Film: Super Size Me

[Raving Loony]

Loved this film, I'm giving it 3 stars. It was far more well produced than I had imagined it would. I was expecting a Blair Witch style budget. I'll add more comments later, but it's well worth viewing in my opinion.

And to think there was a preiod in my life where i would actually eat this stuff and enjoy it too! ..... for shame.

 

[Benefit]

true true, the fries from a year ago in my car do seem just as fresh and tasty... that never bothered me until now.

You eat year-old french fries that you find in your car?

 

[mariacallas]

hahah i actually watched this while eating a really nice quarter pounder with cheese and twister fries.

 

[wanderlust]

You eat year-old french fries that you find in your car?

i do, i do.
its only the hairy ones i worry about

 

[mariacallas]

I watched this last night on VCD again (in its entirety....the first time I saw it was choppy and inconclusive) while eating a huge dinner of portuguese sardine salad . thank GOD i finished my dinner right before they showed the gastric bypass surgery... lol. Very good movie......man it was SCARY that he gained 20 lbs in one month and it took him 3 months and a little more to lose it all. That is something I can identify with. (havent stepped in a Mcdonalds in about four months tho...) But if you ask me......I wouldnt turn it down if I had nothing to eat and no other opportunity presented itself and I was STARVING.

 

[mariacallas]

PS. Somehow I can never look at a chicken mc nugget in the same way again.... *sigh*

 

[drEaMtiMe*@#]

um, i'd give this movie three stars. mainly because it went main stream (blockbuster had like 10 or so copies of it in store when it first came out) which meant that a lot of people saw it.

the information that it provided was pretty simple but effective. and even though most people know that maccas is junk, it still never hurts to remind them of that fact.

and hey, maybe the new taste menu was inevitably always going happen for various other reasons, but still, i think that this film helped a little.

 

[AmorRoark]

I gave SuperSize Me 3 stars. I thought the film idea itself was pretty damned good. But, given my experience, the rest of it couldn't hold water. I saw this at a screening 1 1/2 years ago put on by my college. The writer/director/star Morgan Spurlock was also there for questions afterwards.

The first thing that set me off was the fact that the middle school I attended was highlighted wrongfully in the film. I went to Madison Jr. High School in Naperville, IL (suburb of Chicago) for all three of my middle school years. The film protrayed this school as one of the worst for hot lunch options. Honestly, nobody I knew actually bought the hot lunch option; we all brought sack luches. What people went there for, as shown by the film, was for a dessert. A cookie or a pretzel or something. No way did the majority of students use that meager 'lunch' system as their primary means of eating.

However, Madison was also highlighted for their physical fitness program. Indeed we had a sizable weight room and did a huge amount of different cardio workouts. I personally was a student to the coach interviewed, Coach Lawler. I know he's won numberous awards and rightfully so. I learned a great deal about physical fitness at Madison.

I think what Spurlock should have focused on was what these kids are eating afterschool because I think that timespan was much worse than what we ate at school. A lot of people I knew (myself included) had parents who worked so when we came home we ate terrible snacks. IMO, US parents need to be more active in what their children eat in every meal.

So after the film I raised my concern in the questons time set aside. Spurlock really didn't anwser the questions. He seemed to be trying to win the popularity contest more than anything. Actually, I was kind of insulted by the lowly humor he subjected us to. Imagine him anwsering every serious question with a Mc spratically throughout his word choice. Yeah, it became old pretty fast.

BUT! and this is an important but, this film achieved a lot. I know I didn't eat fast food for months after I saw it. I know this happened to a good number of people across the country/world(?) too. Also, I would bet this film along with Fast Food Nation could be partially accredited for some of the changes made by the fast food corporation... adding healthier food choices to their menu has undeniably helped. Sure, maybe it was propaganda ridden, but at least it was for a good cause.

 

[Finder]

oh, and when he kept the big mac, the quarter-pounder, the filet o'fish, and french fries under observation. please please please watch that part!!!
i think that was one of the biggest things that made my stomach turn. he kept all 4 of those items in separate covered glass jars for 10 weeks in hi office. he checked on them periodically. of course, all the food started to decompose and get gnarly mold ALL over it, and it oozed! but, here's the best part- even after 10 weeks, the fries looked like they were purchased the day before. think about all those times you've found a perfectly good looking fry in your car that you KNOW has been in there for months!

