That Morgan Spurlock, he's a clever guy.
You'll remember him as the man who ate nothing but McDonald's food for a month and just about killed himself in "SuperSize Me" and for his quixotic one-man journey to find You Know Who in "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?" -- a movie suddenly rendered profoundly obsolete.
That same Morgan Spurlock is back, this time with another ironic piece of chicanery that looks boldly into the funhouse mirror of modern-day filmmaking in a way no one has had to temerity to do before.
"The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" is, for film critics, that rarest of creatures -- a film you actually like that you cannot recommend for general audiences. It is the ultimate meta narrative -- a story about nothing but its own existence, a movie about naked commercialism that practices naked commercialism.
It reminds me of the theme song from the old Garry Shandling show, the words of which were "This is the theme to Garry's Show/ Garry called me up and asked if I would right his theme song/ I'm almost halfway finished/ How do you like it so far?"
The subject is product placement and brand awareness in film, and for any aspiring filmmaker, it's required viewing, given that it shows what it takes to raise money for a project these days. Even the film's catch phrase -- "It's not selling out; it's buying in" -- points a sharp stick at the forever evolving practice of rebranding cynicism. Read More
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