The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

Futurama had an episode that submitted in the year 3000 advertisers will be able to send signals in the air that put commercials into people's dreams. Funny that Ralph Nader mentions sleep as the last place you can go to escape ads. In today's world, they're pervasive. It's a good topic for an amusing and entertaining filmmaker (Morgan Spurlock, who previously had success with his anti-fast food pic Super Size Me). Much as with Super Size Me, Spurlock pulls a stunt; this documentary is funded by product placement.

There are certain limitations inherent in such a project. Make a film against product placement, and the worst offenders will not want to help it. In the end he mostly finds businesses I've never heard of (Ban, Sheetz). So we don't see how the bigger corporations go about product placement. That said, we see a bit of how it works, as Spurlock's sponsors send him contracts making various demands.

At times it seems this movie is more about itself than product placement generally, but we do have some good discussions spread throughout the film. It is true blatant advertising is insulting, yet the film poses the question of whether subtle advertising is more dangerous. The presentation is funny, including with the Mane 'n Tail material. (Why didn't that company pay for the publicity? They even got a Wikipedia page because of this movie). The film has some good music and I can testify that it looks great on Blu-ray. The Greatest Movie Ever Sold may not be the greatest documentary, but it's worth a look.

Morgon Spurlock is the director famous for the documentary about McDonalds . This time he tackles the issue of product placement in the movies. By doing so he get's companies to pay for the making of this film by cramming it with their own product placement brands.

The problem i have is that this is not a film at all. It's not even a documentary really. It compromises itself from the start and therefore it has absolutely no cutting edge. Sure , it gives you some insight into what goes on with companies and how much they are willing to pay to get their products on screen but that is not enough to keep an audience engaged.

Spurlock has a likable air about him but I'm not convinced he is movie maker at all. The title should be reported to the trade descriptions people as it's not great and it's not a movie and i certainly never bought into it.

Director Morgan Spurlock analyzes the world of product placement and advertising in film, transportation, and cities, but in an ironic twist, needs sponsors of his own to finance the film.

He's very gleeful in giving the film a quirky, humorous tone (Especially commercials for his sponsors that randomly interject every now and then), but I think he was so focused on the humor of his film, he didn't properly tune his information.

The facts come fast and furious, and are very dense in explanation. Spurlock adds a seemingly endless trail of self references and humor, when he should be drawing more focus on his points within the film. And on top of that, none of it is really all that enlightening.

Hopefully I find better documentaries this year, because after an unusual high from last year, this year starts off not with a bang, but more of a whimper.

**1/2 out of ****

Morgan Spurlock has delivered a fascinating satire of the process of placing products into movies and the ubiquitous nature of advertising in our society. He takes us inside the process by showing us what it takes to make a movie and to gain corporate sponsorship for it. He allows us to see the process by getting corporations to underwrite his movie about product placement. He uses humor – as he did with fast food in Super Size Me - to point to the insidious way into which advertising has slipped into film-making and become a major part of its profit model of film making. He isn't the first one to do this, of course. Feature films like Thank You for Smoking and The Truman Show have pointed out this phenomenon. Steve Colbert has also does so regularly on his show. Still by putting it into a documentary form, Spurlock has taken the critique to a new level. The sponsoring companies will likely benefit through their association with his humorous critique of corporate America. The movie-going public will benefit if they become more cognizant of the pervasive nature advertising in films. Spurlock has shown us yet again that it is much easier to get the public to listen to critiques our economic system if they are delivered with a good-natured sense of humor.

Some people would have you believe that Spurlock is trying to dupe his audience and exploit advertisers for profit, like this is a BAD thing. But that's just it - it's not. After you see this movie, you might actually notice the subtle, insidious advertising which is omnipresent in our society. he rubs your face in it, exposes some of the inner-workings of the ad-market and tries his hardest not to look like a whore all the while.

Let's not forget Spurlock's masochistic endeavor to eat McDonalds 3x daily for a month. Is that not genuine? This time he lays his reputation on the line instead of his health, and to those who are offended by it: are you less offended by movies that use product placement shamelessly without informing the audience? Spurlock had to walk a thin line to make this movie, and I think he walked it beautifully.