Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

Written at the time of the film's release.

 

Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock passed away May 23, 2024 at the age of 53.

"False Advertising"
or

 "Oh, Trailers are Commercials, too, Ya Know...and Movies are Products"

 

Is it a surprise to anyone that product placement is so prevalent in films?  With budgets bursting (the next "Batman" movie will cost 250 million dollars), movies turned to corporations to have them co-finance their films by making sure their products were featured prominently with labels out.  It's a form of advertising that is the basics of making your product known—get it in front of eyeballs. Each image of your product burned into a cornea is called an "impression"—an impression that builds familiarity and is a push to induce the buying of it. And if those eyeballs are lid-locked while watching a movie at your local cine-plex (heck, you even paid to see it!), so much the better—there's no chance you'll be going to the 'fridge to miss the "message." E.T. famously ate Reese's Pieces because M&M's passed on a movie deal. The little sugar-nodules sales soared. Every James Bond film bristles with banners—billboards are crashed into, every electronic monitor had to include the "Sony" name, and car companies supply the cars and fill them with cash—you didn't think all those disposable Aston Martins came without gratuity, did you?*

Fact is, your basic present day blockbuster couldn't be made without a recognizable label turned towards the camera. And if there was a way for historical epics to put "Budweiser" on the Mead-sacks and "Wilson" on the cross-bows they'd do that, too.**

Even independent films do so...as Everything Must Go and its ubiquitous cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon attests. You can argue that it is for verisimilitude, but I doubt the studios would care how much their films resembled The Real Consumer World if there wasn't some cash passed under the table.

Morgan Spurlock has taken the approach to the logical extreme: his Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is a documentary about product placement in films that explores the process while simultaneously exploiting it to completely fund itself. It's a film of the corporate interests, by the corporate interests and (however cynically he might have gone into the thing) for the corporate interests. The entire movie about product placement in the movies is about acquiring the product placements to fund the movie.

It is a little bit brilliant. Essentially, he walks into boardrooms with a video camera recording the whole process just to say "this is what you're buying...right now.  How much are you going to give me?" Name above the title goes for a cool million. Sporadic Spurlock ads (there are three) go for 50 grand. In addition, he is able to secure helpful "aids to production"—hotel rooms, gas, even a fleet of seven cars—if he can ink a deal to make sure that they are shown in the film...and they are. Interviews are conducted in gas station cafes, drinking the advertisers products—even the shoes-leather that Spurlock burns to hit the pavement to meetings is paid for. Not only that, he makes deals for promotional cups that promote his movie and his clients.

There are so many hands washing each other that you almost expect a cameo by Howard Hughes. But who he gets to talk about movie-marketing is good enough.  Industry insiders talk about the business of branding (Spurlock turns out to be "Mindful"/"Playful"), increasing opportunities, testing the efficacy of the images (through MRI brain-scans—even the trailer is tested on Spurlock to see how his brain reacts).

Experts on societal influence (Noam Chomsky) and consumer protection (Ralph Nader...at his relaxed puckiest), advertising (Bob Garfield from NPR's "On the Media" and Advertising Age's Robert Weisberg), discuss the dangers of dealing with the devil and mixed messages. A fascinating clutch of interviews with film-makers seems to gloss over the impact and influence that corporatization has on the movie decision-making: John Wells (seen editing Company Men), J.J. Abrams, Brett Ratner, Peter Berg and Quentin Tarantino weigh in on how it affects their process—Rattner is alarmingly blase ("Artistic integrity?  Whatever..."***) while Berg is pragmatic ("GE is my boss and they don't give a fuck about Art") and Tarantino chortles over how, for years, he's pushed to shoot his restaurant scenes at a Denny's (he loves Denny's), but is constantly rebuffed (still, he's done a lot for the European McDonald's market). Even an amused Donald Trump shows up—probably a little miffed that he didn't come up with Spurlock's scam.

