Super Size Me

Morgan Spurlock undoubtedly aspires to follow in the path of Errol Morris, Roger Moore, Joel Sucher and other leading documentarians. A young man with an adoring and beautiful girlfriend, he decided to unmask the evil of fast food and its impact on an increasingly obese America. That Americans eat too much fast food - too much of any kind of food - and eschew exercise is hardly news. But a full-scale documentary examining sloth by the bucket-full focusing on one major commercial phenomenon hasn't been done before.

Spurlock decided to eat at McDonald's and only McDonald's for a full month. That's three meals a day with no other food source. Before launching on what actually was a death-defying trip (literally since for variety he consumed Mickey D's food in Texas, L.A. and a lot of other places) he had a full baseline workup with a cardiologist, a gastroenterologist and an internist who gets more screen time than his medical colleagues-he gravitates between being supportive and alarmist, the latter increasingly the right response to Spurlock's bizarre quest.

Spurlock also has a nutritionist/dietician and a physical trainer to keep tabs on him. The only specialty missing, in retrospective one who might have been useful, was a psychiatrist. His girlfriend, a vegan chef no less, looks forward to the month with a mixture of humor and alarm.

"Supersize Me" has lots of scientific information on the nature of fast food and its impact on an America that eats out more than it dines at home, a change from a past where mom or a wife faithfully prepared most meals. Nutritionists decry the change in our culture, educators point out the impact of fast food in school cafeterias on kids' health, a former Surgeon General gravely decries the menace and the usual person-on-the-street suspects shock viewers by their bumbling inability to define such terms as "calories." A food industry spokesman is blithely unaware that he is being set up to look like an ass. And, of course, there are multiple shots of Spurlock vainly connecting with polite drones at McDonald's HQ seeking an interview which never comes. Does this all sound familiar?

Spurlock's month-long consumption of McDonald's products gets old fast although he and the director try to add some novelty like showing him vomiting after downing a supersized meal. Periodic visits to get his bloods and body checked reveal the insidious impact of a bizarre diet. His puzzled internist tells us several times he's never before seen a liver compromised by a high fat diet.

The problem, though, is that Spurlock is like those laboratory rats who develop arcane tumors after consuming the equivalent of something that no human could ingest in ten lifetimes. His peregrination from one Mc D's to another becomes boring as his health is clearly threatened and he stubbornly refuses medical advice to give it up.

The best part of "Supersize Me" is the well-presented information on schools and fast foods and how a few are resisting the commercial tide that aims junk at kids from kindergarten through high school. Even inmates, we're told, can be well fed at no greater cost than the fat-laden diets these essentially sedentary wards of the state have shoveled at them.

Technically, this is a well-filmed documentary with creative use of multiple images and graphs.

I hope Spurlock has more ideas for documentaries. He's had a lot of time to think about it-an epilogue informs us it took him almost a year to regain his former fitness and health thanks, partially, to his vegan lover's detoxification diet.

Oh, and McDonald's is phasing out supersized meals, a minor withdrawal in a serious public health war.

7/10.

This movie is a documentary for those who hate documentaries. Funny, relatively fast-moving, and a cautionary tale without being preachy. Spurlock is a funny guy and treats his subject with good humour, making us laugh and shake our collective heads over our own poor decision-making. There is no "Ronald is Satan" message here, and no "look how bad Americans are." It is simply a down-to-earth, well paced, insightful and humorous look at how insidiously entrenched The United Corporation of America has become in our institutions and minds, and the consequences therein.

One of my favorite scenes was a peek into a school where the now-famous (and irritating) Jared Fogel (you know...fat guy becomes skinny guy !thanx! to Subway) does a "get fit" speech. Spurlock interviews a mom and her significantly overweight daughter, and the daughter actually laments that of course SHE cannot lose weight like Jared because...and this is priceless...SHE cannot afford to buy/eat two Subway sandwiches a day! So this girl walked away actually believing that the ONLY WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT would be to follow Jared's example, VERY SPECIFICALLY, and eat two Subway brand sandwiches each day. So for her, even the SOLUTION to her problem had a corporate logo! Amazingly, she could not even envision the general message of "eat right/exercise more."

This is a landmark documentary I think every American should see Supersize me is an incredible chronicle of fast food and junk food in general in America. Morgan Spurlock is the documentation who is behind all of this. I knew McDonalds was bad for you, but I did not realize this bad, but aside from the McDonalds aspect of the film there is a lot of good information in here on how ingrained unhealthy food is in this country, the film is quite incredible. I knew that lobbyists and the like controlled much of the law making process. But I never knew how ingrained they were. The film is centered around an experiment by Morgan Spurlock. What he did was spend a month doing no exercising, and eat McDonalds for the entire month. The rule he had was he has to eat everything on the menu, and every time he was asked if he wanted it supersized he had to say yes. He enlisted the help of a number of different doctors, to look at his progress. Also in the film are various facts about the food industry in America, and various interviews, ranging from health food advocates to lobbyists for various restaurants and stores. Not only is the documentary very informative it is well produced. And in a time when obesity is an increasing crisis this movie is so important, it shows the problems that are out there, and how it sadly seems like these restaurants and stores want us to get fat, and sadly after watching this movie, you have to wonder if that's the case.

