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Super Size Me [2004]


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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

Fans of Morgan Spurlock's engaging documentary Super Size Me won't want to miss almost an hour of extra footage on the DVD. Best of all is a 25-minute one-on-one interview with Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, but other interesting moments are a chat with a couple who collects McDonald's memorabilia; an analysis of a supermarket's layout; further conversation with Big Mac fan Eric Gorske and his wife; a look at the deep-fried Twinkie; and a disgusting but funny piece on how McDonald's food rots (or doesn't). Spurlock also provides a commentary track along with his girlfriend Alex Jamieson (you know, the vegan chef) in which they discuss why he included certain scenes, how many times he ate McDonald's salads, and his recommendations for books to read and action to take. And because he and Jamieson received so many inquiries about the "last supper" he ate on film before embarking on his special diet, an insert contains the recipes, including the highly sought-after tofu and vegetable phyllo tart. --David Horiuchi

Editorial
Synopsis

In this hilarious yet informative documentary, debut director Morgan Spurlock makes himself the victim of a cruel experiment: he puts himself on a 30-day diet of nothing but McDonald's food. Eating three meals a day exclusively from McDonald's, Spurlock's health quickly deteriorates. The film documents the process from beginning to end, with Spurlock and his doctors making observations and monitoring the changes to his energy level, moods, liver and kidney function, and obviously his weight. As viewers might predict, Spurlock gains weight at an alarming rate, and during this process he offers a shocking lesson about the serious problem of obesity in America. Clearly McDonald's receives the brunt of the blame, as Spurlock shows how the fast-food restaurant directs its advertising at small children, who are converted into faithful consumers of the brand--and its free toy giveaways, bright colors, and Ronald McDonald clown--for life. Spurlock also examines the quality of the food itself, showing the processes by which favorite products like McNuggets are made. He also shows the proliferation of McDonald's chains both in the U.S. and worldwide. Meanwhile, Spurlock's girlfriend--a vegan chef--observes Spurlock's experiment with disgust and disdain, providing one of many comic elements to the film. Educational, fun, and at times downright gross, SUPER SIZE ME takes a different approach to illustrating America's obsession with fast food.

Brilliant - I havent eaten there since i watched the film!
Review date: 2008-07-12 Rating: 10 out of 10

This is absolutely fantastic. My whole family have never eaten there since we watched the results on Morgan. People will try and defend it by saying but you shouldn't eat it 3 times a day. McDonalds said you could! Untill they were being sued by people, then it quickly changed to everyone knows the effects of our food and how often you should eat it.
They also said you'd be able to find the calorie/carb/sugar content in your local McDonalds. When Morgan and his team looked for this information they found it hidden, in the basement and only one place showed it was clearly there for the consumer.
The extras you dont see in the original are shocking as well.
Looking at how long it takes for the burger/chips/mcchicken etc.. to break down. It makes you wonder how long it stays and what it is doing in your stomach!
I think this has had a huge effect on McDonalds. I'm seeing people in my city dressed up as Ronald McDonald, people in the city with pointing signs to McDonalds showing very good offers and more advertising for them. An interesting thing to note is that they've now done away with their SUPERSIZE options. I wonder why?
Whatever they do it wont change a thing though! Even introducing salads - which by the way have sugar in them. Its totally changed my mind on their food. And I'll never be eating there again.






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Reviews


The face that lunched a thousand chips!
Review date: 2008-01-20 Rating: 10 out of 10

Super Size Me is a clever film. Its message - that eating junk food like McDonald's hamburgers is bad for you - is not in itself sufficient reason to make people want to watch the film or learn its lesson, no matter how virtuous this message may be. It manages to engage the viewer in various ways.

