Making movies is a business. To make money. Some may say they are making art, but if they are losing money on it, they aren't going to be making art for very long. If big studios find they can entertain me with big budget films, and to help recover some of the costs of making the films they have a coke can on the counter, it only helps them make more big budget films to entertain me.

Of course, the key is that they have to entertain me.

But one can make money without product placements. I will say that if it can be done in a subtle way, I have no huge problem with it. But my eye is completely trained to see it in any way, shape or form.

So not only are you an elitist pizza snob, you are an elitist movie snob.:)

But I can see what you are saying. Different people are bugged by different things related to what they know well. I have things that bug the hell out of me that I presume you wouldn't notice.

Snob is the word. When I went to see 'Da Vinci Code', the sound was bad during the previews. No one could hear a thing. Everyone was whining about it, but in this sold out theatre the only one to complain about it was me. Me me me. Then the theatre employees told me they couldn't do anything about it until they received 3 complaints first. So I went to three different ushers... They fixed the sound.
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I'm with GC on this. Pulp Fiction really is a great example. If the cultural significance of the specific brand name is important to the scene, then it's gotta be the brand name. So since the "Le BigMac" conversation specifically had to do with the ubiquitousness of McDonalds, then it certainly mattered that it was McDonalds. But when a guy was just eating a burger, it was just a burger. I'm cool with that.

I'm prehaps a bit more forgiving. I don't get annoyed at every single product placement. But when it becomes obvious that a shot is framed to draw your eye to the product, bleh.

Having never seen Castaway, I can't comment on what I think of the use of FedEx.

It only bothers me when it seems totally blatent. I was watching some tv show recently and there were Chili's take out bags everywhere with their logo on it, it became distracting to me. The scene really had nothing to do with food or where it came from.

Lately I have for some reason really been noticing cell phones in movies and tv. I dont' know if it's just because the current razr's and such look different so I notice them more or what.

I think the worst product placement I've seen in a TV show was on 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy'. They were talking about what they were going to do to their victim's apartment when all of a sudden Carson or someone says, 'Let's go get something to eat at Burger King.' They all cheered and ran across the street to Burger King. Then the next five minutes they were featured with different BK items in their hands. Ugh.
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I cannot even read the rest of the thread, or even this post, before commenting.

You, Sir, are a fraud. You have never seen Cast Away. :rolleyes:

Exactly the point.

Tom Hanks character in Cast Away is a high level manager with a world-wide delivery company who lives his life by the seconds of the clock. It is endemic to the story being told, both to his situation and his character. Working for FedEx is simply something his character would do. And a fictional company would just have taken everybody right out of the reality of the film.

At least, Robert Zemeckis thought so, and that's his perrogative. Since he has made quite a few of the best movies of all time, how 'bout we assume he just may have something there.


We'll have to just agree to disagree. But phone number 555-5555 bugs the crap out of me. It pulls me right out of the story being told. It's noticeable by its obvious artificiality.

And me? I couldn't even enjoy the DaVinci Code. Right away, there was the real Louvre! I mean, c'mon, couldn't they have made up some fictional museum??? Totally wrecked it for me. God knows how much The Louvre paid for that product placement. It was all over the film. Gak, the movie started there, ended there. Bleh.

Why did they have to use the actual Westminster Abbey? Totally took me out of the story.

And what's up with using "Catholicism?" A made-up religion would have been much better. How much do you suppose The Pope paid for that?!?!