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The Game Changers-sp

A while back, a doctor suggested to one of us that he look into a “plant-based diet” and gave him a book which he put on his reading list. Well, after this film, he moved it up and now will definitely read it with great interest.

James Wilks, an athlete and someone who has done physical training for the U.S. Marines took up this film project and was the onscreen host of the movie. He enlisted among others as executive producers James Cameron, Jackie Chan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Needless to say they all advocate for the thesis of this film. Under the direction of Louie Psihoyos, they have put together a documentary film that will blow you away and may very well add greatly to your health and longevity.

The game changer is that there is scientific and empirical evidence that a plant-based diet with fruits and vegetables and no meat or even fish will allow you to be a strong, muscular, athletic person and have good health and live longer. A good documentary movie needs to demonstrate things with real people and not just boring scientific facts. In this movie, we meet a host of healthy athletes who lift the heaviest weights, show the most physical endurance running races and all sorts of fighting and other physical competition. We meet football players and other athletes and are also shown scientific research facts which confirms the main point of this movie.

If you care about your health and the health of your family, you have to take this movie seriously. You will want to share it with people that you care about. In a post film discussion with Mr. Wilks, he made the point that this need not be an all or nothing project but the facts and empirical evidence are there and this is a “game changer” of a film which can change your life. (2019)

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Icarus-nf

 The title of this documentary film comes from Greek mythology where Icarus was the son of a man who created a huge maze under the court of King Minos of Crete where a half man half bull creature lived. While the connection to this film may be somewhat convoluted there are at least two characters in the movie who can be viewed as larger than life evil people. One being Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the man who is in charge of the anti-doping lab for Russian athletes and the other I would identify as Russian premier Vladimir Putin who supported and promoted this immoral and illegal activity.

We may have missed the exact details how and why the producer first became connected with Dr. Rodchenkov. It appears that the movie maker Bryan Fogel was an amateur competitive cyclist. He somehow learned that Dr. Rodchenkov located in Russia not only ran the Russian testing labs for Russian athletes but also knew how to have athletes inject themselves with performance enhancing drugs and not be caught when there was subsequent urine testing. We are not sure how and why the good doctor, after several Skype conversations with Bryan Fogel, agreed to teach him how to inject himself and significantly improve his competitive cycling performance.

However this amazing film then goes on to show in vivid documentary form how the Russian competitive athletes who are competing in a variety of international sports including the Olympics regularly, illegally injected themselves with performance enhancing drugs. In addition, Dr. Rodchenkov was the person who designed an elaborate testing procedure for all athletes during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. The procedure as it appeared to the outside world was foolproof with several techniques to guard against illegal cheating and manipulation of urine samples. However, in fact, the set-up allowed the Russians to cheat and have their athletes test clear while they were doped up with these illegal drugs. The movie ends with Dr. Rodchenkov going into the witness protection program in the United States and Bryan Fogel producing this award winning, fascinating and very revealing documentary movie. (2017)

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