Over at Anya's watching David Fincher and Jodie Foster's "Panic Rom." Overall a pretty cool movie. It is definitely evident that David Fincher has completely bought into the whole product placement, Hollywood For Sale thing. Maybe this is just my anti-corporate bias shining through, but it seems that a real artist would be able to not be so easily swayed into changing his shots and his camera angles just to the perfect degree of picking up that shiny, new Coke can. Call me crazy, but I don't seem to recall any product placement in any of Kubrick's movies. I don't seem to recall Hitchcock peddling for GE. I don't know. Maybe those guys did that too.

Product placement isn't such a bad thing per se. But sometimes, it works similarly to bad CGI work. It pulls you out of the movie world and into the real world. Take "The Panic Room." It's a pretty gritty movie for the most part. But then out of the blue, Jodie Foster will plug in her brand new, top of the line Nokia phone. Or Jodie and her daughter are eating dinner at the dinner table, and right there dead-on camera is a red, shiny Coke can.

I can't tell if maybe my awareness of products in movies has more to do with me being highly tuned into finding products in movies or if it has more to do with the products themselves. Product Placement in movies are basically mini-commercials in movie form. The selling of products via commercials or ads is a multi-billion dollar industry. The type of research and money that goes into the dispersement of products into the main culture would dwarf most scientific studies on diseases and ozone depletion. The makers of ads spend more money per every second of film than most major movie companies. They know how to infiltrate one's own perceptions and view points about different types of products. They know what works and what works in terms of name brand recognition. So even if you are not highly in tuned to finding product placement, on some level you are always aware when a product is on screen.

If you don't believe me, go into any cinema and watch any major motion picture that comes out. Doesn't really matter on the director. Everyone from Steven Spielberg to David Fincher to Spike Jonze to...whomever....they all play by the same product placement rules. I guess the best directors are able to do it discreetly. And I know that it must suck to them to have to deal with the different companies that pay millions of dollars to have their products placed in movies. And for all of those directors that are able to do it discreetly, I thank you sincerely. But Hollywood has gone way to commercialized in their pushing of products to the masses. If you look for it, trust me, you'll see it. And then you'll be one of the cursed who can't watch ANY movie without seeing it.

that's all for now

matt out