Directed by Morgan Spurlock
Morgan Spurlock’s documentaries always begin with an incredible premise that you can’t help finding intriguing, and POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is certainly no exception.
This time, Spurlock sets out to see how much product placement he can sell for a single film. The results are surprising, especially as Spurlock visits company after company, getting them to sign on to place their brands in his film. It’s quite an interesting look into the process of marketing through product placement, and Spurlock investigates advertising on television and in movies through revealing interviews with a number of subjects as diverse as Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, Brett Ratner, Big Boi, Quentin Tarantino (who humorously recalls how advertisers refused to let their brands be mentioned in his early films!), and brand managers, founders, and other marketing professionals from a number of companies.
The film is stocked with Spurlock’s trademark humor, of course.
The film is expertly cut to heighten the comedy, and there are several laugh-out-loud moments (who knew that Ralph Nader would come across as so delightfully funny?) The whole film is a revealing look at consumer culture and the amount of advertising in Hollywood films and TV shows that audiences have become blind to. One of Spurlock’s recurring jokes is to talk with one of the interview subjects about how blatant producers can be in featuring a product on a show or in a movie, while prominently displaying one of his own sponsors’ logos for the camera.
POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is a must for anyone interested in the business of advertising, and in understanding how inextricably linked Hollywood film and television have become with product sponsorship.