A lot of people that are critical of this movie say that it is inaccurate. I disagree. I know a lot of people that are or were like him, I was. There was a time when I did little or no exercise, and I ate a lot of fast, or unhealthy food, food that was from McDonalds, or other bad food. A lot of America is like this, and this is a problem that needs to be corrected. There are stories in this film about people that were like him too. There are other facts about fast food that I can identify with, but I will not give it away as I do not want to spoil the film for anyone. Also a lot of people say why is it that he did not cover Taco Bell, Burger King, and other similar fast food restaurants. He said in later interviews that all fast food is as unhealthy as McDonalds. The reason it is so critical of McDonalds is because it is the largest and most recognizable fast food chain in the world. And in America the food is the most unhealthy compared to food served in other McDonalds restaurants around the world, and I know this from experience as well, haven eaten at McDonalds' in Germany, and what can I say? The food was actually good! What a surprise. McDonalds has by far the largest profit of any fast food chain, so the largest fast food company is definitely the most important. Even if you disagree with what the movie is trying to say, it is an interesting movie to watch.

Spoilers herein.

I'm not sure I have a good handle on the difference between documentaries and performance art. It is blurred enough whenever Michael Moore or Ken Burns take control. Here, the situation is even more confusing. I think that is the intent and why this little thing has appeal.

The documentary half of this Frankenstein concerns the international epidemic of obesity that is overwhelming the industrialized world. The numbers and images are memorable enough to form the basis of an essay.

The complexity of this half evaporates when it is reduced to a matter of blame, as is always the case (the reduction to blame and the unworthiness of the result). Pictures of chunky kids notwithstanding, there are some interesting fundamental problems here revolving around whether we are capable as a society of making decisions; whether 'freedom' doesn't, even can't work.

But the other half of this is performance art. A professional actor binges on McFood and tells us (as effectively as Chris Guest might) about getting the McTingles and the McPukes. His doctors raise the alarm. Will he abandon the project, his mother begs. His girlfriend testifies that she can tell that McErections aren't as good.

All this is amusing enough to occupy your time, I suppose, if you don't have much of a life. The problem is that the latter half masquerades as the first. Unhappily, we cannot tell the difference, and the reason is the real scandal: political 'education' (and talk radio) has taught us that anecdote and metaphor are reasonable substitute for the real thing.

So one leaves the theater feeling that just like McDonalds brands its product with a clown, so has this film branded the case against McDonalds with a clown. Same same.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Fast food is good. I freely admit to running through fast food drive-thrus (Wendy's, Taco Bell and McDonald's being my top 3) often, sometimes several times a week. And I'm not the only one. I'm also one of the many millions of people in the country who are, uh...not thin. Think there's a connection?

In "Super Size Me", a documentary from talented debut filmmaker Morgan Spurlock that manages to be both entertaining and horrifying, he attempts to draw a parallel between the fast food culture we live in and the rampant (and ever-increasing) rate of obesity in America.

To do this, he launched into a little science experiment. A 33 year-old New Yorker in excellent health, he would eat nothing but McDonald's for an entire month, to gauge the effects on his body. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner at McDonald's and whenever they asked him to supersize, he would have to accept.

Before starting, he consulted three doctors, a cardiologist, a gastroenterologist, and a general practitioner, all of whom said this experiment obviously wouldn't be GOOD for him, but that the damages would be minimal.

Instead, the results were pretty shocking. Spurlock gained almost 30 pounds (over 10 in the first week), saw his cholesterol skyrocket, and experienced frequent nausea, chest pains, mood swings and loss of sex drive.

During this month he also drove around the country, interviewing several different people on the topic (including a "Big Mac enthusiast" who has eaten over 19,000 Big Macs). His research on our fast food culture definitely yields some interesting information, especially when he interviews a group of 1st-graders, and more of them can identify Ronald McDonald than Jesus or George Washington.

"Super Size Me" isn't perfect. It's a little repetitive and has a certain thinness to it (no pun intended!) that prevents it from being one of the truly great comedic documentaries of recent years like "American Movie" or "Bowling For Columbine".

But even if it falls short of greatness, it's an entertaining and thought-provoking film (especially if you're, uh...not thin).

Spurlock is a witty and engaging host (sort of like Michael Moore but not as much of a windbag), and I also liked his girlfriend (a vegan chef!) who looks on his experiment with a mixture of amusement, horror, and dismay. Just like we do.