(Below is the film's full title below, for sponsorship reasons!)
POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (12)
(This review on FilmJuice.com)
Morgan Spurlock’s latest documentary (brought to you by POM Wonderful...) is an uproarious look at product placement and advertising in the entertainment industries, itself funded by product placement and sponsorships! After a whirlwind introduction to its themes, we see Spurlock pitching the film’s concept to potential sponsors and branding partners. At this point he doesn’t know whether his ingenious idea will work: to reveal the inner workings of film advertising and co-promotion, whilst simultaneously pitching for funds to get the film made! As the poster declared, ‘He’s not selling out, he’s buying in.’
Spurlock’s aim was to raise awareness of the pervasiveness of advertising in the entertainment industries, and to unpack how the world’s biggest blockbusters (cough Avatar cough...) make their billions with the help of sponsors and branding. He more than succeeds, with unexpected facts and revelations galore about marketing. Candid interviews with big name directors from J.J. Abrams to Quentin Tarantino give the film added weight (Avatar producer Jon Landau probably declined to comment).
Anyone who has seen Spurlock’s acclaimed (and infamous) documentary Super Size Me, will be familiar with his breezy and engrossing style of filmmaking. This film builds on that style with even more polish and watchability. In his 2011 television series 50 Documentaries to See Before You Die, Spurlock coined the term ‘gateway documentary’, meaning a documentary so accessible and universal that it serves well as an introduction to the genre. The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is so packed with infectious charm and ironic laughs, that it might just be the greatest gateway doc ever.
As Spurlock signs deal after deal with various sponsors, he soon faces a real conflict between maintaining artistic control (it’s made all too plain that sponsors couldn’t care less about art) and losing that control to the sponsors and branding partners, who use endless contracts to protect themselves against libel. Even though it’s obvious before watching that Spurlock succeeded in getting the film made, it remains fascinating to watch how he explores the line between selling out and buying in.
Particularly eyeopening is the Clockwork Orange-esque method used to vet and refine many Hollywood trailers and T.V. adverts, in order to provoke the most positive audience response possible. Test audiences are monitored by CAT scan machines whilst being shown various edits of unfinished trailers and adverts, with activity in the parts of their brain that elicit emotional responses recorded.
The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is mind tinglingly insightful, from facts on the deliberately stupefying effects of advertising (because it can’t work on the sceptical or questioning!) to the strange beauty of São Paulo in Brazil, where all outdoor advertising has been banned. If there’s a conclusion, it is that advertising is so pervasive in today’s world that to avoid it you either have to go to sleep, or to São Paolo.
Extras: Workin’ Nine to Five (am): POM Behind-the-Scenes, The Greatest Vacation Destination: Aruba, Deleted Scenes, Delving into the Consumer Unconscious: Extended Scene, The Greatest Commercials You’ll Ever See.
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