You guys see Morgan Spurlock’s “30 Days” yet? It was a short-lived series from FX that had 6 episodes each. Over the past 2 weeks, we’ve burned through all 12, and each one is absolutely fascinating. Basic jist is that Morgan Spurlock, the guy from “Super Size Me,” spends 30 days in someone else’s existence. He spends 30 days living on minimum wage, 30 days in prison, etc. It’s pretty cool because he always has 3 rules he can’t break. Like he has to get sent to solitary confinement for 72 hours. Or he can’t start his minimum wage job with any cash, he starts from scratch as a day laborer. Sometimes he’s not the guy in role, he’ll get someone way more interesting to spend 30 days doing something, like the homophobic douche who moves to the heart of San Fransisco, or the guy who thinks that Muslims are terrorists who lives with a Muslim family and has to recruit new members for the local Mosque. Obviously inspired by Michael Moore, but with more objectivity. The street interviews are a great slice of Americana. Wait, my favorite was the one where the tech guy who lost his programming job to an Indiana outsourcing company moves to India to work for the overseas call center his company enlisted. Want to see what Indian call centers are really like and why they pick names like Josh or Fred? Check it out.
Formed in 1997, Schad began performing sketch comedy on Chicago’s north side. The troupe has since performed at countless venues around the world including The Goodman Theatre, The Second City, Steppenwolf, Lollapalooza, ImprovOlympic, the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (LA), HERE (NYC) and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
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Not seen it yet but sounds quite interesting. It really seems like outsourcing has become the buzzword of the day.
Outsourcing backlash has finally hit in terms of productivity. Managing a team on the other side of the world isn’t as profitable as some thought.
Couldn’t agree more. Check-out the episode in Season 2 with the outsourcing guy. They have to shut down the entire office building for a day because India’s most famous movie star dies and the entire country mourns and starts RIOTING and the rioters go after the Big American Buildings and basically cost the companies millions. But, imagine how much they’re saving on pensions and PPO’s. Amazing.
The ultimate bottom line is that outsourcing erodes your base for future profit. The dude in India makes far less than his us counterpart, and he does not invest it back into US markets, even if he has enough left over. Yes, you save big costs now, but it comes back to get you later. Most people figure they’ll be dead by then anyway, so have at it.
Oh man oh man do I love this show.
And you are in luck, Sandy. They just aired season 3 (another six episodes) back in June. Surely your Tivo goblin can hunt those episodes down at some odd hour of the night. Included in S3 are Working in a Coal Mine and Life on an Indian Reservation, two of my favorites.
They are actually filming season 4 at the moment or soon but it probably won’t air until next spring.
Spurlock is definitely from the Michael Moore stunt-documentary school but is way smarter… or assumes we are… and let’s footage speak for itself as much as possible. There’s just enough reality-TV confession/interviews and music to make it seem slick but the ‘experiements’ seem genuine (or at least honest about the things they fudge). Top Marks.
Awesome Connor, thanks for the heads-up. I will set the DVR. I’d love to see one where someone works at Area 51 for a month as a guard. Or see a regular Joe run for City Council on nothing but one big idea.
This show is just super awesome. Agreed on all points. No shiny cymbals in this one, just dry no-commentary-no-bullshit docs.
Classic Sandy. They just finished their 3rd Season.
Classic Joel. Bein’ Weird.
Classic Frank Patterson – you going to pay or what?!
Where do I begin with Morgan Spurlock? Ugh, forget it, I’ll keep this short. Maybe some bullet points:
- Super Size Me was a stunt not a documentary. We are all agreed.
- After watching Super Size Me all I wanted to do was go to McDonald’s.
- Super Size Me was not an inditement of McDonald’s per se. Spurlock says as much in the movie so shame on him for allowing the marketing of that movie to suggest as much.
- Glad to hear that Morgan is engaging the more traditional aspects of documentary with 30 Days. The fact that he is not insisting on being the subject for all the experiments shows growth as a film maker, IMHO.
- I will be adding 30 Days to my NetFilx line up directly.
- Michael Moore is a douche.
BlK
But if you do insist on being the subject of your own documentary then do what Doug Benson did and make a movie called:
Super High Me: http://www.superhighmemovie.com/sample/videos/
No, it’s NOT a film about some tongue in cheek anti-semitic, self-loathing jewish person. It’s about smoking pot.
BLK
Bart, good to have you back old sport.
I’ve enjoyed the 30 days I’ve seen so far. I’ve heard “Where in the World Is Osama Bin Ladin” was a huge joke and waste of time. There’s a point where I enjoy the Michael Moore films – Roger and Me was good, and I really loved TV Nation. His other films have great points. I think what I don’t like about him is what he does afterwards. Too many old school hippie style protests that, honestly, do not have the commitment that the ones in the 60s did. I think HST said it best – it became less of a cause and more of a thing to do. Its easy to be the guy who shakes things up, but when it comes up to actually making the stuff happen…eh. Visit his website – its interesting how quickly any negative comments he used to make about Obama regarding health care are hard to find.