While watching Inception, I spent most of the movie nodding knowingly as if to convince my date of my incredible intellect and logic. The truth is, Inception left me more confused than a blind dog in a butcher shop. I attribute most of this to the obscene levels of lead-based paint in my childhood home, and some of it to Christopher Nolan’s need to prove he’s the smartest man in the world. But Inception is not alone in its mind-bending/universe folding/reality-is-a-myth attempts at duping movie go-ers (See films such as eXistenZ, The Thirteenth Floor, and Big Momma’s House 2, to name a few).
Documentarian Morgan Spurlock’s (Super Size Me, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?) newest film, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, adds a new self-referential layer to brain-crushing cinema. Placing advertising and marketing in his crosshairs, Spurlock has made a movie about selling the very film the audience is watching.
The film, officially titled POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, takes product placement and blows it out to Spaceballs-like proportions. And like that film from Mel Brooks, it becomes self-referential in that the movie characters are talking about is the actual movie the audience is watching. Outside of the film within a film premise, it takes an in-depth look at advertising, marketing, and how people perceive brands in the media. Showing the lengths companies will go to infuse their brands into pop-culture, Spurlock shines a light into the shadowy practices employed by some of the biggest consumer brands in the business.
The in-your-face advertising isn’t just relegated to the silver screen. Wearing a suit emblazoned with logos and looking like something out of the NASCAR circuit, Spurlock has made the talk show rounds promoting the film and showing just how far into our culture advertising has seeped. While he’s mocking the extremes companies will go to advertise, he’s also embracing the very same tactics to sell his movie. Regardless of whether or not you grew up in a home with lead-based paint, this is complex stuff.
View the trailer below:
