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.

The Company Men

The Economy and how it grinds up people has been on my mind of late. Here are some movies I've written about in that subject matter. 

Written at the time of the film's release.

"The Worst They Can Do..."
or
"Looking Out for No. 1"

John Wells cut his teeth on "China Beach," "ER," and "The West Wing" (his company produced, and had the unenviable task of following Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme as its shepherds), and excelled at the TV requirements of the easy irony and the clean, unfussy shot. He brings that same sensibility to The Company Men, which at least has the stones to risk box-office disaster addressing the financial meltdown.

While banks are failing and institutions too big to fail do so, Boston's GTX corporation is warding off a possible hostile take-over by fluffing their stock; the most expedient way to do that in an uncertain economy is cut overhead and "redundancies," meaning shoes on the floor. Wall Street looooves a good blood-letting. Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck), a cocky well-to-do sales associate is one of the first to go, getting the pink slip and the complimentary empty boxes on the desk. He's mad. He's angry. He's bitter. 

Life changes. The wife goes back to work (after he insists that she doesn't). The kids worry (though the parents attempt to keep it a secret). The long process of looking for a job is a full-time life-sucking process, while as time drags on, the cockiness fades, the budget tightens, the possessions fade away and the lying starts. Pride goeth before the fall. But, first go the Porsch', the house, the country-club membership, the perks, then goes to the bone—the self-respect...the self-worth. The things you say you'd never do, you do.

GTX rolls on and over. The CEO (Craig T. Nelson) continues to prop up the corporation in grand strokes of hubris. His ship-building division head, Gene McClary (Tommy Lee Jones) tries to protect his assets, like division chief Phil Woodward (Chris Cooper) and head of HR Sally Wilcox (Maria Bello)—who just happens to be his mistress—but those efforts make him look disloyal to his his boss and friend Nelson. It is telegraphed early on that they're at risk, too, and Wells doesn't surprise by following the most likely story path.

Bobby soon ends up working for his wife's brother (Kevin Costner) in construction, just to make what ends he has left meet, but it's too little too late, and he gets lectured on "how things are:" "GTX's President makes 700 times what the average guy on the floor makes; you think he works 700 times as hard?" brother-in-law asks at Thanksgiving dinner. Pass the cranberries, bro.'  Pretty soon the entire film feels like a lecture on the twin (somewhat negating) virtues of self-reliance and helping others, with the inevitable triumphs and tragedies that the script calls for before the final commercial break—even though this is a theatrical presentation and the commercials come at the beginning. 

It's all Wells and good. The writer-director is helped immeasurably by Coen Brothers lenser Roger Deakins, and he's got a great cast doing varying degrees of cagey work—Costner, in particular, plays his part completely, without sentiment, which is unusual for him and it's refreshing. But, its all a little too little too late. As a summing up of the human consequences of down-sizing, it's a noble effort, but its audience—if they can afford to go—already knows all this and may end up feeling like they've been watching a parrot tell them their lives for two hours (Thanks, John, appreciate the sermon—you don't need a sound designer, do you?).* 

One wishes that someone would mention that these economic bubbles aren't restricted to this one time, but to the cycles that come from risky, if not downright criminal, actions that take place every twenty years. That an increasing life in the fast lane runs the risk of losing control of the vehicle. That, even if one takes the safe, conservative approach, you can still lose everything if the timing isn't fortuitous. That life is a crap-shoot, at times, and the guy who does the best may be that crazy guy who doesn't contribute to the economy, but stuffs his mattress with cash.**

But, that's never said. Maybe it will be in the sequel, The Company Men 2: That Ship has Sailed, which will basically be the same thing twenty years later, when the next crash occurs. And when one says that, one realizes that the real message of Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is that a sequel needed to be made at all.

* I watched your movie; and you did.

** I won't even mention that the messenger for all this comes from a tinsel-towned industry known for its waste and excess.  Kudos that everybody on your film got a wage, but at what proportion to the stars and the execs—as long as we're making comparisons? How's that for irony? Heal thyself, Preacher.