The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (12)

The new documentary from the man who brought you Super Size Me is out on DVD & Blu-ray this Monday 27th February.

(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.

Jack Goes Boating (15)

Fantastic film from one of the best actors in the world, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Out on DVD & Blu-ray Monday 27th Feb.

Jack Goes Boating (15) (This review on FilmJuice.com)

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s directorial debut is a blistering gem of a bittersweet romance. Adapted for the screen by Robert Glaudini from his own play of the same title, the story follows the love lives of four central characters. The titular Jack is a sensitive soul trying to make the best of his average life, and is inexperienced when it comes to relationships. One day he decides to take a chance and go on a blind date at the recommendation of close friend Clyde (John Ortiz). Connie, Jack’s date (the lovely Amy Ryan) hints that she’d love to go boating one day, and so Jack learns to swim so that he can make her wish come true.

Clyde and his wife Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega) are almost parent-like figures to Jack, as they advise and enable him to woo Connie, with whom he hits it off from day one. They seem a perfect match, each as timid and unpretentious as the other. At the other end of the spectrum Clyde and Lucy’s marriage is showing some serious cracks, as past indiscretions gnaw on their minds and ruin the good that they have. Jack witnesses these painful realities and has to decide whether to take the enormous risks that go with starting a relationship. As always Hoffman plays the part with incomparable intensity.

The plot unfolds with a wealth of delicious dark humour, played to perfection by the accomplished thespians. The writing is a real treat, with some of the most interesting and believable dialogue this side of (vintage) Tarantino. The characters and their relationships are revealed layer by layer with such intricacy and finesse, that reading the screenplay could be compared to dismantling and admiring a fine Swiss cuckoo clock.

Hoffman, Ortiz and Rubin-Vega also starred in the stage play, so clearly it’s a story with characters close to their hearts. The character’s frailties and strengths are painted so vividly that even the absurdity that marks some of their behaviour rings true. At times the film feels a little too much like ‘the Philip Seymour Hoffman show’, with the director letting the camera dwell for longer than perhaps is necessary on his latest powerhouse performance. But on the other hand the man is an undeniable genius in front of the camera even he if he isn’t quite one behind it (yet), and so maybe that isn’t such a bad thing.

Hoffman’s fluid direction coupled with an efficient edit make the film all the more absorbing, and the soundtrack has all the charm and beauty of the very best low budget indies (think Little Miss Sunshine but with more variety). Simply put, Jack Goes Boating is an affecting, unmissable delight.

Extras: UK theatrical trailer, Philip Seymour Hoffman UK Press Conference, Cast interviews.

Johnny English Reborn (PG)

Disappointing and belated spy spoof sequel released on DVD and Blu-ray Monday 13th Feb.

Johnny English Reborn (PG) (This review on FilmJuice.com)

Rowan Atkinson returns as bumbling 007-esque hero Johnny English, and to say that the results are mixed would be kind to say the least. While his first adventure wasn’t brilliant, it did have a few decent laughs and though daft it was more than watchable. Reborn on the other hand seems to completely miss what a Johnny English film should be, and is full of gags that are lazy, repetitive and worst of all not funny.

Things kick off with English in exile at some sort of oriental training camp. He returns to London only to find that his beloved MI7 is suffering from a painfully generic case of ‘there’s a mole in the agency’. In one sense maybe plot doesn’t matter quite so much in a spoof movie, after all it’s only there as a framework on which to hang a series of jokes about spy film cliches, right? Wrong. According to the makers of this debacle at least.

Director Oliver Parker frustratingly gives the underdeveloped and boring storyline more attention than the humour and slapstick. If the story was even a tiny bit interesting then that wouldn’t be such a problem, and it would make perfect sense to abandon the comedy elements in favour of plot development... but then it wouldn’t be a spoof at all but kind of pseudo-Bond film in and of itself! Atkinson’s enormous talents go to waste as the film takes itself too seriously.

One flaw the film shares with it’s predecessor is that when it does manage to hit the occasional funny bone, the pace grinds to a standstill, with the edit blatantly waiting for the audience to calm down from a laughing fit before moving on. These moments drag and completely drain even the jokes that do work of their comic energy.

Parker gets it wrong on so many counts that it’s amazing he wasn’t fired. A scene with Johnny’s likeable sidekick Bough was cut because test audiences were disappointed he wasn’t in the rest of the film; which is a great example of how the director has made a movie that simply fails to deliver what it’s audience wants to see. The writing is patchy and the supporting characters hollow. Even Gillian Anderson and Rosamund Pike flounder in their small roles; they have nothing to do besides lend their names to the poster.

A rare positive is the film’s memorable score; composer Ilan Eshkeri is definitely one to listen out for. That, along with a zippy wheelchair chase and a clever gag involving voice changing sum up the film’s pluses. Many of the jokes were used in the trailer, robbing them of impact in the film itself.

Reborn starts and remains stuck in an unfunny and boring limbo between spy adventure and genre spoof. Tiresomely predictable and frequently cringeworthy, clearly things could not only get better after the uneven original. Hopefully now English will go back into exile where sadly, he belongs. This could and should have been so much better.

DVD extras: The Wheelchair Chase, Gag Reel, Deleted/Extended scenes with intro from Director Oliver Park, Feature Commentary.
Blu-ray extras: Same as DVD, plus The English Files - The Making of Johnny English Reborn, Gadgets, English in Hong Kong, Working with Rowan, Pocket BLU.