Interview: Morgan Spurlock of POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

Posted on April 21, 2011 at 8:00 am

Morgan Spurlock took on fast food in “Super Size Me.” He was funny, direct, and at times outraged as he tried to live for a month on McDonald’s “supersize” portions, and I liked his even-handedness in taking on the consumers as well as the providers, calling on us to take responsibility for ourselves. His television series, “30 Days,” had people (including Spurlock himself) immersing themselves for a month in a culture outside their comfort zones. Again, despite tone that seemed highly satiric at times, the show was about the middle, the gray areas, the nuances. His new film is called “POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.” Yes, he made a movie about product placement that is entirely financed by product placement.

Spurlock spoke to me about the movie.

You were right! At the screening you said that everyone there would never look at the world the same way again. We walked out of the theater and the first thing I saw was a banner on a building I had never noticed before.

And it’s going to get worse — and better at the same time!

Advertising is everywhere. Amazon has just discounted the Kindle for customers who are willing to look at ads.

And it’s such a small discount! Shouldn’t it be free if they’re going to send you ads?

I think the most disturbing thing in the movie is the school selling advertising to raise money. It’s especially sad that it is such a small amount of money and yet they can’t get it any other way.

It’s incredible. School districts are getting literally five to seven thousand dollars a year and in exchange they are letting all this advertising in.

What kind of impact does that have on kids? Does it desensitize them or do they stay susceptible to being drawn into the brands that are put in front of them?

That’s what the jury’s out on. There’s multiple layers to that one. You start to believe that these products and these brands are the ones that make things happen. They’re the ones you should trust, the ones that have solutions. That’s the question I have all the time, do we really want to live in a world where everything’s brought to you by some sponsor? That’s the way it seems to be going.

That’s right. Even at the Smithsonian, the flag that inspired “The Star Spangled Banner” is now brought to you by Ralph Lauren. Is POM happy with the results from paying to have their name in the title of the film?

Everybody seems to be. It’s gotten a great response. I think it makes all the sponsors who paid to be in the film look incredibly smart. I called 600 brands but only these 20 were brave enough to be a part of the film and want to pull back the curtain and have a real honest conversation about transparency. It’s very telling.

For me what was telling was that they basically say, “We don’t care what you say about us as long as you get our name out there.”

That’s part of what I love about it. Who was it who said, “I don’t care what you say about me as long as you spell my name right?”

Will you have product placement in your future films?

I think it really works for this one because the satire makes the whole thing work. I can’t imagine shooting an interview for another movie about Darfur or something where suddenly someone is drinking Coke in the middle of an interview. But one of the things I love is what J.J. Abrams says in the film: “I’m about story-telling, not story-selling.” We live in a world where people use products. They drive Cameros. They drink Coke. They wear Nikes. So it’s not like I think we should try to eliminate this stuff from entertainment. It would create a very unreal scenario. But what I don’t want is Ford in the writer’s room, “I want to start with a wide shot of the car and when the guy gets out of the car it would be great if he could say how well the car handled.”

You want the product to tell you something about the character.

Yes, if he drives a Mustang, he drives a Mustang. If he drives a Volvo, he drives a Volvo. But don’t make them show an extreme close-up of the logo just because they gave them a car to be in the movie.

You kept Mane and Tail shampoo in the film even though they didn’t pay.

They were the only ones where we were contractually obligated to say that they did not pay. But there were others in the film who did not pay. But what they brought to the table was not hard cash but soft money in terms of promotions. Big brands do that all the time with studios so they can have Iron Man in the store or Tony Stark wearing sunglasses in their ads. Characters appear on cereal and candy bars and potato chips and then there are lunchboxes, t-shirts, hats, and all that other stuff. I tried to get McDonald’s to be a partner on this film. I really wanted those documentary action figures. Those would have sold like hotcakes!

Many of the companies that were willing to work with you were family-owned, like POM, Sheetz, and Hyatt. They were very big, but they didn’t have the kind of bureaucracy of publicly-traded companies and were more inclined to do something off-beat.

Some of them make more than Fortune 500 companies. And MiniCooper is part of a giant corporation. Old Navy is owned by a gigantic conglomerate. But they didn’t come on until they saw the film at Sundance. Eight partners came on after Sundance. That happens all the time with big Hollywood movies, too. They wait to see how the film comes out and how audiences react and then say, “I want to be a part of this.”

What do you advocate? Better disclosure?

It’s already at the end of a movie, where it says, “promotional consideration by…” but by then you’ve stopped watching. The BBC has just started to allow product placement. Like we have TV-MA, they have P for product placement before the show.

Do you advocate different rules for children’s programming and programming intended for adults?

