Pumping Iron

This is it, the film that gave us Arnold Schwarzenegger. As famous/infamous as this documentary is, I’d never seen it, and so didn’t really know much of what to expect (other than the famous scene where you see Arnie smoking a joint after he wins the title). I did enjoy this, although you have to take it more as a “slice of life/day in the life” kind of presentation on the topic, instead of something that really tries to examine and explain a particular topic. There’s barely any narration, and so it’s just mostly light interviews with all of the people involved, and the dialogue bits that happen as the cameras follow these dudes in their quest to, well, pump iron like no man has pumped iron before. But it was pretty entertaining, and yes, Arnie shines through, and it’s fun to see the machiavellian tendencies he reveals (“I can just tell him to do the wrong thing”).