Morgan Spurlock sells himself for movie

“Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold”

Directed by Morgan… “Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold”

Directed by Morgan Spurlock

Grade: A

A film about making a film causes one to wonder if the result will be obnoxiously meta or wickedly poignant.

Morgan Spurlock’s documentary is both in places, leaning more toward the latter. He raised all $1.5 million of the budget for his film about product placement through product placement, from most of the brands feaured in the film.

Remember the metric ton of product placement in “Iron Man”? Maybe not — you might be so used to brand integration that it doesn’t register anymore — but brands pay for every spot in movies and TV from the car Tony Stark drives to the Coca-Cola cups in front of the American Idol judges.

The instantly recognizable, mustachioed Morgan Spurlock sought to establish himself as a brand and sell companies on the idea of himself and the potential success of his film. He had experts conduct a brand analysis which revealed him to be a “thoughtful/playful” brand, allowing him to explore which products and services he might be compatible with. The documentary then follows him through boardrooms and coffee shops while he pitches his concepts.

The film makes great use of its soundtrack, using instrumental tracks that will sound familiar to most audience members, such as Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” and the theme from the opera “Carmen.” Two songs were written especially for the film by OK Go and Matt and Kim (featuring Big Boi), all of whom were interviewed about how licensing songs for use in commercials is changing the music industry.

Pennsylvania’s own Sheetz is featured prominently as the film’s official convenience store and gas station. Other brands contributing either money or advertising include Ban deodorant, Mini Coopers, Amy’s Pizzas and Jet Blue airlines. The film gets great comedic mileage out of an ad spot of Spurlock shampooing first his son’s hair and then his Shetland pony with the film’s official shampoo and conditioner, Mane ’n Tail.

Interviews with a slew of experts in the field, including such memorable names as J.J. Abrams, Quentin Tarantino, Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader drive home the point that the phenomenon Spurlock is investigating isn’t just something behind closed doors in Hollywood — it’s part of everyday pop culture.

The one slow and off-target segment of the film is when Spurlock investigates buying his own ad space at a broke school district in Florida — the quick foray into analyzing the flaws of the American education system doesn’t gel perfectly with the other points the film makes and isn’t widely explored enough to make an impact.

As he becomes further enmeshed in the process and brands start to demand more and more control over his film, Spurlock has to confront the moral and artistic dilemmas of advertising for himself: Is he selling out or buying in? Watch as he wrestles with the question while creating a documentary that’s informative, thought-provoking and somehow still funny.