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Death,
where is thy special sauce: Spurlock at McDonald’s
in Super Size Me.
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Unhappy
Meal
By
Ann Morrow
Super
Size Me
Directed
by Morgan Spurlock
The McStomache. That yucky, dead-weight-in-the-tummy, energy-sapping
feeling caused by an overly large meal of McDonald’s is something
that most of us have experienced, which is why Morgan Spurlock’s
stunt documentary, Super Size Me, is funny and effective,
eliciting chuckles of self-recognition as we watch the trim,
fit, 33-year-old filmmaker turn himself into a bloated coach
potato before our eyes. With the redundant cause of proving
that fast-food meals are not part of a healthy diet, as the
industry claims, Spurlock eats three meals a day at Mickey
Dee’s and nothing else. Whilst consuming a Super Size serving
of cheeseburgers, fries, and soda, he is quickly afflicted
by another phenomenon: the McGurgles. A half-hour later (which
is how long it takes this 6-foot-1 reporter to consume his
meal), he goes into a stupor, and hangs his head out his car
window making retching noises. Just in case there’s any confusion
as to what he’s doing, the camera cuts to a puddle of special-sauce-colored
puke.
Juvenile? Yes, but the man’s got a point: Fast food is unhealthy,
often unappetizing, sometimes unsanitary, and no doubt a leading
factor in America’s obesity epidemic. And in case you’re wondering
what, exactly, constitutes an overly large portion, it’s anything
above “small,” with the Super Size qualifying as masochistic
gluttony, a point that the film drives home by plunking down
a two-liter soda bottle next to the 42-ounce (that’s right,
42) bucket o’ Coke that McDonald’s promotes as a single serving
for a single consumer. Less than a week in, Spurlock admits
to being bored with the stuff, yet he still eats it with gusto,
and not all of it is produced by journalistic zeal: He’s hooked,
and goes on to examine the addictive qualities of certain
saturated fats as well as the obscene amount of sugar in the
average fast-food repast. By the end of the month, he has
put on 25 pounds and skyrocketed his cholesterol level, and
is constantly lethargic. He strikes a blow for science when
two of his doctors express astonishment that his daily Mac
attack is having the same effect on his liver as alcoholism—only
faster.
As a filmmaker, Spurlock is lightweight Michael Moore; we
definitely get our fill of the affable reporter stuffing his
face, while the home-video-style production, especially the
weird ditties on the soundtrack, are annoying, and a graphic
examination of a stomach-stapling procedure is gratuitous.
But the amusingly illustrated effects of scarfing down those
red-and-yellow feed bags really hit home, and much of the
information is valuable, especially the sequences on America’s
appalling school-lunch programs and McDonald’s insidious,
billion-dollar advertising campaigns to make lifelong consumers
out of small children. What the film doesn’t do is examine
the sociological phenomena behind the explosion in fast-food
eateries, such as long work hours, unsupervised kids, poverty,
and the American love affair with the automobile. Since virtually
everybody thinks fast food is bad (according to a poll) and
yet almost everybody eats it, the solution may not be lawsuits
or the vilification of Ronald McDonald, but lifestyle changes
on a super-size scale.
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Through
the Past, Lightly
Bon
Voyage
Directed
by Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Remember the charming inter-national hit Amélie? It
suffered a critical backlash in France, as a number of commentators
charged that the whimsical romantic comedy whitewashed the
multicultural nature of contemporary France. They had a point.
But poor Amélie has nothing on Bon Voyage, a
stupefyingly feel-good whitewash of French history. Bon
Voyage, a star-studded farce set during France’s brief
period of combat in World War II, offers up a happy-face version
of the capitulation to the Germans.
The fun begins with Viviane (Isabelle Adjani), a shifty-but-gorgeous
movie star involved in a murder, and Frédéric (Grégori Derangére),
the childhood friend and worshipful admirer she pulls into
her web of lies. There’s a bit of genuine fun involving a
traffic accident—naturally, there’s a corpse in a car trunk—and,
before you can say Blake Edwards, Frédéric is in jail. The
Germans march on Paris, and Viviane, along with trainloads
of refugees and the French government, is off to Bordeaux.