One of the tactics the film uses is to shock us. No-one wants to be repulsively, hideously fat (just like no-one wants to be repulsively, hideously ugly), so the sight of excess flesh spilling over the golf buggy seat or waddling around the park is enough to wake us up to the horrors of the bulging waistline. The documentary is occasionally subtle: it shows us the results of McDonald's binging on various bodies throughout the film - not just Spurlock's. None of the people being interviewed about their junk-food eating habits in the streets of New York look particularly healthy. They all look pale, pasty and overweight, in desperate need of a change of diet and lifestyle. Less subtle, but equally shocking, is the sight of the narrator spewing out the contents of his stomach onto the tarmac of the parking lot.

Another technique of Spurlock's is the use of powerful visual images. Sometimes, pictures do speak louder than words, and some of the film's images are designed to remain in the viewer's mind long after its words have faded. At the end, as his 30-day 'Mac-attack' nears its conclusion, we see the protagonist with mountains of sugar in front of him and a particularly disgusting jar of fat in his hands. It is far easier to understand just how much thirty pounds of sugar and twelve pounds of fat actually amount to when they are shown on screen. Similarly, the increasingly large portions are presented to us visually, as well as verbally. We can see for ourselves how the 'standard' size of coke has become the 'kiddie' and, at the other extreme, how the mammoth supersized tub, containing 48 teaspoonfuls of sugar dwarfs all other cartons. The film's final images of hospitals and graveyards, meanwhile, may well scare us into changing our eating habits.

As every advertiser knows, humour is something that we all respond to. Spurlock cleverly deploys this tactic as well, combining both verbal and visual forms of humour. The sub-title on the DVD cover reads: 'A film of epic portions'. Elsewhere, the language is equally inventive. After consuming his first supersized meal, Spurlock claims to feel 'McTwitches' in his arms and 'McGurgles' in his stomach, as 'McSweats' break out on his forehead and a 'McBrick' forms in his guts. In just the same way, the DVD cover's garish red and yellow colours parody McDonald's equally garish 'golden arches' logo.

If Spurlock's experiment is to be taken seriously, it must provide hard, factual data, together with expert opinion. This is does in bucket loads, with cardiologists, nutritionists, fitness instructors and even the US Surgeon General all weighing in (pardon the pun).

Spurlock's documentary film is both entertaining and informative. For today's consumers, intent as we all are on saving time and money, it's unmissable. Particularly so for the younger generation - hence the creditable 12 certificate.

If you are obese by the age of thirteen, there's an 80% chance you will be obese for the rest of your life...
Review date: 2007-02-26 Rating: 10 out of 10

[...].
What makes "Super Size Me" worthy of it's undoubted five star rating is that, on each viewing, you come away with something different to think about. I have arrived at this review having watched the documentary for a second time. The first time I watched it, about a year ago on "More 4", I came away genuinely shocked at what I saw. I think I spent a week afterwards tugging on the arms of my friends and colleagues constantly asking "Did you know that McDonalds...?" (though admittedly this initial enthusiasm faded away - long live the kebab!). Having watched this film again a week ago, and with the anticipation diminishing the "shock-factor", I was suprised at how intellectual and thought-provoking the film actually is. Along with the harrowing visuals that are contained within this documentary, Spurlock is also capable of putting his point across by raising some very important rhetorical questions: where does personal responsibility stop, and corporate responsibility begin? When will it be appropriate to heckle at fat people in the street in the same way that smokers are heckled? How can people exercise personal responsibility without having all of the relevant information to hand? To what extent can children make the right choice? To what extent should children be given responsibility over their own diet? Is parental education the key? Why isn't Physical Education compulsary in America? Is it better to be the fattest nation in the world or the stupidest - why is recess being scrapped for additional classes? What are the moral implications of eating McDonalds everyday? Why is more emphasis being put on losing weight than staying healthy in the first place? Is this because the damage has already been done? Why, as humans, do we only seek a drastic solution when we are faced with a drastic problem? What is the environmental impact of eating McDonalds every day (one days worth of junk food consumption alone in the USA fills the entire Empire State Building)? What are the ethical implications of "industrialising" cattle? Why do the English always assume this is an American problem? How "fast" is "fast food"? Is it ethical to pump animals with anitbiotics when people in developing countries often don't have access to medicine? What is the incentive for the man on the ground to REALLY look behind the counter, beyond the nostalgia, beyond the "warm, fuzzy" feeling when the food tastes so great? Isn't McDonalds just the perverted epitome of the "American dream" which has grown into a homogenous monster as a result of the global "one taste" philosophy? Why is it acceptable for schools to advertise fast food but not alcohol? Who is REALLY to blame - local communities for channeling their money into prisons instead of schools, or the companies who fund the schools, using the venture to promote their product? To produce such inexpensive "Happy Meal" toys for such a mass market - how much must you be paying your work-force? And, finally, why is it that all of the people in the McDonalds adverts are thin - wasn't William Scott (aka the original Ronald McDonald) sacked for being too fat?

