Super Size Me: (d. Morgan Spurlock, s. Morgan Spurlock)
I'm sure many of you have heard about this movie. It has been featured on the news, Ebert & Roeper featured it on their show, even the mighty McDonald's took notice. At first the concept seems a bit gimmicky, I'm going to eat nothing but McDonald's for 30 days, let's see what happens. What we get is an intelligent, humorous, frightening look at what a large portion of American's, and to a lesser extent, the world, eat on a regular basis. The results are frightening.
I must begin by saying that I related to a lot that was shown in this movie. I am not obese, but am a bit overweight, and I am familiar with what fast food can do to you physically and psychologically. I have been in a losing battle trying to lose weight, but this film may have done the trick. It was truly eye opening as to how badly this stuff can mess up your health. Granted the experiment compressed a lot of this bad eating into a short period of time, but even if you spread that eating out, you are still doing a lot of damage to yourself.
OK, that's out of the way, let's take a look at the movie. The film gives us looks at Morgan as he eats his diet interspersed with interviews with various people in fields related to food. There is a lot of information given out here, and none of it is all that good, but it does make for some great comedy! Morgan Spurlock is an entertaining screen presence, he has an excellent sense of humor and really throws himself into his "project".
First up is the experiment itself. To start Morgan Spurlock is a healthy young man, no real health issues, but no sooner does he start eating, things start changing. I don't really want to give away any details, but it has been reported in other reviews that he gained almost 30 pounds over the 30 days. This in addition to other deteriorations in his health. He is watched by 3 doctors who are just as amazed as to what happens to him. We see him as he goes through mood swings, depression, desire for the food, the upward mood swing after eating. I know exactly what that feeling is like. Fortunately he was able to get back on track afterwards, with the help of his vegan girlfriend. She was an interesting person herself, I found her slightly annoying, in that vegan/vegetarian way (give me meat!), but it was nice to see how she stood by him in this project and helped him get back to himself when it was done.
The other portions of the film look at a variety of different things. Among them is an indictment of the public school food programs, which are not very good. Although there are alternatives that are in place, just not widely used. We also see attempts to get information from McDonald's themselves, with little success. We get discussions with a Grocer's lobbyist and a large man about to undergo gastric bypass surgery, which staples the stomach to a much smaller size. We also get to meet a gentleman whose dietary staple is the Big Mac, in large quantities!
The movie isn't so much an attack specifically at McDonald's, they're just the most visible and easily accessible. It is quite an experience to see all this data presented, most of us know what this stuff does to us, but do we really KNOW? I know it was eye-opener for me. I cannot recommend this movie enough, for entertainment and educational purposes.
Highly Recommended.
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