Super Size Me vs The Insider

Do kids really like Ronald McDonald? They must, right? Because kids like junk food and bright colors and funny clowns, and Ronald McDonald promises all three. Is it just me? Ronald McDonald is gross, right? He's really scary, like he might eat your soul, right? I don't get it. It's not even good make-up, and the wig is so weird. Kids like him? Are you sure? Is it the toys? Is it because he brings them  French fries and toys? Grimace, sure. Hamburglar, okay. But Ronald McDonald? Kids don't run screaming? About half way through Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock--the movie's director, narrator, and victim--shows pictures of Jesus Christ, George Washington, and Ronald McDonald to a group of young students. The only one unanimously identified was, you guessed it, Ronald McDonald. (One child misidentified Jesus Christ as George W. Bush, which is understandable, since it happens over at Fox News all the time.)

Super Size Me is a documentary conceived and directed by Morgan Spurlock, who either has extremely high or extremely low self-esteem. Spurlock, in an attempt to better understand the obesity problem in the United States, as well as our apparent dependence on fast food, took it upon himself to live on nothing but McDonald's for one month. It doesn't sound like that big a deal, until you hear his rules:

1. He has to try everything on the menu at least once.

2. He has to finish everything he orders.

3. He can't eat anything that isn't sold at McDonald's.

4. If it's offered, he has to Super-Size his meal.

5. He has to have three meals a day.

I think that's everything, and still, it probably doesn't seem like that big of a deal, does it? Spurlock, at the beginning of his experiment, is a healthy, fit man, I'm guessing in his early or mid-thirties. He has a hot vegan chef girlfriend and a good job as a...I dunno. I suppose he's a filmmaker, but what do they do day-to-day? Anyway, he has an office, and apparently cash lying around, so he hits the road to fatten up. And he does. By the end of the film, Spurlock--I'm trying not to spoil it here--is not in the best shape. Let's just leave it at that.

Spurlock isn't just out to guinea pig himself at McDonald's, although that's the fun part. He's also out getting his Michael Moore on, interviewing regular people, and making fools of bureaucrats, that is, when he can get them on the phone. He visits most of the major fast food chains in America, marveling at the huge servings. I'm sure some viewers will think Spurlock is exaggerating his reactions at his new diet, but they seem genuine to me. I'm somewhat of an amateur fast food customer, and was completely shocked, for example, at the size of a Supersize fries. Seriously, imagine your head full of French Fries.

He also hits elementary schools, finding that they sell fast food and rarely enforce physical education guidelines; a hospital with a McDonald's inside; and once a week, his own doctors and a nutritionist, who find themselves negotiating for things like water and vitamins (some McDonald's sell water, so yes, but not vitamins, so no.)

Day one finds Spurlock enjoying his meals and being optimistic about his experiment. Day three finds him puking out his car window. Day seven finds him eleven pounds heavier. If he keeps this up, he's going to be one of those morbidly obese people we see throughout the movie, with little blurs over their sad, morbidly obese faces. In fact, over and over, Spurlock puts himself on the line, in a way most filmmakers don't. He's his own subject, so whether it's the aforementioned car puke, a rectal exam, or worried phone calls about liver toxicity, we're there.

Super Size Me probably seems a little preachy, and I guess it can be, but it's so damn entertaining. For every trip to a school cafeteria to lecture lunch ladies about the Little Debbie cakes they're pushing on kids, there's a scene of Spurlock's patient girlfriend, explaining to the camera that their sex life--while still great, honest--is not nearly as good now that Spurlock is addicted to McDonald's. He actually goes a little easy on the food industry; he never goes after breakfast foods (there's no way cereals aimed at kids are as healthy as they claim to be, and Pop-Tarts, while perfect, are also deadly), snack foods, or suspiciously, movie food (check out the stats on movie popcorn. It's right up there with Big Macs). But, Spurlock is a funny, charismatic host, and paces his investigation in such a way that it becomes a pretty cool mystery. By the time he steps on the scale for the last time, he's potbellied and depressed, and I was as anxious for the verdict as I've been in any courtroom drama. Super Size Me plays mostly like a comedy, but its investigative turns and statistics turn Spurlock into quite the whistle-blower. He's like Erin Brockovich with a goatee and heavy sugar addiction (know what they put sugar in at McDonald's? Everything.)

