FreeKittensMovieGuide.com has a positive review of the new competitive eating documentary “Scarf Face”:

The unexpected deaths of a few eaters notwithstanding, Scarf Face is a highly amusing documentary that cleverly subverts the self-importance displayed by its subjects. But even if one shares the opinion that gorging on dangerous amounts of food somehow qualifies as a sport, the film is a fascinating look at what makes these people tick.

The review includes a list of extras for the DVD that will go on sale June 7:

INTERVIEW THE WALT HICKEY – Hickey is a writer who often covers competitive eating events, and humorously questions the claim that Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest has really been going on for 100 years.

INTERVIEW WITH ED “COOKIE” JARVIS – A former MLE competitive eater who’s lost a ton of weight and has no love for the MLE.

OUTTAKES WITH ACTOR DAVE SWEENEY – Outside of his appearance in this film, I don’t know who he is either.

COMPETITIVE EATER DEATH SEGMENT – One which was featured in the film, one which wasn’t…a radio station water drinking contest which resulted in a woman’s death.

EXTENDED GYOZA-EATING SCENE

AUDIO COMMENTARY – By directors Joseph Ruzer & Sean Salter

TRAILER

The only competitive eating article from Walt Hickey I could find was a preview of the 2016 Nathan’s finals for 538.

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Crow’s Theatre in Leslieville, ON will show “CHEW: A Gastronomical Musical Odyssey into the Strange World of Competitive Eating” on June 3. The documentary will be screened online and tickets will include a home-delivered meal. The film has the following description:

As one competitor puts it: “It’s like a standing-still parade. We just happen to be eating food.” Over the course of several years, Montreal playwright Sarah Segal-Lazar interviewed dozens of competitive eaters in Canada and the States to figure out what drives them to stretch their stomachs beyond comprehension. Inspired by London Road and A Chorus Line, co-creators Segal-Lazar, Anika Johnson and Andrew Kushnir have discovered the ideal container for the excesses of the sport: a musical. Chew takes documentary theatre to new places, and competitive eating to new limits. Whether it’s tucking away tamales in Texas or pulverising pretzels in Providence, the reasons we do unreasonable things can be most surprising of all.

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Japan Times has an interview with Takeru Kobayashi about The Good, The Bad, The Hungry. He says that while he is pleased with the film, it did not fully convey his side of his dispute with MLE.

The documentary showed my rivalry with Joey Chestnut, but I had more of a problem with George Shea,” he says. “He used Joey Chestnut to conceal the fact that he had a problem with me. George Shea was employed by Nathan’s, so if you look at the bigger picture, the problem was really between me and Nathan’s. That doesn’t come across in the documentary.

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Here are the results for Takeru Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut in the 15 contests they competed against each other. Kobayashi had the higher finish in 8 of the competitions.
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Daily Beast has an interview with Takeru Kobayashi where he expands on recent critical comments made on twitter about Joey Chestnut:

If you ask me, do I want to compete with him? Mmm, not necessarily. I don’t even want to be in the same room with him. The face he gives you in the movie—he says something different every time, so it’s difficult for me to trust that those are his words, or if they’re George Shea’s scripted words, and where his feelings are coming from. It’s stressful for me to compete against, much less be around, a person who has that kind of personality. So I just choose not to be around him.

and George Shea:

It’s a manipulation game for him. If I always have to wonder what the truth is, or that they’re going to manipulate the truth when I’m taking something so seriously—I can’t be around a human that I can’t trust.

Kobayashi also mentions an upcoming alternative competitive eating league. He will attend a watch party for The Good, The Bad, The Hungry tonight at Rochelle’s in Manhattan.

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The ESPN schedule for early July is now out. The men’s Nathan’s finals will be televised on ESPN at noon Eastern and rerun at 3PM and 4PM. The women’s finals will be streamed on ESPN3 for the ninth consecutive year. (ESPN2 will be showing First Take during the women’s Nathan’s finals). ESPN3 will also show camera feeds focused on Joey Chestnut and Miki Sudo.

The Good, The Bad, The Hungry will be televised on ESPN on July 2 at 8 pm and be rerun at 9:30 pm.

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Newsday has an article about the upcoming ESPN competitive eating documentary The Good, The Bad, The Hungry directed by Nicole Lucas Haimes which includes the following quotes from Joey Chestnut about the MLE contract.

“She opened my eyes,” Chestnut, who has won 11 of the past 12 contests, said of Haimes. “Honestly, I’m so competitive that sometimes I don’t understand what other people are going through . . . I realized doing interviews that, ‘Oh my God, I was pretty insensitive to [Kobayashi’s] problems.’

“I had the same problems when I got older. I wanted more freedom, and eventually they gave me the same things he was asking for. So it’s sad that we had to lose years of competing against each other . . . . When he decided to protest his contract, I saw that as a way of not competing, a reason not to compete.

“But later I thought it took some serious guts to step away from the biggest contest of the year, and something you love. He loves it. He loves it as much as I do . . . If we had communicated more we could have helped him to solve his contract issue and continued competing against each other.”

Fink Beats the Stomach’s latest podcast includes a review of the documentary.

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