Pretty soon, it becomes apparent that the whole thing is a perpetual motion money-pushing machine and that money buys a lot of movie-magic. What is most disturbing is the offers Spurlock gets, unbidden, once he proves he's willing to play ball in an advertiser's field. "How do you say 'No' to that?" he painfully asks at one offer.

As I said, it's all a little bit brilliant. He delivers his message while they deliver the goods. If there is a down-side to Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, it is that there is so much to say, so many Madison Avenues to explore that the film rather breezily loses its focus. But, one should expect that when traversing a slippery slope, no matter what kind of shoes you're wearing.

I was the only one in the theater watching this (a shame, really), but as I was exiting the theater, I was flagged by the ticket-taker—a woman I've had a jocular joshing relationship with at my local art-house. She handed me a complimentary chilled bottle of Pom Wonderful pomegranate juice for watching the movie. I laughed all the way to the car.

 

I didn't drink it because I didn't take it.

 

* Yes, Bond DID drive an Aston in the novel "Goldfinger," and the movie's gadget-weighted DB5 became "the most famous car in the world," but Ford also provided their prototype Mustang for the '64 film, which made that new model a hot seller.  Sony and MGM plan to get $45 million for product placement in the next Bond—an all-time record.

** The biggest scam for blatant advertising is MTV. When it started, it was the first 24 hour TV station broadcasting only commercials—those "promotional" videos made to promote record sales.  Now, the videos are more popular than the recordings themselves.  Nothing succeeds like excess.

 *** How dare he?  Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go see Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides—the fourth movie inspired by a Disneyland ride.

Lions for Lambs

Written at the time of the film's release...

"Never engage the enemy for too long, or he will adapt to your tactics"

Carl Von Clausewitz

 

There are three arenas in play, and as the film begins the protagonists are checking their ledgers and statistics: Lt. Col. Falco (Peter Berg) is checking his strategy briefings; Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) is looking at dropping poll numbers; Professor Steven Malley (Robert Redford) is checking the quarter's attendance; Reporter Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) is looking at her unopened note-book--an empty slate. Thus begins Lions for Lambs* a polemic about the current Middle-East War, the entities that package and sell it, and the public that may not like it, but won't do anything to oppose it. All the stories intersect a bit and the movie takes place over a few hours. The script is by Matthew Michael Carnehan, who also wrote The Kingdom. Its director, Peter Berg, who plays Falco here, said that film was "98% Action, 2% Message." Here, that ratio is reversed, and, man, is it tedious. 

First off, there is a heavy veneer of liberal self-satisfaction (though not as much as when conservatives put the hammer down). The senator is a Republican tyro, trying to bolster his party's (and his) poll numbers by setting up a new front in Afghanistan (Senator's can do that? I mean besides Charlie Wilson?) He's given Roth a solid hour (this is supposedly a big deal) to argue his case that this attack (no, really, this one!) will win the war in Afghanistan, the war on terror, the hearts and minds of Afghans (he really says this) and presumably bring the troops back home for Christmas (he doesn't say this, but he might as well have). Cruise was bio-engineered for this role (and you just know this is the part Redford would have taken during his career in the cynical 1960's), an opportunistic-photo-op-ready politico, with flags on the desk, pants-press in the office, and flashing Chiclets in his mouth, while Meryl Streep is all shambling messiness, trying to counter the arguments (is that her job?) that Cruise spins on the head of a pin. Their section is the sort of "greased-pig" argument and obfuscation bull-session that keeps me from watching the "pundit" shows--nothing's less fun or informative than watching two used-policy salesmen, hectoring each other trying to get their feet stuck in the open door of your mind. Finally it gets down to my favorite argument when rats-on-their-hind-legs are cornered--The Multiple Choice Bottom-Liner: "Do you want to win the War on Terror: Yes or No?". ("Well, I don't know, Senator, when did you stop beating your wife?") At one point Streep asks, "When does the new offensive start?" Cruise looks at his (supposed) Rolex. "Ten minutes ago." So much for pre-selling.

