Last weekend during my visit to Perth, I got along to see a preview screening of Morgan Spurlock's Sundance Film Festival winning documentary Super Size Me. Just in case you have been living under a rock for the last couple of weeks, the film centers around Morgan's experiment to eat 3 square McMeals a day and see what happens to him.

There has been a lot of comparisons between Morgan and that other doco maker currently embedded in the pop culture zeitgeist, Michael Moore. The comparison in styles is obvious, although Mr Spurlock's film is much less confrontational and generally more even handed than Bowling for Colombine or The Awful Truth. When you commentate on the quality of a documentary, I guess you have to judge it on two fronts, the impact of the argument presented as well as the entertainment value as a film.

In terms of film making finesse, Super Size me is well edited, punchy and entertaining. It's perversely amusing to watch Morgan, boyfriend of a vegan chef, haplessly try to scoff his way through the McMenu, and blow up like a balloon and nearly do irreversible liver damage in the process. However, I found the cuts to Morgan trying to contact someone in senior mcmanagement on the phone throughout to be just a little cliche for my liking. On the other hand, the obligatory vox popping of people in the street, and then only including the most clueless ones for your film is an old cliche, but one that I must admit I love. You've got to love a man with enough sense of humor to edit his film in such a way to make his countrymen look fat and unintelligent.

On first impressions it would seem that the message of the film is that McDonalds is fattening. "Well duh", you think and this is a point acknowledged by Spurlock before the closing credits. On a deeper level, the film is more concerned with the impact of the big food company's blitzkrieg of advertising at children, and the obesity epidemic it is ensuing. There were some eye opening statistics presented, but the epiphany for me, a person who is always that bit on the chubby side was that doctor who presented the hypothesis that food was an addiction. More often than not you eat because you are addicted to the hit from sugar or caffeine than because you are actually hungry. This little factoid has jumped in my head a number of times this week as I've passed the biscuit barrel at work and stayed my hand.

In the summer of 98/99, following a drunken late night meal at the golden arches, a few friends and I got into this habit of putting mc in front of everything, including people's names. I still use the handle mcjimbo in some places on the internet as a result of this period in my life. But after a while it got a bit old, and we just went back to normal english, as opposed to Mcnormal Mcenglish. However after seeing this film, and it's mchabit of doing the same mcthing, I have started again! I caught myself using the expression McF*cked this week for the first time in a while. I am sure Karen will get Mcsick of it soon enough and give me a well deserved Mcsmack in the Mchead.

The other thing I wanted to share just quickly was a bit about James Bond. Lets get this straight from the outset, I love James Bond, and even though I think that the rampant product placement is ruining modern bond flicks, I will still see every new picture in the first week. Goldfinger would easily be one of my top ten films, how can you not love a female lead character called Pussy Galore? So you can imagine my excitement when, while rustling through a box of books at a scout jumble sale recently, I found a pile of yellowed copies of Ian Fleming's James Bond book. 20c each! Sensational.

So on the plane to Perth this week, I read Casino Royale, which marked the first time the world met Bond, James Bond. Its a great pulp read, but jeez, I know Bond is supposed to be a bit misogynist, but I'd like to see someone print this in a book these days and not get lynched. This was Bond's musing as he rushed off to rescue a female colleague.....

"This was just what he had been afraid of. These blathering women who thought they could do a man's work. Why the hell couldn't they stay at home and mind their pots and pans and stick to their frocks and gossip and leave the men's work to men".

Ouch! Ironically the rescue goes wrong and our mate James ends up getting tortured by a bloke tying him to a chair and smacking him in the nuts with a carpet beater, and only survives the ordeal by virtue of the aforementioned female being a Russian double agent. Inevitably Bond and his penis recover so he can end up making love to her. I know I just spoilt the ending, but most people know the way 007 stories go now so I don't think it matters.