Super Size Me is being compared, of course, to the films of Michael Moore, not so much because Spurlock and Moore are that much alike, but basically because documentaries aren't as popular and Moore is the first one to come to mind. Spurlock is right; we're lazy. I've decided instead, to compare it to a drama, though one based on fact. It's about a less genial snitch than Morgan Spurlock, but no less chubby. I'm talking, of course, about The Insider.

The Insider deals not with fast food, but with that other fun addictive, cigarettes. It centers around Lowell Bergman, a producer for 60 Minutes, played by Al Pacino. We know The Insider is a true story, because if it were fiction, no one in Hollywood would ever have named the main character Lowell Bergman, and if he was a TV producer, it sure as hell wouldn't be for 60 Minutes. He would be like, Jake Hanson or something, and he'd be a the producer of a sports show. He'd have a girlfriend from the WB, and shit would blow up. Al Pacino, for a time, had gotten a little Ronald McDonald-ish, meaning he was getting on my nerves and I didn't want to buy anything from him. I think it happened around the time of Scent of a Woman, and continued until The Insider. Between those two movies, Al was content booming all his lines and bugging his eyes, as if every movie were a sequel to Dick Tracy. And then something changed. In The Insider, Al is his usual, intense self, but he's also quiet and subtle. This isn't just Al Pacino, it's Lowell Bergman, or at least a compelling movie version. You know what I think it is? I think it's Robert DeNiro. Around the time Pacino got quiet again, DeNiro started getting loud. DeNiro mugs with Billy Crystal and suddenly Pacino is dead serious about nicotine. DeNiro plays volleyball with Ben Stiller, and Pacino lies dying in a hospital with the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg. There's a sequel to Meet the Parents coming soon, so of course Pacino is doing The Merchant of Venice. Man, maybe somebody should introduce DeNiro to the Wayans brothers; I bet Pacino could get some really good jobs out of it.

Anyway, 60 Minutes is about to blow the lid off a story that a major tobacco company not only knew its product was dangerous, but that they made it more dangerous. Wait a second...what? Next you're going to tell me that McDonald's' low-fat salads are only low-fat until you put the dressing on, at which time they become near poisonous. Oh, yeah. Never mind. Their one witness is a former employee of the cigarette company, who unfortunately, signed a confidentiality agreement. Will he talk anyway? Will he tell the truth? Will he die? The insider of the title is played by Russell Crowe. He wasn't as well known back in 1999, which works to his advantage, but even now, it's an amazing performance. Nearly unrecognizable under glasses, gray hair and about thirty extra pounds (wonder where he gained that? Something tells me Russell was Supersizing), Crowe is amazing in The Insider. In a career that includes impressive performances pretty much every time he's on screen, I think this is my favorite. Whether he's finding a bullet in the mailbox, hugging his daughter, or washing his hands in the kitchen sink after being told not to, Crowe is always one-hundred percent believable. His scenes with Pacino are desperate and exciting; everything this guy says is important, but everything this guy says is absolutely something he should not be saying.

Like Super Size Me, I'm sure there are details The Insider is leaving out. I'm not privy to enough information to tell you what it's like behind the scenes at 60 Minutes. I don't know if they have a producer like Al Pacino, or if Mike Wallace is as interesting as Christopher Plummer makes him. But, The Insider, like Silkwood before it, presents real events as if they were simply the results of a brilliant screenwriter. We don't necessarily care if it's true because we're too busy believing. The Insider was directed by Michael Mann, who probably seems like too stylish a director for this subject matter. It turns out he's just what it needs. The Insider is visually stunning and as well-paced as Heat, Mann's previous film with Pacino (the movie where he and DeNiro switched bodies?)

Throughout The Insider, Crowe's character is being watched by his enemies, and feels his life is in danger. That never really happens to Morgan Spurlock in Super Size Me, but it just might be now. On his website (http://blogs.indiewire.com/morganspurlock/), Spurlock writes, "It's quite funny, but I received word from radio stations again today that the minute I was off air, McCEO for Australia, Guy Russo, chimed in immediately wanting the 'right to repsond.' Pretty unbelievable that the CEO of a billion dollar corporation has nothing better to do with his time than chase a little filmmaker all over his country in the media. Makes you wonder what's in this movie that they don't want you to see!"

Dude, that's creepy. Lock your doors, and whatever you do, don't look in the mailbox. I'll send Pacino right over.

Super Size Me: A-
The Insider: A-