You have to look at them different. They’re two entirely different audiences. They consume media in very different ways. Kids recognize brands at a very young age, as young as four years old. I don’t think you should have placement in kids’ shows but it goes beyond that. The character becomes the toy, the lunchbox. The argument for that is, “I can’t have free enterprise?” The problem I have is the targeted advertising around programming. My own son said, “I want to get that wrestler set! But the pieces are sold separately.” I said, “Time to turn off the TV. We’re done.”

Two Upcoming Films at George Mason

Posted on April 11, 2011 at 12:56 pm

If you are in the Washington DC area, be sure to check out these two screenings at George Mason University’s Johnson Center Cinema. Both are free and open to the public.

The screening of Poster Girl (38 mins, 2011 Oscar nominee for Best Documentary, Short Subject) on April 27 at 6:30pm in Johnson Center Cinema, will be followed by a Q&A by director Sara Nesson and her documentary’s subject, Iraq war veteran Robynn Nesson.

The screening of Living for 32 (40 mins), on April 28 at 4:30pm in Johnson Center Cinema, will be followed by a Q&A with the documentary’s subject, Colin Goddard.

Related Tags:

Documentary Independent

Born to Be Wild 3D

Posted on April 7, 2011 at 6:06 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	G
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Orphaned animals, references to predators (including humans)
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	April 8, 2011
Date Released to DVD:	April 16, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B0071L6T24

One way or another you’ll find yourself saying, “Awwwwww.” The adorable baby animals and the grace and kindness of the people who care for them are guaranteed to warm every heart in the theater.

In Borneo, Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas rescues orangutans orphaned by developers who cut down the jungle to produce palm oil. In Kenya, Dame Daphne M. Sheldrick provides a home for the baby elephants orphaned by poachers. More than five thousand miles apart, the two women care for different animals but share the same goal: to raise the babies without taming them, so they can return to a natural life in the wild. Morgan Freeman narrates the story, taking us back and forth as we see the newest babies arrive and the adolescents “graduate.” The goal is to nurture them only as long as they need help and then find them a safe home in a nature preserve. They are “under human care but not human control; they need to retain their wildness.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO9fRd7eumA

Some of the animals arrive traumatized. A baby elephant who saw humans kill his mother has to learn these humans are different; they just want to feed and protect him. Amazingly, the other orphaned elephants gather around to reassure him that he is finally safe. They show him that a giant-sized bottle can be a good way to get milk. The milk, by the way, is a special formula developed by Dame Daphne over 24 years, making it possible for the first time to raise an infant elephant without a mother. Unlike mother elephants, humans are not big enough to cast protective shadows to prevent sunburn, so Dame Daphne and her colleagues rub sunblock on the tender ears of the baby elephants instead. And elephants do not sleep well alone, so the keepers curl up near them at night. These are the cutest pachyderms on screen since the baby elephants marched to the Mancini soundtrack in “Hatari.”

The elephants are social creatures who create a community of their own. In one very touching scene, when the now “ex-orphans” are brought to a sort of halfway house to get used to living away from the humans the current residents somehow sense that newcomers are arriving and come to the drop-off point to welcome them. The orangutans interact more directly with their human care-givers, draping themselves along their backs and hugging their chests. Dr. Galdikas and her crew have built a contraption for swinging and climbing to teach them the skills they need to find food and a safe place to sleep — a literal jungle gym. She teaches them more than skills for survival; she makes each one of them feel special and cared for. “As long as they feel loved,” she says, “they’ll have the confidence they need.”

The movie is empathetic but respectful to the animals. It enlarges our circle of compassion by reacquainting us with our fellow residents of the planet. Yet, it avoids getting cutesy or overly anthropomorphic. These are not pets and they are not being tamed. They are temporary guests, learning what they need to know so they can go home. In the early scenes, we see the orangutans covered with shampoo and sharing a plate of pasta with Dr. Galdikas to the tune of bouncy American pop tunes such as Hank Williams’ “Jumbalya.” Then as they return to the wild, the soundtrack turns African, more serious and stirring, and we share the mixed feelings of these dedicated people who have cared for the animals for so long. We are happy that they are going home but know they will be missed. We are hopeful for their future but worried that the wilderness left for them is shrinking every day.

This is everything a family movie should be: touching, funny, and inspiring. And with a brisk 40-minute running time no one has to sit still for too long. The IMAX 3D format may be overwhelming for children under five, but anyone older than that will find the baby animals hard to resist, the scenery breathtaking, and the devotion of Dr. Galdikas and Dame Daphne deeply moving.

(more…)

Triangle: Remembering the Fire

Posted on March 26, 2011 at 10:41 pm

One hundred years ago this week, 146 people were killed in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, a tragedy compounded because it was the result of preventable neglect and safety violations. An excellent new documentary, Triangle: Remembering the Fire, is showing this month on HBO. The film includes interviews with family members of those who were injured or killed in what was the deadliest industrial tragedy in New York history as well as the descendants of the factory owners, who were there with their children the day of the fire but were able to escape. Some members of their extended family were also working there and were killed. Most of the people who died were immigrant women who were trapped when the fire started, in some cases because the doors were locked to keep them inside. Many were killed not by the fire but by leaping out of the windows in a desperate attempt to escape after the flimsy fire escape collapsed. Six of the victims were not identified until February of this year, 100 years later.

