Greg Davis

Frozen River (2008)

Directed and written by Courtney Hunt.

I figured this one was going to be likeable just from the description and fact that it deals with a smuggling situation close to home (eastern Ontario/Quebec) but my expectations were wildly exceeded. Such a focused movie. There was something ironic about the simplicity of the characters contrasted with some complex messages.

Great movie from this director who is by the looks of it making his debut. I also didn’t realize the screenplay was nominated for a best writing Oscar last year. Didn’t know good movies won Oscars anymore.

4.5 stars out of 5.0

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Rather than post my favorite movie picks manually, I’ve stumbled upon a great tool- Movielens- for rating movies and making movie recommendations. We’ll see if I keep it up but I plan on rating movies I’ve seen and see in the future on this site. The great thing is you can export your ratings to html or RSS.

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A student in a first year marketing class I am TA’ing asked an interested question which I did some quick research on: what is the average price paid for product placement in the film industry?

While I wasn’t able to pinpoint an answer I did discover some interesting stuff:

product placement as a whole was worth $4.24 billion (US) in 2005- 80% of which takes place on TV

the top 3 TV shows by # of product placements
1. the biggest loser
2. american idol
3. extreme makeover

Companies have been paying $5 million to have their product showcased on The Apprentice

Studios often have larger, package deals with companies to have product placement in more than one movie, and even shared advertising agreements

a 2006 article claimed the average indie movie (that ended up in theatres) was charging in the range of $50k to $250k

a famous film example is E.T.- they charge Reese’s Pieces $1 million which supposedly resulted in an 80% leap in sales (for how long I wonder?)

BMW paid $3 million to have James Bond dump his Aston Martin in a recent movie

The recent hit Slumdog Millionaire (IMO) can be said to be an example of “product displacement”- they had to spend thousands removing any signs of the Mercedes brand from cars shown in the movie because Mercedes objected to their brand being seen in slums

Remember that movie The Wizard from back in the day? Now that was full on product placement.. the power glove.. super mario 3.. kids must be super vulnerable to that kind of stuff.