Before closing this review I want to make two points. Firstly, despite the doubts of many reviewers before me of the existence of the McDiet, I want to make it clear that this DOES exist. I won't mention names, but I have come to know people over the last few years who, given their employment location or demands, have eaten McDonalds solidly for a very long time. THIS IS A REAL PROBLEM THAT THIS NATION NEEDS TO ADDRESS. On a lighter note, I want to ask why nobody has produced a documentary on the woman who actually lost weight on a McDiet simply by calorie-counting... I am sure this would be an interesting, if not controversial, watch!

sensational and confused
Review date: 2007-01-10 Rating: 2 out of 10

Fast food establishments provide a service and supply a demand in a profitable market.
The product is demanded by the customer. These establishments wouldn't exist if people didn't give them money.
Mr. Spurlock should perhaps focus on advertising, or the culture which has produced this product, rather than blindly blaming and criticising the usual suspects. Still, it gets bums in seats at the cinema.

I Don't Eat at McDonalds Anymore
Review date: 2006-07-08 Rating: 10 out of 10

This film has had an impact on my life. In the 18 months since I watched it I have been to McDonalds twice. Once because I was starving and it was the only place open, and the other time when I was roped into into by friends (I miserably conceded and munched on a Deli sandwich). Morgan Spurlock has created a documentary far superior to any of the more popular recent films (no need to mention names) by sticking to the subject and making a valid argument.

I have read one or two critical reviews of this film for being too simplistic. I think they have simply missed the point; the film is not an experiment to see if eating McDonalds will make you fat. It is a critical look at the way in which fast foods have contributed to the health problems of today.

In terms of McDonalds, there are many aspects which needed looking into and Spurlock does this. For example, the up-selling to the dusgustingly over sized super size meals and the lack of nutritional information in their outlets. But most of all, he looks at the way in which they are forced upon the public. The amount of advertising money thrown at their products is understandable as any big corporation would do the same but the use of the clown, the play areas and the children's parties that suck children in from an early age is what is really disturbing. These are the children who cannot identify pictures of Jesus, George Washington and other famous people but smile immediately at the sight of Ronald McDonald.

In terms of the epidemic facing the world, Spurlock sticks to the point, noting how the size of the meals at ALL the fast food outlets have increased (many of the original sizes for an adult meal are now smaller than children's meals) but the schools provides the most poignant part of the film. These schools serve up fatty, sugar filled foods, subsidised by organisations trying to keep prices down and but with fast food companies wanting target audience to have access to the chocolate and fat. This is where the real brilliance of tghe documetnary lies. It does not just rally against McDonalds but says that schools need to take more responsibility in giving our children the right start in life. Fast food restaurants need to scale down on the sheer amount of fat that they serve up and should not push themselves on the public (especially the young).

As for Spurlock's experiment? Revolting! You'll never want a Big Mac again. We all knew McDonalds was unhealthy but for it to nearly kill him in a month? This provides the thread that weaves the film together, but as stated above, it is not the only part of the film.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Morgan Spurlock

Creators:
Morgan Spurlock (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: Tartan Video
Manufacturer: Tartan Video
EAN: 5023965351722
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Anamorphic, PAL,
Release date: 2005-01-10
Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 97 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2004
Language: English (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired)
Language: English (Original Language)

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