The film documents not just the terrible events of March 25, 1911 but also the reform efforts they inspired. The company’s managers failed to make even the most rudimentary efforts at safety for the workers. While those injured and the families of those killed were not entitled to any benefits, the managers were reimbursed by insurance and were not responsible for any fines or compensation for the losses. This led to the first recognition that the industrial era required the involvement of organized labor and government to ensure that basic protections were in place, a crucial turning point in the history of public policy and politics. The film was inspired when a previous film from the same producers about the garment industry began with a short mention of the Triangle factory fire and ended with a similar recent story about a fire at a factory in Bangladesh. Its lessons are as important today as they were a century ago.

Triangle: Remembering the Fire

For more information, see: The lesson guide for teachers and students on the HBO website, American Experience: Triangle Fire, Triangle: The Fire That Changed America, and The Triangle Fire: A Brief History with Documents

Related Tags:

Documentary Television

I Am

Posted on March 24, 2011 at 9:52 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Not Rated
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	References to substance abuse
Violence/ Scariness:	Some disturbing images of injuries and historical tragedies, consideration of suicide
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	March 25, 2011
Date Released to DVD:	January 2, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005U0ZP46

Tom Shadyac had it all — if “all” means fame, fortune, and professional success. He directed some of the biggest box-office hits of the 1990’s and early 2000’s, including Jim Carrey’s “Ace Ventura,” “Liar, Liar,” and “Bruce Almighty,” and Robin Williams’ “Patch Adams.” Careful viewers might have been able to discern a spiritual theme, or at least a spiritual yearning in some of those films. But what made them successful was wild, outrageous comedy.

Shadyac made a lot of money and bought a lot of things. He realized that contrary to the messages we receive all of the time, the money and the things did not make him any happier. And then a literal hit on the head made him think very hard about what really matters. For probably less than the cost of one craft services table or a star’s limo to the set, Shadyac went on the road with a crew of four in search of some mind-bending conversations about how we can do better.

Shadyac had a serious bicycle accident, followed by months of unremitting, excruciating pain so devastating that he decided to commit suicide. That moment of relinquishing any sense of control was somehow liberating and clarifying. He had to decide what he wanted to say before he died. This film became first that statement and then a reason to stay alive.

It’s less clear, though, that it is a reason to go to the theater. Shadyac, energized by the thrill of engaging on big questions with great minds, has created an earnest if often incoherent patchwork on the subject of life’s purpose and meaning and how we can make things better. There’s a reason we usually address those issues through faith and parable (parables including all forms of story-telling). It is very hard to address them directly without sounding vague, pretentious, or a little weird.

At its best, this is a movie that asks some provocative questions about the assumptions we fail to question and the consequences of our current trajectory and lets us hear from fascinating, passionate people. It is an exploration of what Judaism calls “tikkun olam,” the obligation of each of us to assist in healing the world. At its worst, it feels like a trippy all-night dorm debate, unformed and uninformed, that concludes the Beatles got it right: Love is all you need. Some viewers may conclude that the entire thing is just a function of post-traumatic brain injury.

Shadyac speaks to experts in hard and soft science and specialists in history, religion, and philosophy. While his posture is often grasshopper to their Master Po, he has not quite managed to free himself of worldly pride. He asks them whether they have seen his films. He is both dismayed and energized by all of the “no’s,” almost taking it as reassurance he is on the right path if he has found people who are so unconnected to what sustained him and trapped him before. But he is very happy to find one of them is a fan of “Ace Ventura.”

At times it feels like a 1970’s journey through what we used to call self-actualization or the human potential movement as Shadyac experiments with emotion-detecting yogurt, considers that “reality isn’t an it,” and “science is a story.” He ponders a “participating universe” and learns about generosity in deer. Ha also rhapsodizes about the purity of indigenous people without mentioning that, like economically developed cultures, some of them are very violent. But it is fun to get a glimpse of some cutting edge research that suggests that our hearts may be, after all, wise than our brains, and that anger makes us dumber. And it is thought-provoking to consider the benefits of a less individualistic and competitive society and the concept of “a participatory universe where everything we do is changing it” for better or worse.

I assumed when I first heard about this film that the title was a reference to the name of God. But we find out at the end that it is taken from the answer G.K. Chesterton gave when asked what was wrong with the world. Will this awkward movie inspires anyone to consider that answer and become a little more generous and kind? Or is that more likely to come from another big budget Shadyac comedy? For the answer, see “Sullivan’s Travels.”

(more…)