Especially important around Earth Day, don’t miss Morgan Spurlock’s new film release, “POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.” Always a master of irony and humor, Morgan is best known for “Super Size Me” in 2004. Now he has created the first objective investigation of marketing and product placement that is financed entirely by product placement itself, all packaged under a Sony banner. Brilliant!
The key to its power is that Morgan retained full artistic control over the documentary. Fifteen brands in all are promoted and woven into a hilarious romp that reveals the total inside scoop on marketing, including its sometimes insidious nature. “Nothing is sacred anymore,” Morgan says, “everywhere we go, we’re being marketed to.” What an absurd way to live on this beautiful blue-green planet! “In the middle of the thousands of hours of commercials and advertisements that we all see in our lifetime, there is an invisible curtain that makes us think this is the norm.” Finally, a mainstream movie pulls back the curtain.
One of the interviewees is Martin Lindstrom, a neuromarketing expert who demonstrates new science that studies the brain’s response to marketing techniques. In fact, he demonstrates it on Morgan, who learns that even his own brain shows addiction to a product image (you’ll need to see the movie to find out which one). However, I don’t agree for a minute with the thoughts of a few early critics that he has sold out in this film. There’s just no one like Morgan Spurlock to remain a pure champion while swimming in the product muck that currently drives our world.
