Super Size Me
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Movie Reviews of Super Size Me
Movie Review: Already Super Sized
Summary: 5 Stars
What can one say besides WOW at the very premise of this film. Mr. Spurlock has done something very foolhardy and dramatic to prove a point... we are killing ourselves with the over consumption of food that is cheap, easy to obtain, grossly over proportioned and harmful in more ways than one. Mr. Spurlock points both barrels at the McDonalds Corp. with this exercise (an obvious and widely recognized target), but it literally could have been any of the dozens of fast food restaurants that populate the urban landscape across North America. To eat only McDonalds food, three meals a day for 30 days is something not even the most die-hard McD's fan would recommend, but to do so under close medical examination is revealing to say the least. And the impact this diet has on his physical condition is stunning. Obesity is a major problem worldwide, and all you have to do is look around you to see the impending health care disaster waddling from meal to meal. I'm 47, and when I was in public school in the sixties I remember perhaps two or three girls who had a healthy amount of baby fat and one boy who was slightly obese. Today, children of this age group are phenomenally large and have already established disastrous eating habits. Eating habits and patterns which will get harder and harder to shed as they get older. The primary difference between then and now? Similar to Mr. Spurlock's experience I can count on one hand all the times my Mother and Father and I ate in a restaurant, and I wouldn't use all my fingers. My Mom made virtually every meal we ate, and there wasn't a fast food joint on every other corner and donut shops on all the others. We were not surrounded by things to eat nor where we bombarded with advertising showing us how happy our lives could be if ONLY we went to MacDonald's and ate things. Our society has been so inundated with the EAT = HAPPY and HAPPY = EAT message that we don't stand a chance when the Golden Arches come into view; "I'm having a cruddy day... but look, happiness is right there on the corner! All I have to do is get a huge hamburger, giant fries and an enormous soda... super size? HELL YEAH!". If consuming enough food to feed four people is clearly not enough to fill your considerable gullet, they'll glad give you two more portions for only 39 cents more.
Bon appetite!
The most shocking moment in this film for me was Mr. Spurlock's interview with the man about to have his stomach stapled smaller to control his adult onset diabetes and lower his body weight. In this interview he reveals the major factor driving his serious health problems was his consumption of three to four two litre bottles of pop a day... and he drank that amount until he was temporarily blinded due to diabetic complications. Whoa!!! Could there possibly be any more compelling evidence that respectable companies in our society manufacture food products that are perfectly legal, produced to government regulated standards, cheap to buy, broadly and readily available... and are highly addictive. Not so you say, it's just soda right? Well then try and imagine yourself drinking 6 to 8 litres of anything in a single day... and then go ahead an tell me it's not addictive.
This movie and the book "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser should be mandatory viewing and reading for all high school age children. If our society took more interest in what their kids where eating before school, at school, after school at the dinner table and then for snacks before bed, perhaps movies of this nature would seem totally ridiculous. Until then watch this movie and learn what "just a hamburger" or "just some fries" or "just a can of soda" can be setting you up for.
Movie Review: Even with its flaws, very much worth watching
Summary: 5 Stars
Can anyone make a cogent argument that Morgan Spurlock's self-abusive experiment constitutes "sound science?" I sure wouldn't want to try and make that case, but I also don't believe that Spurlock himself would claim that this constitutes in any way sound science. It is more a case of, "I know that embarking on an all-McDonald's, all-the-time diet cannot possibly be good for me, but just how bad could the results actually be?" Fair enough --- the most that can be said is that results may vary, from person to person. Ironically, Spurlock's relatively good health in many ways made him more susceptible to catastrophic changes in his body. Mood swings? Anybody who exercises for a few hours every day can attest to how crappy one feels if one misses even one workout. In other words, the healthier your body is, the more finely-tuned it is, and the more extremely it will react to a radical change in diet and lifestyle. This change, everyone will agree, was pretty damned radical.
Spurlock's detractors have latched on a few of the more obvious flaws --- for example, a 5000 calorie-per-day diet, no matter what type of food, is destined to produce disastrous results --- to brand the entire documentary as being hopelessly slanted and therefore of no value whatsoever. One has to suspect the motives of some detractors. If one puts the obvious flaws in their proper perspective, one can better appreciate the very valid observations Spurlock makes.
How unfair it is for Spurlock to single out McDonald's, say the critics, as though Spurlock is carrying some sort of hateful McGrudge against this particular fast food purveyor. To be fair, Spurlock does mention other fast food chains (and can Baskin Robbins even really be lumped into fast food?), but let's face it --- McDonald's is the proverbial 800-pound gorilla of the fast food industry. How can one argue that McDonald's does not set the gold standard when it comes to fast-food marketing strategies?
The examination of these marketing strategies are to me the best sections of the movie, and should make one's blood run cold. When one realizes just how thoroughly indoctrinated American children are (they instantly recognize Ronald McDonald while --- at best --- finding George Washington's image to be vaguely familiar), one better appreciates how it must have been to have lost one's children to the doctrines of China's Cultural Revolution. It is almost cultlike in nature. When one couples that with the almost wholesale adoption by the public school system of pre-fab high-fat food (not because it saves money, but simply because it is quicker to prepare), one wonders how any child in the US hasn't needed a coronary bypass operation by the time they graduate. Suffice it to say, Spurlock makes a pretty compelling case for how one's environment creates some pretty god-awful eating habits among children without the kids (or the parents sometimes) even realizing it. Spurlock demonstrates that it isn't quite as simple as saying that it is only an issue of will power, or lack thereof.
Yes, this movie can get pretty gross --- anything that involves Chicken McNuggets should have an advisory warning, in my opinion --- but by and large it is both entertaining and informative. Although Spurlock takes fast food eating habits to their logical extremes, he does have plenty of valid points, and will make you think a little more carefully about what you choose to put in your body.
Movie Review: Ideally, this should be mandatory viewing!
Summary: 5 Stars
In this film Morgan Spurlock makes his point very forcefully that fast food is indeed very harmful to a person's health. Yet people routinely eat fast food, sometimes more than once a day! People need some type of shock treatment to realize that fast food is dangerous to their health--and this film is one excellent tool people should use to educate others about the dangers of fast food. As the film points out, fast food companies have long tried (and succeeded) to hook kids from a very early age on junk food and fast food with high unhealthy levels of fat, cholesterol, and calories. (In one scene, when Morgan asks children if they can recognize George Washington, Jesus Christ, and Ronald McDonald, the only face they consistently recognize was McDonald!)
As other reviewers write, in Super Size Me the director of the film, Morgan Spurlock, goes on a 30 day diet of nothing but McDonald's fast food. If McDonald's doesn't sell it, he doesn't eat it. The experiment is extreme but proves Spurlock's point well. We see Morgan become ill, throwing up his food after just three or four days of the experiment. Then he soon has much less energy and his cholesterol shoots up with his internal organs taking a pounding. I was upset to watch it yet I admired his determination to make an important point. Morgan has arguments with his vegetarian girlfriend; she doesn't like his mood swings and she openly admits the quality of their sex life has deteriorated. The doctors start telling Morgan he might even have to go to an emergency room for any ill effects of the diet--after only three weeks! It's an important look at the debilitating effects of a fast food diet.
The DVD comes with extensive extras that are wonderful. We see how a school in Illinois succeeds brilliantly in providing state of the art physical education for its students to help them avoid becoming overweight. We meet a couple who collects McDonald's memorabilia. The viewer also sees Morgan interview Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation. Morgan also interviews a "supermarket guru" who shows how sugar breakfast cereals are on the supermarket shelf at a child's eyelevel to entice them and hook them onto sugar cereals. There are other deleted scenes and Spanish subtitles.
There are, of course, some drawbacks to the film. McDonald's is almost exclusively singled out for criticism--hardly any mention is made of Burger King's menu, for example. I also would have liked to see how Morgan's mood swings affected his performance and relationships at work. And, although Spurlock does make the point that personal responsibility is a very important factor, the film doesn't go into this enough, at least in my opinion. Spurlock makes up for this, though, in a DVD extra about O.E., Overeaters Anonymous. I wish he had expanded on O.E. more.
All in all, I believe that because of the obesity epidemic this film is highly important. Why not show it to children in the schools as soon as they can comprehend it? (Of course, that will be a tough one, since school lunch programs are very tight with the fast food lunch companies.) I heartily recommend this film for anyone since it illustrates such an important point about our health. I recently heard over the radio that our generation might actually have a shorter life span than our parents' because of our lack of attention to our own health care; this film is one wake-up call people should pay attention to. BUY IT! GRIN
Movie Review: The Truth About America
Summary: 5 Stars
According to statistics America is ranked the #1. Nation for obesity. This film shows why America is ranked #1. for obesity and this film should be watched by all obese people showing them how dangerious it is and how they need a wake up call and change for the better. Now I do think in the film there are little bit of exagerations like eating nothing but Mcdonalds three times a day and having it supersized but it could be used to demonstrate a point about America's Culture.
