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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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Entertaining!
I enjoyed this movie very much. It gives you an idea of how the body builders of that era got ready for comp by training, eating, posing practices, etc. Even if you arent a future body builder, it is worth the watch. The infamous scenes of Arnold smoking pot, and claiming that the "pump" is better than "cumming" are classic.
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Absolute Gem!
What can I say, its an Arnie classic!!! The additional material is great as well, gives a really good insight into the movie and the time it was made.
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Tons of great stuff
This is a very entertaining "documentary" for anyone in the bodybuilding community, and probably fairly entertaining for anyone else.
The special features have some great clips and insight to the movie that are definitely worth seeing.
You are missing out if you do not watch them.
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Pumping Iron - A Classic For Anyone Competing in Sports
I remember having seen this when it first came out. Of course I was much younger then, and who would have ever guessed that Arnold would go on to become not only an action movie mega-star (Conan, Predator, Commando, True Lies with hottie Jamie Lee Curtis!
, etc.) but the Governor of California no less! The movie has the qualities of a documentary, but the main reason I bought it is that my 17-year old son has been lifting weights for about one year and is really getting into it. After seeing this movie, he's more "pumped up" than ever! And so am I!! I've been working out for about 7 weeks quite intensively, and now I want to work out even harder. This is a must see for anyone who can use that extra dose of motivation.
Rating: - The quiet classic
I don't recall if "Rocky I" came first, but "Pumping Iron" is anothe period piece which really connected with the public. With Rocky Marciano/Charles Atlas/Sly Stallone images in our head, we wondered if we too could join a gym and go a few rounds....
It's interesting to watch this low-key oddball with 2008 vision. Body-building was not really considered a competitive "sport" to be taken seriously and it had no firm infrastructure in the marketplace. The workout settings were pretty funky. Just like Rocky's.
I'm not sure if the Governor formerly known as the Bodybuilder had the most beneficial technique (against present day standards), but still it was all huffing and pufing and bumping and grinding with loose weights. What was "nautilus" then?
There are many poignant scenes with Lou Ferrigno and his Father, who apparently was included in the filming because he was lens-friendly and had a commanding presence, which fit right in, as it's been suggested that Lou was considered "learning disabled" by some, and so his family was around to remind people that he may not express himself at the level he thinks.
The big star (though of course Lou went on to fame on TV) was Arnold, who is a dominating presence, whose sense of humour and perceptiveness provides an interesting counterpoint to the corporeal setting. There's also something arrogant about him, but a successful athlete shows his "game face" and uses it for leverage...and attention.
It is revealing when AS drops his poses and says at the end...I'm through folks. It was on to Washington (?). (By way of California and Massachusetts and California).
The extras are interesting for a while - apparently filmed around 2001 - but somehow they diminish the actual documentary. Reminds me of the Muhammad Ali "When We Were Kings" video I bought - the contemporary dialogue by those who were there in 1974 and those who weren't just puts the whole historic event in an overly ornate box.