As suggested above, director Jean-Paul Rappeneau has a deft
touch with farce. The various quick escapes and eruptions
of sex and violence that punctuate the action bring genuine
laughs. Viviane’s constantly self-dramatizing moments are
framed like real movie melodrama, but always with a subversive
visual twist; Adjani is in on the joke, making these moments
some of the picture’s best.
Given the setting, it’s inevitable that the plot takes a serious
turn. Frédéric breaks jail with the help of a sly crook (Yvan
Attal), who entangles them with an elderly nuclear physicist
(Jean-Marc Stehlé) and his dewy young assistant Camille (Virginie
Ledoyen). All end up in Bordeaux, where Viviane has cleverly
attached herself to Beaufort (Gérard Depardieu, surprisingly
nuanced), a shifty government minister seemingly eager to
deal with the conquering Germans. Happily, the physicist has,
inadvertently, brought the politician something to bargain
with: The only “heavy water,” a necessary ingredient for an
atomic weapon, in Europe. (Except, of course, for the heavy
water the SS stashed at Stalag 13 on that episode of Hogan’s
Heroes.)
While the laughs continue, the film’s dreary theme begins
to get in their way. Everyone, alas, is exactly who you think
they are. Frédéric, who is revealed to be a great writer,
and Camille, who is a patriot, fall in love. They are young,
and good. Vivian, Beaufort and an oily journalist (Peter
Coyote) play their loveless sexual games. They are middle-aged
and bad.
No moral ambiguity here. The collapse of an entire society?
Move along, folks, there’s nothing to see here. Just stare
at the sexy young couple in love.
—Shawn
Stone
Jolly
Green Giant Redux
Shrek
2
Directed
by Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury and Conrad Vernon
A sophomore effort, of nearly any kind, is almost universally
accepted as the great equalizer. No matter how wondrous a
music act’s premiere album was, or how brilliant a novice
director’s fledgling flick, Round 2 is, more often than not,
the moment when reality sets back in. It’s that slap in the
face, or the cold shower, that brings you back to your senses
and reveals your feet of clay.
Quite honestly, the Shrek 2 previews seemed to follow
this pattern. “Hmm, that’s kind of funny . . . sort of,” one
thought watching them. Here it comes, the franchise. Admittedly,
I, and a couple hundred Torontonians, left the theater following
my first viewing of Shrek feeling as if we were walking
on the same fluffy cloud of happiness. It was one of those
rare times when everybody applauded, and we were united in
a shared sense of joy and fun. While Shrek 2 doesn’t
offer up that same euphoria, that sense of having witnessed
something very special, it is darn good, and a hell of a lot
better than was expected.
Now that Shrek (Mike Meyers) and Fiona (Cameron Diaz) are
married, it’s time to meet the princess’ parents, the king
(John Cleese) and queen (Julie Andrews), a communion that
borrows as much from Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner as
it does the famous banquet scene in the 1933 The Private
Lives of Henry VIII. Clearly, Mummy and Daddy are not
thrilled at the prospect of little grand-ogres. Along with
the enterprising Fairy Godmother (Jennifer Saunders), the
king concocts a scheme to make Fiona forget Shrek and marry
Prince Charming (Rupert Everett). Along the way, Shrek, Fiona
and Donkey (Eddie Murphy) go Hollywood, at least physically
speaking, and beloved characters from the first installment,
including the Big Bad Wolf, the Three Little Pigs, Pinocchio
and the Gingerbread Man, lend a hand, or paw, to ensure that
true love triumphs over, well, ridiculousness.
The visuals are stunning, enhanced by now to convey lovely
nuances in lighting and skin tones. The script—basically a
satire about Hollywood excess—is snappy, albeit with far too
many references to sex and body parts, although the bit about
Pinocchio wearing women’s underwear actually met broad appeal
throughout the family-dominant audience. Movie buffs will
love especially a montage of the lovebirds on honeymoon, including
a paean to From Here to Eternity (don’t blink or you’ll
miss a hilarious cameo by the Little Mermaid) and a seemingly
gay frolic through a field of daisies, made all the funnier
by the fact that the bridal couple is being pursued by angry
villagers bearing pitchforks and torches.
In short, Shrek 2 is a worthy companion to its predecessor;
for once, a sophomore effort exudes confidence, class and
comic precision.
—Laura
Leon
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