All You Can Eat

It was the great Christopher Hitchens who said " Europeans think Americans are fat , vulgar , greedy , stupid , ambitious , ignorant and so on . In Michael Moore they have adopted as someone of their own who actually embodies all these qualities " Cruel but fair and containing a lot of truth . It's true the average European isn't going to be brainwashed in to thinking the average American looks like the casting call of a BAYWATCH episode but more in the way of something from a DOCTOR WHO episode titled Attack Of The Mutant Salad Dodgers . I had to double check ALL YOU CAN EAT wasn't actually a British short film disguised as an American one because the whole feel of this film screams " Euro-centric view " at every turn so I'm guessing in its favour it does deserve some congratulations that Americans can laugh at themselves . Totally awesome dude

That said the satire does seem very forced but I've got to confess I've never been too taken by this type of knowing satire , I didn't even like THIS IS SPINAL TAP so what do I know ? Randy Stormberg is one of these characters who you know all too well from whatever part of the world you're from in that he's larger than life and the soul of the soon party when the cameras are on him , then as soon as the cameras stop filming he's someone else entirely . There's so many TV personalities like that out in the real world and you wonder what someone like Chris Hansen might be getting up to in his days off . Oh hold on ....

Where ALL YOU CAN EAT suffers slightly is like most of these spoof documentaries it tries a little bit too hard to be fly on the wall and spontaneous and it's near impossible to capture the meta-physical concept and reality of a true life documentary . It also instinctively sickens me watching some greedy guts stuffing their fat face at every opportunity ans I'm speaking as someone who is five foot nine inches tall , weighs about 160 pounds and has seen a lot of low grade torture porn cinema . Perhaps the greatest failing is that Randy is so unlikable . I see that's the whole point of the character but when you compare him to our own Alan Patridge he comes across as being a difficult target for making fun of in comparison . Sometimes Brits still lead the way

Randy Stormberg (Matthew Warzel) is the host of a TV show that travels about the US looking to show off the food of various restaurants. However, it's obvious that Randy is a phony--he hates the job, he hates the food and his enthusiasm is all an act. He can't wait to get another job and the film follows him during the last days of his TV series.

Unless you have seen the actual show that "All You Can Eat" is obviously parodying, you probably won't enjoy this short very much. However, I HAVE seen the actual show (and if I mention it, I think IMDb will not be happy) and tried a couple 'dives' they recommended--and they were TERRIBLE! So, for me, seeing "All You Can Eat" was a real treat, as you get to see just how phony some food shows and food show hosts can be! Not a particularly deep or sensational short film--but one I really, really appreciate.

One of the marks of a good film is that it can draw you into its world, take you where you need to go and tell you a lot simply by virtue of being there. All You Can Eat stands out as a really strong short film because of how quickly and (seemingly) effortlessly it puts you right in the middle of the world, the people and the place with almost every single part of it. What we have here is a scene of one of countless brash "character-driven" reality shows that personally I do not care for but I know drive some networks and pull in millions. In this case we have a Food Network show with a larger than life character who hope for more but really pushes his "big fun character" any time the camera is on. It is eating him up inside and the show itself is as fake and forced as he feels his life is.

There isn't really a plot here so much as there is an impression and this impression is one of faked showmanship, emptiness and a total lack of actual humanity – and it is an impression that this short delivers really well and feels accurate from the first frame till the last. The fly-on-the-wall camera style suits the making of the "show" itself and feels very well joined together to give the film a flowing sense of freedom which adds to the realism and natural air it has. It is very well constructed (made by two people on spare time from the crew of Iron Man 3) but the real cherry is the performance from Warzel.

Although his character is fairly straightforward (sad on the inside clown), Warzel really sells it by just how natural he is, he never feels like he is acting and as a result he is the heart of the film and everything else just builds around him to make the film even stronger. The "meaning" may not be hugely enlightening or controversial but it is still impacting by how utterly true and well observed it feels. It is a simple short but it is one that knows itself incredibly well and delivers an accurate, natural and convincing situation from the camera style through to the performance from Warel. A very strong short film.