And in that ten minutes, the mission is already SNAFU'd, when two grunts are bounced out of a helicopter taking heavy fire, turning the offensive thrust into a rescue mission. Not a good start to winning those hearts and minds.

And by a curious coincidence--or a heavy-handed ploy by the screenwriter--those very two soldiers were both students in Professor Malley's political science class, who, in a school project capped their volunteerism argument by enlisting. Now, Malley uses them to guilt a slacker-student who can't be bothered coming to class because he's "busy with stuff," into considering a more activist stance before the bigger challenges of jobs, mortgages, ball-games, and watching "American Idol" zombies away any chance of him doing any critical thinking for the rest of his life. That's a valid argument to make, whichever side of the aisle you take bribes on. But instead of making the arguments, Malley turns them into three-corner shots that kind of dance around the problem, rather than saying something, oh, like "I would suggest you start coming to class or I will flunk your lazy frat-ass: your call."

The trouble here is that the issues are so immediate that the arguments the film is making were too late four years ago. So, it's a bit like soft-ball preaching to the choir. The arguments are sound, but they have very little relevance to extricating us from the tar-pit of this conflict, and, yes, people are getting chewed up by it, but that's the business of war, and why you try to avoid it, rather than rush in like a damned fool. It's great to be able to say all this with 20-20 hind-smugness, but it's essentially useless. Now tell us something we don't know, and how we can avoid it the next time. "Is he failing you?" a fellow frat asks the student about his meeting. The movie certainly is.

* The title derives from a phrase from World War I, but, the exact nature of the quote is subject to debate, and its history, like the film, is a bit muddled.

Hancock

Hancock (Peter Berg, 2008) The premise (for a super-hero movie) is interesting, the stars are all competent, and in some cases exceptional (Charlize Theron puts in quite a surprising turn in her role), and the writing sometimes refreshing.  

What kills Hancock is the direction. Berg's snatch-and-grab semi-documentary style worked gangbusters for Friday Night Lights, but for the super-heroics of Hancock, you just get the impression that they're trying to hide some flaw in the effects from you, especially in the inevitable fisticuffs that these things seem to depend on (although the cleverer ones find ways around it).

Will Smith plays John Hancock, who can bend steel in his bare hands, but would rather bend his elbow. He's alcoholic, down and out and super-depressed. Most super-heroes are high and flying, but Hancock takes it the wrong way, so rather than looking up in the sky for him, chances are the best place to find him is the gutter. He has powers and abilities far beyond mortal men, but no idea who he is, how he got that way, and there's no messianic father-figure to tell him the back-story. And yeah, he'll do all that super-heroic stuff, but he's too stoned out of his mind to do anything carefully—he's like a bull in a china shop, and every time he does some good, he does a lot more harm in property damage.

After saving the life of marketing maven Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), Hancock is taken under wing, sobered up, read the "with great power comes great responsibility speech," and given a better public image (rather than a secret identity), a leather "sooper-suit," and is supervised in his derring-do so that he first does no harm.

Hancock isn't very good, but it has an interesting take on things "Superman-ish," and when you see Man of Steel, the latest "official" Superman movie, you'll see some of the ideas brought back to the source—the colliding bodies, the city-wide collateral damage, and the hard edge of sci-fi aspect to things that most super-hero movies tend to miss for the musculature and myth-making. Also, the script has a literal vulnerability for the super-dude that's far more ingenious than sticks and kryptonite-stones. You wanna reduce Superman's effectiveness?  Attack him through his loved ones. Hancock takes that one step further by making his loved ones his true weakness, making him vulnerable, and shortening his life, taking the "apart-ness" of the super-hero, bringing it from the sub-text to the foreground, and lending the whole thing a nice melancholy touch that's missing from the genre as a whole. It also brings Will Smith nicely down to earth, as well.

Lone Survivor

And I Only Am Escaped Alone to Tell Thee
or
I Died With My Brothers—With a Full F**king Heart


Lone Survivor is "based on a true story"—that of the Navy Seal team involved in Operation Red Wings to capture Taliban leader Ahmad Shah, which ended disastrously for the participants—but it feels more like a testament.

