The Film Thugs Movie Show

Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

I have probably put more thought in to Morgan Spurlock than anyone who isn’t related to him should. His 2004 documentary “Super Size Me” launched him into the national spotlight by using an interesting gimmick to address a serious social issue. It was sensational, thought provoking, and, though it lacked much in the way of actual science (more on that in a moment), it brought much needed attention to something people don’t think about anywhere near as much as they should.

The reason I say “Super Size Me” lacked much in the way of actual science is because… well, it does. He talks to a lot of lawyers and political activists, and while he does visit a doctor a few times, he doesn’t really actually talk to many doctors or scientists on the subject of proper nutrition.

That aside, his claims are dubious. He claimed to eat a diet of 5000 calories a day, but has refused to release his food diary. This refusal has made his claims impossible to verify. However, if you follow his claims of what he ate (3 meals a day, super sizing 1 in 10 meals) you get around 3500 calories a day.

Why do I make such a big deal out of this? This is a documentary. It is meant to document something. If you falsify your information then you throw the voracity of your argument into question. Now, I do not believe that McDonald’s is healthy by any stretch, but if it is as unhealthy as this film claims then why would he have to falsify information to prove it?

Put even more simply you cannot have a valid argument based on falsified information.

But had he eaten 3500 calories a day he may not have gotten the type of sensational results that got him so much attention at Sundance and changed his life. There are a lot of other questions about the veracity of his health results, but that’s something for another time.

Spurlock has successfully capitalized on the sensation his first film caused with a series on FX (30 Days) and a few other documentaries (Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden, and Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold) as well as some short segments for other projects (The Simpsons, and Freakanomics). All of these share one thing in common; Spurlock is front and center in all of them.

In essence Spurlock is almost more of a quintessential modern documentarian than the inventor of the new style, Michael Moore. These days it’s not enough for a documentary to be about the subject. No, it has to be about the documentarian and his or her relationship to the subject. We have to follow them as they do something in an attempt to prove the thesis of their film. A thesis, by the way, that was developed before a single minute of actual research has been done or a single frame of film has been shot.

This is the core of my problem with most modern documentaries. These aren’t attempts to learn or discover, but to prove and push an agenda. I take a slight amount of issue with that.

All of this being said, let’s talk about Spurlock’s latest film, “Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.” Here, Spurlock sets out to see if it is possible to finance a film 100% through product placement and corporate tie ins. It is an interesting experiment, but that’s about it.

The real problem is that it lacks any real thesis or point. I mean, is there anyone out there who isn’t aware of product placement and corporate tie ins? There might be, but are those people the likely audience for a documentary?

There were some interesting things in this. Seeing him try to find representation that could put him in touch with the people with the money, watching him pitch the idea to different companies, finding out the mountain of paperwork and the multitude of hoops he had to jump through were all fascinating looks behind the curtain. His meeting with the guy who thinks that there should be on screen notification of any and all product placement on the screen during any movie or film was fascinating. It was interesting and all, but I kept wondering, “What’s the point?”

Yeah, he points out that product placement is prevalent, but did we really need to be told that Will Smith’s character opening his “Converse Chuck Taylor, vintage 2004” shoes, or scenes from TV shows where a character holds a soda can, label facing the camera, and says “All you’re doing is drinking Dr. Pepper,” to the response “It isn’t a road trip without a lot of Dr. Pepper!” are ads?

Are there people out there who really talk that way? If there are, I think they would make a far more interesting subject for a documentary.

But what we are left with is a fairly uninspired, uninformative vanity project that didn’t really serve much of a purpose.