truly open your eyes to the harsh realities of a food insecure nation. I am determined to push forward in this fight of ending hunger, and I believe our nation can rise out of the pit we've buried ourselves in. America's youth has a passion and an unbendable will to fight for what's right, and if pointed in the right direction, I believe that the American Dream of prosperity can come true. The only thing standing between now and the extinction of hunger is the hurdle of ignorance, clouding youths' and the government's minds. Share this documentary with friends and family – I recommend this for all ages. If we act with urgency and boldness, perhaps one day, everyone will have a place at the table. Reviewed by Cassandra Hsiao, KIDS FIRST! Film Critic, age 14. For more reviews, go to kidsfirst.org.

Clearly, there's an important message in this film about how are agricultural policies are impacting society. The participation of Oscar-winner Jeff Bridges raises some questions. Let me explain why. In the 70's Jeff Bridges was one of the celebrity faces of the controversial est program developed by Werner Erhard. (Real name, John Rosenberg.) Erhard also created the Hunger Project, whose agenda was to fight hunger through est-like thinking on the part of hungry people. The film mentions an international hunger program inspired Bridges to start the End Hunger Network, without naming the Hunger Project.So the question is, how much Erhard/Hunger Project content is in "A Place at the Table?" Given all the front groups they've used, and the filmmakers non-disclosure on Jeff Bridges' involvement, it's impossible to say.

It's a national disgrace than nearly 50 million of our American neighbors live in homes that can't afford enough food. This compelling film explains why we have this problem, and, most importantly, what we can do to end it. Granted, I am biased because I fight hunger for a living, but I do think everyone in America should see this film.The film powerfully documents the real lives of real people struggling against hunger. Each of them defy common stereotypes of hungry people. Many Americans believe that we can end U.S. hunger one person at a time, one donated can of food at a time. They are well-meaning. But they are wrong, as this powerful film proves. When Ronald Reagan entered office in 1981, there were only a few hundred emergency feeding programs in America, most of which were traditional soup kitchens serving mostly the people who had been historically the most hungry—single men with substance abuse or mental illness problems. Yet, as a direct result of the economic policies and social service cuts set in motion by Reagan, the number of emergency feeding programs in America skyrocketed, and continued to do so even after he left office. There are now more than 40,000 such programs in America, and roughly two-thirds of them are food pantries, where parents and their children, the elderly, and working people obtain free groceries. Meanwhile, hunger has soared. The truth is that these agencies simply don't have anything close to the resources needed to meet the demand. The organization I manage, the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, found that, in 2011, close to sixty percent of the approximately 1,100 soup kitchens and food pantries in the city were forced to ration food because they lacked resources, either reducing portion size, limiting hours of operation, or turning away hungry families. These agencies are so under-funded that nearly 50 of them were forced to close in New York City in just the last few years.This vital film proves that the only way to truly end U.S. hunger is by advocating for fundamental change that include living wage jobs and a robust government safety net.