It's directed by Peter Berg, who is at his best in the realm of psuedo-documentary, his roving camera acting as a fly-on-the-wall, catching the telling detail, the private moment, the feeling of a collective, like his 2004 film (and to a certain extent, subsequent TV-series) Friday Night Lights, or The Kingdom. His recent forays into A-list projects (like Hancock and the "film-of-the-board-game" Battleship) have been less successful, despite using his same camera-scheme to give them a lived-in feeling.

Lone Survivor, however, is a return to his strengths. Not burdened with a sprawling story-line or too many characters, Berg has focused his story-telling abilities and stays on the four men on the mission and their commitment to each other and their task. He's helped immeasurably by the four actors playing the small scouting task force: Taylor Kitsch (Gambit from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the TV version of "Friday Night Lights," the lead in John Carter); Emile Hersch (Into the Wild, Milk, Speed Racer); Ben Foster (3:10 to Yuma, The Messenger, Ain't Them Bodies Saints); and Mark Wahlberg. Each one of these actors has carried movies—big movies—on their shoulders, and each one treats their roles, supporting or not, as a starring role. Wahlberg (who, as he's moved from actor to actor-producer and gotten astoundingly better as the former in the last few years) is top-lined, but fades into the mix with an understated performance that gives the film a great ensemble balance.

Kitsch as Lt. Murphy, Wahlberg as Luttrell, Foster as Axelson, and Hirsch as Dietz

"Ensemble" is the point. Berg starts Lone Survivor with "found footage" of Navy seal training—brutal, berating, limit-pushing—training that shows the individual what they're capable of, shows the squad what they can expect from each other, building the "trench camaraderie" without the deployment. The seals are pushed to the edge, brought back, and their very existence and presence is testament to their abilities to survive in extreme situations. The fact they're going through it together bonds them, as Wahlberg's opening narration states firmly. The film ends with footage of the real men who were lost—home movies and the like—showing the individuals now that we know them apart from the squad, and it's poignant, stirring, and heart-breaking.

In between is the story of the mission and how an act of conscience in extreme conditions can cost. There's been some fabrication of the story—the Taliban were not in a numbers position to attack the village, as shown—but the facts are basically there. On a reconnaissance mission, four Navy Seals are having difficulty contacting their base. They're found out by passing shepherds whom they tie and discuss what's to be done; it's not a democracy but everybody weighs in—kill the villagers and continue then mission, or let them go and try and contact the base, as the mission has been "compromised." "Rules of engagement" figure heavily in the discussion, but it comes down to rather than kill the villagers, let them go and scrub the mission, and get the hell out of there.

That would be in a perfect world, but it's Afghanistan. Soon the hills are alive with Taliban fighters and the four must engage and get out, while constantly being pushed down the terrain. Berg shoots this close-quartered and fast with the stuttered lens/editing that's been so effective since Saving Private Ryan. And it's here that the sound department kicks in with heightened effects, as well. It never feels like a video-game depiction, but with an overall perspective that lets you know where the four are in relation to each other, and fleeting glimpses of enemy positions. It's harrowing. And then, things go up a notch when the four have to desperately drop off mountain terrain with no forethought to what awaits below...not once, but twice. The imagery and especially the sounds of those sequence are painful—Lone Survivor received one Oscar nomination (for sound) and it is truly deserving of it (but, it was a little disappointing to not see a clip from this film in any of the broadcast's "heroes" montages). The sequences are visceral, painful to watch, and gut-wrenching.

And that's where Berg's strength lies as a director in a film like this—he keeps the work centered on the soldiers—this is not effect for effect's sake, it's part of character, woven throughout the film. By the end you wonder at the dedication and gut-level heroism of the people we, as a nation, throw into battle, and one can't help leaving the film, admiring..and mourning.

Matthew Axelson (far left); Danny Deitz (center left);
Marcus Luttrell (center right); Lt. Michael Murphy (far right)