30 Days - Season 1
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Actor: Morgan SpurlockBrand: FOX Home Entertainment
Producer: Morgan Spurlock
Producer: R.J. Cutler
Producer: Benjamin Silverman
Producer: H.T. Owens
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; French (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 270 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-07-11
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Reviews of 30 Days - Season 1
DVD Review: Small Screen Spurlock
Summary: 3 Stars
I must admit, I am one of those viewers that was blown away by Morgan Spurlock's fascinating documentary entitled Super Size Me. While some will argue that it was a purely one sided debate, I thought it rivaled that of Michael Moore, causing America to look inward at an issue plaguing our communities. That is why I was very excited to learn that Morgan was not going to merely stop with the big McBusiness, but also focus more attention towards that growing, constantly changing, and always different community at large. With "30 Days" he uses his same technique patented in Super Size Me which consists of someone following a untypical path for thirty days in all hopes that they will experience and see a new facet of America. With each episode an hour long, creator Spurlock gives us the reality-based television that we all desire while also giving us a great glimpse of diversity, opinions, and a constantly changing society. From a binge drinking mother of a party-hard college freshman to that of a heterosexual farm boy living for 30 days in a homosexual community, Spurlock is not afraid to go into a new topic headfirst. We are given the chance to see if stubborn ideals do change, or if it were just an experiment gone bad. Just as Morgan introduces each program, we only learn within the course of "30 Days".
With a powerful jolt of energy and no-holds-bar honesty, Spurlock jumps directly into this series by focusing directly on himself and a current crisis in the United States, which is the minimum wage. For 30 days, Morgan and his fiancée live at the poverty line, experiencing what it would be like to live without - constantly working and sleeping in bug infested apartments - as a typical American. While Morgan poses many other questions through the course of this first season, this initial episode is by far the most shocking. As Morgan and his fiancée struggle, we the viewer, cannot help but see the point that he is trying to make. We see the issue at hand, and just like Super Size Me, he builds thesis backed with extremely detailed points. As our series continues, Morgan does a great job with ideas, but it is ultimately the final result that just doesn't quite pack the same wallop that this initial episode enormously did.
Other topics that Morgan explores in this series is the concept of a Christian living in a Muslim world, a man attempting to defy the issue of aging with medical technology, and my personal favorite (because it was the worst test Morgan did), the effects of binge drinking on a college mother. While I will admit that I could not stop watching this series, I had trouble with some of them because it fell into the classic world of "reality television". By watching this series, we knew that by the end the subject would reconsider their lifestyle; we knew that Morgan's experiment would be somewhat of a success, because most television series like to end on a positive note. We, the viewer, like to think that a person can change and that our world is getting better. I believe that I would have seen more strength and value in this program if Morgan would have chosen subjects that would not change, or chose not to change even being consumed in a new lifestyle for thirty days. I sometimes felt that I could fast-forward to the very end of the episode and already know what the final conclusion was, due to a lacking conflict. What I mean is that in the initial episode, Morgan continued to get hurt, causing monetary issues throughout the experiment, but in the rest, I felt there wasn't this conflict (or eruption of random occurrences), which honestly makes for stronger television.
Don't get me wrong, I thought that this style of programming is very smart and extremely creative, but I just felt that it lacked in the "entertainment" side. I think I was initially caught into this series because of how unique it was, but later found out that was nothing more than a small-screen version of Super Size Me. Again, nothing wrong with this, but I felt that by the end of this initial season, Spurlock was running short of ideas, as well as engrossing combinations. The example that comes to mind was the final (and my least favorite) episode with the binge drinking mother. Why did she do this to herself? Spurlock attempted to make connections between college drinking and a mother drinking the same way, but the overall results seemed muddled and very disconnected. Why would any mother have casual conversations with her daughter about getting "drunk"? This whole episode seemed oddly surreal and completely beyond the normality of any mother/daughter relationship.
Overall, I believe Spurlock to be witty, engaging, and completely intelligent about this series, but it is television (and he does ride the curtails of Super Size Me a bit much), and there is only a certain level that your creativity can go before it becomes stock. I applaud "30 Days" for going above and beyond, and I especially applaud FX (whom I believe is challenging the likes of Showtime and HBO) for bringing this series to light. I will watch the second season, but I will go in a little less excited. I think Spurlock has a winner with this series, he just needs to strengthen his topics, become a bit grittier with his subjects, and really shock his audience like he did with his initial episode.
Grade: *** out of *****
Description of 30 Days - Season 1
From Morgan Spurlock, the Academy Award nominated writer, director, and star of the hit film Supersize Me, comes Thirty Days, the intelligent and innovative TV show that dares to ask: Â"Do we really know what itÂ's like to see the world through our neighborsÂ' eyes?Â"Explore some of AmericaÂ's most pressing social issues by following the lives of ordinary people who agree to live well-outside their comfort zones for thirty days: Spurlock and his fiancÃ(c)e try to make ends meet by working minimum wage jobs, a devout Christian immerses himself in Islamic culture, a homophobic young man goes to live and work in San FranciscoÂ's largely-gay Castro District, and more. Provocative, poignant, and hilarious, Thirty Days is a true originalÂ...often unpredictable and always eye-opening!
A reality show that's entertaining and smart? Sounds about as oxymoronic as it gets, but Morgan Spurlock has pulled it off with 30 Days. With this series (offered here on two discs containing six episodes and a variety of bonus material), Spurlock, who got a 2005 Best Documentary Oscar nomination for Super Size Me, his record of a harrowing month spent on a strict McDonald's-only diet, has effectively taken his act to the not-so-small screen. The premise: put "normal" middle-class Americans (in this case, all of them white) into situations where they are way out of their comfort zones, archetypal fish out of water who must spend 30 days experiencing how the other half lives. Thus we have tales involving a Christian from West Virginia who lives with a Muslim American couple in Dearborn, Michigan; a straight dude from rural Michigan who moves in with a homosexual roommate in San Francisco's Castro District, "the gayest place on Earth;" and a mother in Phoenix who, concerned about her daughter's excessive drinking at college, goes on her own heavy alcohol binge. Spurlock himself is the subject of an episode in which he and his fiancé try to subsist on the minimum wage, while the only one that doesn't fit the mold concerns an out-of-shape 34-year-old man trying to find the fountain of youth by embarking on a strict regimen of exercise, diet, and major doses of steroids and Human Growth Hormone pills.
The stories don't all have happy endings: the Phoenix woman's drinking has no affect whatsoever on her daughter, and the steroid guy drops out when his sperm count almost immediately drops to zero. But the discomfort felt by the others seems genuine, as do the lessons in tolerance and cultural understanding they eventually learn, even given the artificial confines of reality TV. What's more, Spurlock provides some real information along the way, telling us how many drinks it takes to be over the legal limit in Arizona (five shots ought to do it) or how many passages in the Bible are interpreted as proscribing homosexuality (six), detailing the negative side effects of "anti-aging" medicines (too many to list here), and offering insight into such Muslim customs as prayer and fasting (the Christian dresses in Muslim garb and even learns a little Arabic). Extra features include commentary (by Spurlock and others) on four of the episodes, as well as "Diary Cams" (outtakes, basically) for all six. --Sam Graham
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