Morgan Spurlock

Did you think I forgot to watch the season premiere of 30 Days, with all of Tuesday's Democratic nomination wrap up, and the accompanying speech mania? Well, don't worry, because even though this recap is a day late, I still caught the episode which had filmmaker Morgan Spurlock working under the earth's surface for 30 days as a West Virginian coal miner.

Morgan spent his 30 days living with 35-year veteran miner Dale Lusk and his wife Sandy. Every morning before Dale left for the mines at around 2:00 a.m. he wrote Sandy a love note, just in case a disaster prevented him from returning home that day. The episode helped explain what motivates miners like Dale to take such risks — and the biggest incentive seemed to be cash. Dale, who has no college degree, makes over $100,000 a year.

Morgan slowly became accustomed to the dark, and labor-intensive life of a miner. To find out more about his experience, read more

Whether you love him or hate him, you have to admit that Morgan Spurlock knows how to provoke — on screens both big and small. The third season of the Super Size Me director's TV show, 30 Days, premieres tonight on FX, full of new perspective-changing assignments for people who want to spend a month seeing how someone else lives.

Spurlock's first guinea pig is himself: In tonight's episode, he returns to his West Virgina hometown to work for 30 days in a coal mine — a job back in the news recently after several tragic accidents over the past few years. Spurlock assumes the duties of a rookie miner (mostly grunt work including shoveling coal and hauling equipment) while living with his supervisor and using his days off to talk with industry executives, environmentalists, and family members of workers who died in mine explosions. Later episodes this season will find a former NFL player spending 30 days in a wheelchair, an anti-gun activist moving in with a family of sharpshooters, and a hunter spending a month among a group of vegan PETA employees.

I've been impressed with this show in seasons past, and I find it fascinating to see what lessons the participants learn — or don't — by the time their month is up. Will you be tuning in to the show (10 p.m. EDT and PDT)? To check out a preview for the season, just read more

Morgan Spurlock of Where in the World is Osama bin Laden fame is kicking off season three of his TV show 30 Days on June 3 (that's a Tuesday at 10 p.m.) Since Liberty and I don't always see completely eye-to-eye, we're excited to watch the show — and pick sides to root for.

The show takes a look at social issues in America by making people live an alternate life that requires them to "see the world through another's eyes" for — you guessed it — 30 days. The season includes these topics: working in a coal mine, animal rights, living in a wheel chair, same-sex parenting, gun nation and life on an Indian reservation. Who's watching with us?

I must have been in a cave this weekend — or so busy talking about Ben Stein's Expelled that I completely forgot to mention that Morgan Spurlock's new flick, Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden opened this weekend. I've been following this film since way back, and now that it's out it sounds like part of a perfect afternoon — a nice double feature of intelligent design and terrorist hunting. Buzz would approve.

The trailer makes it seem like a wacky romp, which is odd given the sort of global gravity of finding bin Laden, but I'll bet Spurlock has some pretty scathing commentary on the man's elusiveness. Are you going to check it out? The reviews are in if you want to research before investing in a ticket. I wonder what topic Spurlock will take on next? Do you like his affable take on serious issues? Does he give Michael Moore a run for his money?

Morgan Spurlock may be a documentary-maker searching for truth in this crazy mixed-up world, but he’s also largely an entertainer. His work, especially his latest doc Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?, falls into the category of "infotainment" — with an emphasis on the "tainment."

The movie starts with Spurlock describing his awakening from a blissful life to the reality that his wife is pregnant. Suddenly he's tortured by all the horrors in the world that his unborn child might face — including the still-at-large Osama Bin Laden. During a hokey animated intro, he explores these awful things and decides to go on a personal manhunt for Osama Bin Laden — during his wife's pregnacy — because he wants to make the world safer for his baby. The movie then follows this timeline of nine months or so: He has to find Bin Laden and make it back to the U.S. in time for the baby’s delivery. This timing strikes me as ridiculously foolish, and it makes every scene in which Spurlock bemoans the fact that he’s missing his wife’s pregnancy ring empty and false, as this timing was completely his choice.

The timing thing aside, he does go on an exhausting journey to find Bin Laden. He explores the places and institutions that shaped Bin Laden and talks to people who knew him. He also spends a lot of time polling Middle Eastern people on what they think of America, which, you may imagine, is not often favorable. Spurlock actually takes this part somewhat seriously, and it becomes a focus of the film, proving that Bin Laden is from a particular culture that contributed to his perception of America. As one interviewee says to Spurlock, Bin Laden is part of a much larger problem; finding this one man will do nothing to eradicate the root issues.

More of my thoughts on Spurlock's doc if you read more