Besides the fairly juvenile behavior of the cast in general, what bothered me most about this film was the most shameless product placement I've ever seen (the cast explicitly recommending Head and Shoulders). Am I the only one to get bothered by this?!?
shareNo, few other people also brought that same comment, right here, as you would have found if you have taken some time to look for them (which probably indicates that few other people would do the same about reading this post, even if it matches their opinion).
On the DVD comment tracks, you may learn that it is not really a product placement as not only they did not get any money from H&S, but they have buy, themselves, the required shampoo they had to use. Furthermore, they "recommend" the product at the very last scene of the movie, which indicates it is more a joke than anything else (and observe the manner they handle the shampoo bottles... it is far from being serious).
I looked for a post on the topic, but I guess I just wasn't thorough enough.
So they didn't get any money from H&S, eh? Somehow I find it hard to believe since I rarely see any product marketed that explicitly. Also, the "recommendation" (call it whatever you like) at the end of the film may have been put there as a joke, but it still looked more serious than most of the advertisements I've seen. :-p
Serious?...it bothered you?
shareAgree... that was bad. Hollywood seems to be run by commercial sluts.
shareSeriously? Please you guys can't possibly be this dumb. It was a deliberate spoof of product placement. So I guess you guys must have thought Dr. Strangelove was blindly jingoistic. Or had a problem when Scary Movie wasn't scary at all.
shareI thought the product placement in Transformers was far worse. Evolution never stopped the the roll of storytelling to talk about the features on a cell phone. At least Evolution (like Ricky Bobby) made the product placement funny.
share[deleted]
Wow, some people don't understand sarcasm or subtlety.
Look, the entire H&S thing was a spoof on product placements...and the end was OBVIOUS sarcasm.
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The eyes are the groin of the head.
Dr Strangelove is a classic (unlike Evolution). If there are plugs in it (other than for a "weekend in Vegas" or Jamaican cigars), then they're better handled than this one.
Scary Movie was rubbish too. Sorry...
Agree... that was bad. Hollywood seems to be run by commercial sluts.
I have to laugh at the joke placement, which would never persuade anyone to use a product that destroys aliens! BTW, according to my mates, it also destroys your hair. Makes you bald, that is.
Having said that, I've never used it and and still lost my hair. But I have smelt it...
Be seeing you
As noted, the commentary on the DVD mentions that they didn't get paid for the 'product placement'. Occasionally writers use specific products to illustrate a point or emphasize humor or to fill the necessary plothole.
The example I have off-hand is the episode Window of Opportunity from Stargate SG-1. The writers had O'Neill specifically eating Froot Loops (despite offers from other brands where the show would actually get paid) to coincide with the time loop he was stuck in (...despite being such a nuanced detail that very few viewers would even notice what he was eating).
The shampoo is simply a vehicle for delivering the 'killer chemical' to the aliens.
Product placement implies that they wanted the audience to buy the product. In Evolution's case, "product placement" implied placing a product up the ass of giant alien amoeba using a firetruck.
I did not want to buy that brand of shampoo after witnessing that.
I don't like product placement, but they are spoofing it. And generally people complain about product placement too much now.. If you look around, you probably see dozens of brands, but if there's one in a movie, it's terrible.