Customer Reviews

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I sat through Morgan Spurlock's The Greatest Movie ever sold with fascination, but when it concluded, I wondered where was the film? Spurlock's idea is ingenious. One that very few people could have dared, and pulled of. He makes a film about the difficulty of finding sponsors to give funding for a project. The film however is the mission to meet with sponsors and advertisers; in other words, this seems like a behind the scenes sort of preproduction of funding your project. The money is going towards the film itself which IS the journey to get the funding. With commercials from official sponsors, one wonders if Spurlock himself is embracing the commercial enterprise. In other words, when does a spoof become to close to the subject it lampoons or critiques?

What I always enjoy about Spurlock, including here, is that even though he may disagree with advertising or the nutritional benefits of McDonalds, he appears for a large majority of his films as quite fair and balanced; unlike some people who from the get go detest their subject-*cough* Bill Maher. He actually gets in the game, calls countless companies and corporations for a deal, and gets rejected countless times for good reason. Not many companies would feel great about helping a film that is trying to demonstrate the intrusion of product placement in films. However, he eventually does get a good number of sponsors willing to spend from $25,000 to upwards of a million. Yet, the money is not delivered on the spot. There are countless contractual obligations that need to be followed so the rights of both sides are not compromised.

Morgan Spurlock is not Michael Moore. It's not that Moore is better or ruder than Spurlock, but that their styles differ. This shows for better and worse in this project. First of all, from Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, to the demanding people at POM, Spurlock is as respectful and cooperative as one can be. There is no sense of superiority on Spurlock's behalf. We get that this is a nice friendly guy. This helps to understand and enjoy Spurlock's point of view. However, what Spurlock is not is an adept interviewer. Noam Chomsky and Quentin Tarantino are fascinating subjects, for completely different reasons, but Spurlock asks them a question or two, and they are forgotten forever. He is inquisitive, but a Moore would push for more information, and really get down to the meat of the issue.

We all know that marketing, advertising, and product placement play a big role in the film business, but Spurlock shows it in its very extreme. He isn't revealing it, but he approaches the issue through film, knowing that advertising touches every section of art. Where it gets most unfortunate is when these corporate powers enters the school: an institution that should be devoid of corporation's reach. A big issue for Spurlock is whether this project will turn him in to a new man who embraces product placement in his work. For many, this may not be a problem, but for him it definitely seems to be.

Rather than being insightful, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is passionate and funny coming from a man who cares about these issues, and deep-down obviously abhors advertising's intrusion in every part of our daily lives. A downside to the film is the ending. Unlike Supersize Me where one could come back with a moral or conclusion, such as "don't eat frequently at McDonalds, till it goes bankrupt" the conclusion of this work suggests there is no way to win against advertising. The only rescue to confide in nature to escape the wicked nature of today's ever increasing commercial world. There is no solution, but only a few routes of escape from such despicable activities. Many things don't get better with time, and it seems that advertising will only debase art more and more as time moves on.

As the credits roll on this documentary I can't help but feel... unfulfilled. I expected so much more from the film, perhaps this is Spurlock's idea of artistic irony. With all the hype and all the potential I was waiting for the curtain to be yanked back on advertising, it shown bare for the offensive beast that it is. Like with previous documentaries of this genre, you indulge the setup but are really waiting for the one-two punch to come and deliver the knockout. However that's not the story that's being told. It starts as Morgan talks to these sponsors and pitches them his ideas, as one would imagine the smart ones back off because they're not looking to have their image roughed up, and pay for it in the process. Eventually some willing brands do join on but as you're anticipating the movie will progress into something more you slowly realize that's not what's going to happen. Once the backers for the film are secured, the branding process is explained and Morgan proceeds to become sold. Yes there are some points here or there where he talks about the damage advertising is doing, and how we could better get along without it, but that's maybe a total of fifteen minutes of the films entirety. Perhaps I'm naive to think that he could get all this corporate backing and still beat them to death with the truth, but that's what I've come to expect from a Spurlock production. For him to lull the marks into a false sense of security only to be secretly be fighting "the man" the whole time. I came away with no real revelations of how the advertising companies worked, no great lessons were learned. He kept eluding to all these "inner workings" that he was being privy to, but the audience doesn't truly see any of that. Instead he does just what every other movie would do, he took the sponsors money, he stroked their ego, and that was it! Again yes there were a few jabs here or there, but nothing awe inspiring. I just felt the documentary was billed as film that exposed the evils of advertising bought and sold by the advertisers themselves. That the genius of it was, he was showing the audience how they were being duped and the people doing the duping were financing the actual "dupe-age" of themselves! As I said in the beginning, maybe this is Morgan's idea of irony, that instead of sticking it to them, he totally played along, and the true evil exposed is the documentary itself. While that's very poetic, it's just not what I was expecting. Either way I still gave it three stars for bringing some kind of light to the idea that media and advertising are manipulating society. At the end of the day that still remains a noble cause in my book. Watch the movie yourself and take from it what you may.

Our family is fascinated with media manipulation and the recent popularity of dystopian novels. We feel the two have much in common and continually talk about what people will believe and what they are manipulated to believe by the "media gods". The dystopia's popularity emphasizes the realization that we are not the great society be should be and the desire for people to wake up to the ways they are being manipulated by others. Advertising is just one of the ways people are being manipulated today.