Now here is controversy which I don't expect everyone to agree with me on but it is a good point to bring up and think about though and that is should Corporations such as Mcdonalds, Burger king, Wendy's, Carls JR, KFC, and all the rest should be sued for making people fat? or should the people be responcible for their own actions? I think when it comes to unhealthy eating it is a personal responcibility not the companies. You don't see Mcdonalds or other corporations holding a gun to peoples heads and saying you have to eat our food because that is against the law. So is it the company to blame? or the people to blame? Do Mcdonalds and other corporations make people fat or do people make themselves fat? People can always go somewhere else to eat they dont have to eat at Mcdonalds the only reason why they go to Mcdonalds is because they choose to go to Mcdonalds so therefore it is a personal choice and responcibility. Just to carry my point furthure in order to go to Mcdonalds you have to purposely have it in your mind to travel to Mcdonalds and then take out money to pay for your food so Mcdonalds is not making your choice your making a choice to go to Mcdonalds and fork your own money to pay for the food. So really should Mcdonalds and others be held responcible for making people fat? or should people be held responcilible for what they are and what they do?
But what I think should happend is for Mcdonalds to put more healthier choices of food in which they are a little bit changing because I saw they had Salad on the menu but then again you have to be careful with the salad dressing. Also in America they should have more healthier restruants and fast food places so people can have more of alternative to healthier eating habits. But then again you always have the grocery store to select healtheir types of foods. But it always comes back to personal responcibility and we should be responcible for our own actions why should anyone else should get the blame when we are the main problem and culpret to ourselves? just like the old saying "We are what we eat" so if you eat junk,unhealthy,fatty, high sugar foods and drinks then your body becomes junk, unhealthy, and fat. But if you eat healthy, nutritious balanced, low fat, healthy fat, low sugar and carbs foods then your body will be healthy, lean, and strong.
But what it really boils down is the choices we make dictate the life we lead. And though choices whether good or bad will effect us and will produce good or bad outcomes but it all depends on what we choose. Again peronal choice and responcibility and people should be held accountable to their actions not others. If there are any fingers pointing it should be at ourselves not others.
Movie Review: The blood tests said it all ...
Summary: 5 Stars
Six years and almost 500 reviews on Amazon later, we all know what Morgan Spurlock set out to prove with "Super Size Me." All that time and reviews later, it remains a shame that too many people missed some important points that Spurlock made, whether intentional or not. Such as ...
- how incompetent American medicine is. None of the three doctors he had "intensely" supervising him during the month-long experiment had a clue as to what was causing his headaches, chest pains, and throbbing in his private area. The only sort of answer was revealed in his lab tests - as his liver was turning to fat and his cholesterol, blood pressure (a little high to begin with), and triglycerides kept going up and up and up.
But, on the other hand, I don't think American medicine realizes (or, perhaps, wants to realize) the depth of the danger that eating fast food slop regularly poses to the human body. None of those doctors saw what was coming in terms of how much fat and sugar is put into this stuff. The doctors were even afraid to say, near the end of the documentary, just how dangerous fast food is, even with lab results in front of their faces - and it's all because of the money and power of these fast food corporations who don't like the truth being said because it affects their bottom line.
- why, since there's such concern "for the children" of this country, do politicians quiver and steadfastly refuse to enact legislation to keep McDonald's and other fast food companies from marketing their "food" to little children? It's a fact (proven before Spurlock did this documentary) that if kids are started on the wrong foot nutritionally they are being set up for a lifetime of failure - dangerous weight flunctuations, fad diets, ad nauseum. Of all things to be concerned about, a child's health should trump everything else.
- why Americans, long aware of the danger of this slop, continue to pay McDonald's and other fast food joints to poison themselves.
It's a given that McDonald's corporate toads will post negative reviews here to smear Spurlock's work (just as they did with Eric Schlosser and "Fast Food Nation"), but what can one expect? Spurlock's blood test results spoke volumes as to the nutritional "value" of McDonald's "food."
And, by the way, Don Gorske is a rare exception that eating fast food poses no harm. I highly doubt the majority of McDonald's patrons can eat half a dozen Big Macs a day - and nothing else - and be fit as a fiddle.
The truth always hurts, but I agree with Schlosser in his interview with Spurlock on the DVD extras: The consumer is the one with the power (not his exact words). Everyone has the power to just not patronize these fast food joints. If enough of people make their health a priority and realize the dangers of consuming this stuff regularly, joints like McDonald's would disappear overnight.
Spurlock did a decent job here and it's always nice to see people made uncomfortable by the facts. "Super Size Me" is the perfect companion to "Fast Food Nation." - Donna Di Giacomo