The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

Morgan Spurlock’s new movie, a documentary about product placement, was paid for by and therefore is partially about its own 22 official sponsors. Who else could pull that off? Spurlock’s cheeky poseur-activist routine already has proven highly salable, and never has it been more entertaining. It takes a special kind of attention seeker to have so much fun with the symbiosis of marketing and entertainment; for a stunt movie, this has rare opulence, in which Spurlock plainly revels. Like Natalie Portman’s callow hysteria in Black Swan, his bit is more or less one-note, impressively sustained and possibly the best description of its expresser’s talent that we ever can hope for. Spurlock doesn’t say much about the history of creative patronage, and the journalistic usefulness declines as the fun adds up. But neither we nor Spurlock’s corporate underwriters could ask for a better, more gleefully self-corrupted guide.