Monday, January 26, 2004
A Satisfying Last Day
I saw The Corporation, Primer and Super-Size Me today. It couldn’t have been a better last day.
The Corporation is a documentary about Corporations—their development in the early part of the 20th century, their “psychosis” and hope for the future. I understand from our MGM friend that this has been picked up by United Artists so hopefully you’ll get to see this one soon.
It was 2 ½ hours but it didn’t feel like 2 ½ hours. The story keeps getting worse and worse until towards the end you see that people can change the world and keep corporations from buying everything, including rain in Bolivia. See this if you want to know why people protest the World Trade Organization or Wal-Mart or Slave Labor. See it if you work for a corporation or own corporate stocks or if you think all that I’ve said is a bunch of hooey. It’ll be an education.
Primer won the dramatic grand jury prize, much to many people’s surprise because many didn’t like it, and many didn’t understand it. Primer was on my list of things I wanted to see but it was lower on the list because it was by and about white men. I wanted to see it because the plot seemed interesting.
Primer is about four young (20s or 30s) men who are tech industry workers (perhaps engineers) trying to start a business. Two of them end up building a time machine that goes only backwards. They come up with a scheme about how to deal with the paradox of going back in time by taking themselves out of the equation by shutting themselves into a hotel and trading stocks they had researched the first time around on that day. From there, I couldn’t tell you exactly what happened because I don’t completely understand it. I hope it gets distributed because I want to see it again.
Primer was an amazing film given that it was made for $7,000. (D.E.B.S. was made for $3.5 million and was considered “low budget.) Not only do I want to see Primer again, I would pay $8 to see it again. This film isn’t for everyone because the plot line is challenging. But I was engaged and look forward to trying to figure it out later.
There was all sorts of buzz about Super Size Me. Before I came to Sundance, tickets for Super Size Me were selling on eBay for $450. People were turning down offers of $250 for their ticket. It was the hottest ticket in Park City. Wait list lines were very long and hardly anyone got to see it who didn’t have a ticket to it.
So of course when it won the documentary directing award, I had to go see it because I didn’t need a ticket with my Awards weekend pass.
Super Size Me is about the director, Morgan Spurlock, who ate nothing that wasn’t on the McDonalds menu for 30 days. He also limited his exercise to 4000 steps each day, or just a little over a mile. Morgan is accompanied on his journey by three doctors who think the only effect of this binge will be elevated cholesterol and some weight gain. I won’t tell you how it ends, but the doctors were wrong.
Morgan Spurlock’s stated intent with the film is to figure out whose responsibility it is that America is the fattest nation in the world. Where does personal responsibility end and corporate responsibility begin? He was inspired by the two young women who sued McDonald’s for their obesity.
While his images were compelling, I found that Morgan’s analysis of this issue is shallow and one-sided. He (mostly) demonized obese people by showing almost all of them without a face and used them as humorous notes in his film. He focused on McDonald’s as the cause of his health issues at the end of 30 days and blamed his weight game on the food, rather than the combination of his food and lack of exercise. I bet if he’d exercised as much as he normally did (living in New York City he says he walked 4-5 miles/day), he wouldn’t have become so sick.
To his credit, he did show two young obese women (both in their teens) who talked about how hard it is to be obese in our culture and how much the images of super-thin people keep these women in shame. He should have talked about eating disorders, though. Another great part of this documentary was his look into school lunches and how corporations are training young people to eat proccessed foods. It was scary, actually. (When I was a kid, we didn't have lunches like this at William Penn High in New Castle. In the film, kids were taking HoHo's and chips and soda for their lunches. )
Martin exposes Mickey D’s marketing tactics and shows how terrible a fast food diet really is. But again, this analysis was shallow because after the movie, Susan and I went out to dinner at a very fine restaurant. Their entrees were not called entrees but “Big Plates”. I had half a salad but that was enough to just about fill me up. They brought dessert to the next table and it looked like a large piece of chocolate cake. It was their brownie. Martin Spurlock should have tried eating three squares a day for thirty days at any restaurant in the US and I bet that he’d have had the same or worse effects.
I emailed the International Size Acceptance Organization's Director because I was surprised to see their name in the credits. Apparently, the director interviewed them in February of 2002 but they were not in the film and were surprised to hear about the content. They have requested an advanced copy of the film to review. I'm curious about what they will think about having their name on such a film.
I’d say Super Size Me is worth renting and parts of it should be required viewing in junior and senior high schools. Certainly not worth $450 or $250 or all the hype it got at Sundance. I saw better films this week.
