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Pumping Iron - The 25th Anniversary Special Edition Customer Reviews (10 - 12 of 35 Reviews)

great movie for meat heads
great look at how bodybuilders prepare for contests with interesting commentary but the always entertaining arnold and lou ferigno and his father. True bodybuilders will be disappointed the movie doesnt go into the steroid use involved with preparing for a pro bodybuilding show. Seeing Arnold and Lou shoot the juice would have been great, and advice on roid stacks also would be benefitting to real hardcore bodybuilders, which is probably this films main audience. great film, otherwise.

THE Bodybuilding Docudrama that Reshaped Hollywood
The opening scene of "Pumping Iron" sees Arnold Schwarzenegger and his workout buddy Franco Columbu taking ballet classes to improve their competitive stage presentation and is every bit as interesting as the rest of the things you have heard about "Pumping Iron" and then some more. Not only does its star make "Pumping Iron" a massive seventies docudrama, but this docudrama made its star a massive actor. Based on the book of the same title, director George Butler asked the then twenty-eight year old, five times winning Mr. Olympia, to help them shine light on the world of bodybuilding, a subject that had been perceived as something to do with men with inferiority complexes, with advertisements for muscle gain programs relegated to the back pages of comic books, now bodybuilding technique had matured enough to offer true athletic ability with a large potential for discovering new things about the human body that where not considered possible before. Schwarzenegger, an Austrian immigrant, brought the film crew to "Gold's Gym" in sunny California to capture him in training, yet instead of showing us boring set after set of workout repetitions, "Pumping Iron" follows the competition in the guise of various bodybuilding characters, from the family man, Mike Katz, with a chest like a truck, to the curly haired symmetrical powerhouse bad guy, Ken Waller, who likes to hide a bodybuilder's T-shirt on the day of the competition to psyche him out during the Mr. Universe finals. The central story revolves around Arnold's ego, the size of which even NASA could not launch into space, and a shy deaf kid from New York, Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk in the television series) who idolizes Arnold and with the help of his domineering father trains to take the title away from his hero. The preparation for the 1975 Mr. Olympia, to be held in Pretoria, which was to be the first ever multiracial sports event in South Africa, is portrayed by moving back and forth between the luminous veils of the west coast and the industrial compound of New York City where we see the men of bronze pushing themselves to the limit by lifting weights that would be enough to fall a horse. All the big names of the bodybuilding world are here - Reg Park, Roger Callard, Ed Corney, Serge Nubret, Robbie Robinson and Joe Weider. Arnold's `little' partner, Franco Columbu, pulls a number of stunts like lifting a car and blowing up a hot water bottle like a balloon, while the Austrian Oak talks about how the feeling of getting pumped is like cumming with a woman, debates his passion by explaining how he didn't turn up to his father's funeral because he was too busy training or decides to smoke a joint on camera, all of which are controversial Arnie topics till this very day, but the important `thirty years later' DVD extras do shed light on some of these moments, along with important questions about steroid abuse. The highlight of "Pumping Iron" is when Arnold pulls off a Mr. Olympia stage shift where he pumps himself up like a puffer fish... you have never seen Arnold this big before, nor will we again. This is the movie that spawned numerous gyms across the globe so that people could get into shape. Coupled with Arnold's book "Encylopedia of Modern Bodybuiling", this DVD certainly is the modern bodybuilder's #1 motivation tool and the bodybuilding docudrama that reshaped Hollywood.

This film is BACK!
This is an inspiring and extremely entertaining film.
Like all great documentaries, it educates you about
its subject while entertaining you. Pure brilliance.

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