Morgan Spurlock wanted to make a movie about product placement in movies and the manipulation of companies to make consumers believe their product will affect their lives and to make movie directors believe that they have some control over the outcome of their movies message because of the money they invest in the movie to make it happen. In a very ironic twist, Morgan Spurlock wanted to use product placement in his own movie and fund his movie with these companies. Would he be able to do it and keep his own integrity or ideal of what he wanted the movie to say or would he be just another media prostitute, whose movie's message would be dictated by the product placement companies? What we found was that it was a combination of both. He was able to keep the final approval on his movie, but he had to compromise on the infomercials inside his movie to that of the sponsors, especially POM, who gave him a million dollars to fund his movie.

At one point, Morgan Spurlock had a MRI done as an example of nuero-marketing, which is the next big thing in advertising manipulation. That was interesting in a "Brave New World" sort of way. Another point showed a city in Brazil, São Paulo that had passed laws prohibiting outside advertising in order to see the beauty of their city. As one shop owner said, "We have to work to get the customer's approval. Most of our business comes from word of mouth". How innovative.

As a caution, our whole family did not watch this as some of the product companies' spokesmen were foul-mouthed and even the host himself is crude; another way in which life copies art. As in "Super Size Me", this movie was informative and yet, not without its obvious outcome.

Would I/Did I buy it? No
Would I watch it again? No
Would I recommend it to friends? Yes, but with cautions

Fun, interesting, and insightful for those not in the industry. Even if you are on the inside, its a good laugh at what we deal with as its all caught live and mostly spot on.

Great buy!!

I found it to be pretty entertaining and a decent look behind the scenes of brand integration. It's definitely a one time showing though. There are some who would say this is nothing more than a 90 minute commercial.. Well what do you expect?

PS - Now I need to get me some POM Wonderful!

Lots of fun and surprisingly suspenseful. This was a truly entertaining film. I look forward to the sequel and to buying a bottle of POM Wonderful on my next trip to the grocery store!

I really liked this movie, more than I thought I would. The commentary had a lot of extra insight in to the making of the movie. I would recommend this to film students and people that just want a good entertaining doc.

The complete corruption of modern media by commercialization could not be more brilliantly presented in this very funny, very tragic documentary told tongue very firmly in cheek by Morgan Spurlock. It's actually a metaphor also for the corruption of the soul, which is what it would have to be: if the society is decaying, then obviously the individuals within it also are. That's heavy, but the film is not, which is its brilliance. A zeitgeist film for the 10 decade.

An idea never done before in a movie about advertiseing.
This movie is way better than what would jesus buy ?
If you love super size me , Go see this one !

Like Michael Moore, documentarian Morgan Spurlock makes film which try to entertain as well as inform. Of course, these directors' films are subjective; the director showing you what they want to. I missed Spurlock's previous film, "Super Size Me", mainly because I understood some of the footage was fairly graphic. (This film is not graphic, but rated PG for a bit of adult language - sometimes from the CEO's of major corporations.)

I've always been fascinated by advertising and remember reading Vance Packard's classic book "The Hidden Persuaders" in 1957! Back then there was "subliminal advertising" but not as much "product placement" as there is today. Packard's book is mentioned in the film (actually in one of the "deleted scenes") by consumer advocate Ralph Nader. (This 5 minute deleted scene is one worth watching after you've seen the feature.) But Spurlock is out to talk about paid product placement and use that concept to fund his film. And he does. There are about six MAJOR funders - the largest (at $1million) is POM, with others like Ban Deodorant ($500,000), Hyatt Hotels and Cooper autos- who financed the film's production. Other reviewers may mention Maine & Tail Shampoo (a product that can be used by humans and horses equally) but - as you will see on the screen - that company did not pay for their inclusion in the film. The film does contain LOTS of other ad images and I'm not sure these companies contributed.

While I was drawn into the film at the beginning, it did drag a bit and might have been edited tighter. It's interesting to watch the original Theatrical Trailer included with the bonus features. Nearly all the footage from this 2-½ minute "trailer" appears in the first 20 minutes of the actual film! I also wondered if anyone else questioned how Spurlock could include what is presented to be a guest appearance by Spurlock on the Jimmy Kimmel Live TV show promoting the film which Kimmel says "opens this weekend". Was this staged? Spurlock doesn't say but it obviously must be.

Spurlock did have access to some well known Hollywood and TV scriptwriters like John Wells and Quentin Tarantino (who says that products most folks think were purposely added to "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction" were not planned). And we learn that - surprise! - often writers are forced by a film or show's producers to insert product names in their scripts.

The other bonuses on the DVD include a Director Commentary (which I did not listen to), half a dozen outtakes, a few commercials that Spurlock created (Jet Blue, Hyatt), and a behind the scenes featurette. (But a behind-the-scenes at a film that is actually a behind-the-scenes is, well, redundant.)

If you have an interest in advertising you'll want to see this film. If you want to learn what the 21st Century version of "The Hidden Persuaders" is, you'll want to see this also. But, be prepared for few boring moments as well.

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"