'Super Sizing' the fun and the nausea

Morgan Spurlock's "Super Size Me" is a film that made me want to call my mother and thank her for the years of what I then-believed was tortuous healthy eating. It's a stirring indictment against the fast food industry and obesity, a film with a punch-to-the-gut moxie rarely done this well in persuasive cinema. It's an absolutely disgusting movie, and I love it.\nThe likeable and affable Spurlock stars as his own guinea pig. He's out to prove McDonald's -- and fast food in general -- isn't good for you by eating nothing but what's on the Golden Arc's menu three times daily for a solid month. He consults a few doctors before the experiment and continues during the experiment.\nWhat happens in general shouldn't be surprising, and it isn't; but thankfully there's more to the film than Spurlock downing a few Big Macs. He provides a captivating thesis, which examines corporate profits (after all, fast food is a multibillion dollar industry), government "regulations" (if they can be called such) and public school lunches, and he has stacked the film with interviews -- nutritionists, dieticians, professors and a former U.S. surgeon general.\nThe film debuted to a chorus of buzz at the Sundance Film Festival. A few months later, McDonald's announced it would drop its super-size option from its menu, while claiming the decision was not at all related to Spurlock's film. I don't buy it: this film is too slick. By the time it's over, its message has hit your head, your heart and, most appropriately, your stomach. \n"Super Size Me" is a well-rounded and highly entertaining documentary. It's cinematically stylish and as much of a pleasure for your visual cortex as it is for the rest of your brain. We'll be extremely lucky if the documentary fare for the rest of 2004 continues to be as rich as it's been until now.