The Corporation is a documentary about Corporations—their development in the early part of the 20th century, their “psychosis” and hope for the future. I understand from our MGM friend that this has been picked up by United Artists so hopefully you’ll get to see this one soon.
It was 2 ½ hours but it didn’t feel like 2 ½ hours. The story keeps getting worse and worse until towards the end you see that people can change the world and keep corporations from buying everything, including rain in Bolivia. See this if you want to know why people protest the World Trade Organization or Wal-Mart or Slave Labor. See it if you work for a corporation or own corporate stocks or if you think all that I’ve said is a bunch of hooey. It’ll be an education.
Primer won the dramatic grand jury prize, much to many people’s surprise because many didn’t like it, and many didn’t understand it. Primer was on my list of things I wanted to see but it was lower on the list because it was by and about white men. I wanted to see it because the plot seemed interesting.
Primer is about four young (20s or 30s) men who are tech industry workers (perhaps engineers) trying to start a business. Two of them end up building a time machine that goes only backwards. They come up with a scheme about how to deal with the paradox of going back in time by taking themselves out of the equation by shutting themselves into a hotel and trading stocks they had researched the first time around on that day. From there, I couldn’t tell you exactly what happened because I don’t completely understand it. I hope it gets distributed because I want to see it again.
Primer was an amazing film given that it was made for $7,000. (D.E.B.S. was made for $3.5 million and was considered “low budget.) Not only do I want to see Primer again, I would pay $8 to see it again. This film isn’t for everyone because the plot line is challenging. But I was engaged and look forward to trying to figure it out later.
There was all sorts of buzz about Super Size Me. Before I came to Sundance, tickets for Super Size Me were selling on eBay for $450. People were turning down offers of $250 for their ticket. It was the hottest ticket in Park City. Wait list lines were very long and hardly anyone got to see it who didn’t have a ticket to it.
So of course when it won the documentary directing award, I had to go see it because I didn’t need a ticket with my Awards weekend pass.
Super Size Me is about the director, Morgan Spurlock, who ate nothing that wasn’t on the McDonalds menu for 30 days. He also limited his exercise to 4000 steps each day, or just a little over a mile. Morgan is accompanied on his journey by three doctors who think the only effect of this binge will be elevated cholesterol and some weight gain. I won’t tell you how it ends, but the doctors were wrong.
Morgan Spurlock’s stated intent with the film is to figure out whose responsibility it is that America is the fattest nation in the world. Where does personal responsibility end and corporate responsibility begin? He was inspired by the two young women who sued McDonald’s for their obesity.
While his images were compelling, I found that Morgan’s analysis of this issue is shallow and one-sided. He (mostly) demonized obese people by showing almost all of them without a face and used them as humorous notes in his film. He focused on McDonald’s as the cause of his health issues at the end of 30 days and blamed his weight game on the food, rather than the combination of his food and lack of exercise. I bet if he’d exercised as much as he normally did (living in New York City he says he walked 4-5 miles/day), he wouldn’t have become so sick.
To his credit, he did show two young obese women (both in their teens) who talked about how hard it is to be obese in our culture and how much the images of super-thin people keep these women in shame. He should have talked about eating disorders, though. Another great part of this documentary was his look into school lunches and how corporations are training young people to eat proccessed foods. It was scary, actually. (When I was a kid, we didn't have lunches like this at William Penn High in New Castle. In the film, kids were taking HoHo's and chips and soda for their lunches. )
Martin exposes Mickey D’s marketing tactics and shows how terrible a fast food diet really is. But again, this analysis was shallow because after the movie, Susan and I went out to dinner at a very fine restaurant. Their entrees were not called entrees but “Big Plates”. I had half a salad but that was enough to just about fill me up. They brought dessert to the next table and it looked like a large piece of chocolate cake. It was their brownie. Martin Spurlock should have tried eating three squares a day for thirty days at any restaurant in the US and I bet that he’d have had the same or worse effects.
I emailed the International Size Acceptance Organization's Director because I was surprised to see their name in the credits. Apparently, the director interviewed them in February of 2002 but they were not in the film and were surprised to hear about the content. They have requested an advanced copy of the film to review. I'm curious about what they will think about having their name on such a film.
I’d say Super Size Me is worth renting and parts of it should be required viewing in junior and senior high schools. Certainly not worth $450 or $250 or all the hype it got at Sundance. I saw better films this week.