A friend of mine did something like this a four years ago or so. He purchased a regular McDonald's cheeseburger and left it in the wrapper on a shelf for two years at room temperature. When we finally opened it, everything was a little dried out but no mold or decomposition to speak of. The burger was almost exactly the same as the day he bought it!

 

[wanderlust]

i pretty much agree with what you (amorroark) have said (minus the high school personal experiences and such)

the film achieved the intended points even if it was hokey at times.

by 2010 nearly 50%, freaking HALF, of all children in north and south america will be overweight. right now 1/3 are overweight.
that is absurd. parents need to be more active in family sit down eating times (proven to control portions and help in better digestion and less over eating by kids and parents involved) and what the children eat at every meal even when they are not present.
BUT even more so the children, as all people, need to be mindful of what they are putting into their bodies. this film targeted at the "McCrowd" and "McKids" got at the teens, the 20-somethings and more. along with FFN the film made people think and even sometimes put health over conveincence and taste- and i feel that that is amazing in a hurry up, fast driven, pleasure and sensation centered world.

 

[mariacallas]

I remember when I was in the States and all we ate was fast food lol.... I mean if we werent eating in relatives homes of course. Apart from that I also I got addicted to soda so fast and loved the bottomless huge servings ( i havent drank soda in months now) that when I got home it was no surprise I gained 20 pounds. What he said midway thru the film was SO true...the fact that he was eating massive amounts of fastfood AND soda pop and yet he still wanted more. When I got back here I was drinking around 3 liters of soda a DAY ....and it came to a point where it still wasnt enough. I fucking hated that feeling.....thank God I'm out of the loop now.

 

[fengtau]

Too bad he did not do it here in Malaysia where he can sit on his ass and have his McD delivered to him. That would have been sweet!

Overall, 2 stars from me cause it is not very realistic.

 

[mclaughlinr1]

i didn't like it. just my opinion.

i thought spurlock was very egotistical (could that physical have been any longer) and that all he really showed is that eating the worst food options for you all of the time will hurt you.

similar studies have been done (in response to this film) which have shown that one can eat mcdonalds as often as spurlock and not only maintain health but improve it. it's all in what you order. i didn't see many bottles of water with those extra value meals which could have been replaced by a salad, light on the dressing. fyi, mcdonalds salads with full dressing are worse for you than their bigmac's.

he made a film and it was funny, i just think a lot of it's credit goes towards spurlock's humor, which i may have appreciated it for some reason i didn't just find him very smug and as someone who is kind of a dick.

 

[frizzantik]

similar studies have been done (in response to this film) which have shown that one can eat mcdonalds as often as spurlock and not only maintain health but improve it. it's all in what you order. i didn't see many bottles of water with those extra value meals which could have been replaced by a salad, light on the dressing.

mmm water and lettuce! or you could not eat at mcdonalds

 

[mclaughlinr1]

haha yeah, i myself only get it when i'm high or drunk and it's all that's open. and i feel like the fattest kid at fat camp afterwards

 

[psychetool]

I didn't like this movie at all. Of course you're gonna get fat if you eat ONLY mcdonalds for a fucking month. I don't need a movie to tell me mcdonalds is unhealthy or will make you fat if you eat it constantly. It's not fucking rocket science.

 

[wanderlust]

first, really it was more than look youre going to get fat. they could have just focused on the scale and not his bp, his overall feelings of sluggishess and wanting to vomit, the addiction he seemed to develop and so on if it was all about getting fat.
nearly 1/3 of children eat fast food every day. thats pretty gross in a country where a third are overweight. correlation? perhaps. maybe not. just poor eating habits in kids and adults.

similar studies have been done (in response to this film) which have shown that one can eat mcdonalds as often as spurlock and not only maintain health but improve it. it's all in what you order. i didn't see many bottles of water with those extra value meals which could have been replaced by a salad, light on the dressing. fyi, mcdonalds salads with full dressing are worse for you than their bigmac's.

i dont think spurlock was allowed to make changes like that. he had to order off the board and supersize if offered. there is water offered on the board but not as a direct part of the meal packages. no subsitutes, i think. and he had to eat everything once so he did have a salad or four in there somewhere. he also had to eat the full dressing serving with the salad- his rules which obviously had a point to them, right or wrong. he was out to make his voice heard with as much evidence as he could so of course he went all the way.

http://www.azcentral.com/home/food/articles/0712mcdonalds0712.html - shrink-a-size me: losing weight eating only mcd's article

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0522-20.htm - the truth about mcd's and children by spurlock