I got a McTummy just watching Super Size Me, a cartoon-inflected commentary by Morgan Spurlock on the American obesity epidemic and the businesses that have contributed to it. Spurlock both directed and provided the primary subject of the documentary: in February, 2003, he ate nothing but fast food from the McDonald's menu for 30 days, and he filmed the results. Scary: a good-looking 185 pounds at the start of the exercise, Spurlock gained 25 pounds and crashed his liver.

During his ordeal, he travelled the country, interviewing harried school lunch providers and educators who are working to feed students healthy provender, as well as Don Gorske, who geekishly consumed exactly 741 Big Macs in calendar year 2002. Chapter transitions are illustrated by subversive paintings of demonic Ronald McDonalds from the pop artist Ron English. Spurlock gives a spokesman for a food industry lobby enough rope to hang himself; McDonald's PR people ducked his requests for an interview. The filmmaker's girlfriend Alex (a vegan [!] chef) gets off the best lines, including a riff on the correspondences between heroin addiction and craving ham. Throughout, the tone is jocular, never hectoring.

Will the sight of Spurlock vomiting a super-sized meal change some behaviors? Let's hope so.

posted: 11:42:26 PM