In the thick of promoting his new documentary "docbuster" on product placement, Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, director Morgan Spurlock has denied charges that one of the promotional gags he's using is plagiarized.

Conceptual artists The Art Guys, who once did an art project featuring corporate logos on a suit, said that there is no way this is just a coincidence and there is "no doubt that Spurlock has plagiarized our idea" and added that it's "beyond belief."

Spurlock responded by calling the charges "preposterous" and that it's no surprise "we both had an idea to mimic what’s been happening in stock racing for the last 40 years."

Could Spurlock not have researched key elements of his film before filming? Evidently so. We spoke with TIME writer Joel Slein, the originator of the other concept Spurlock could be accused of plagiarizing — namely, the entire premise for the film, right down to the Pom Wonderful sponsorship.Continue reading...

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The centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birth on February 6 will make this a memorable Super Bowl for fans of the Gipper.

What would have been his 100th birthday has sparked a media frenzy. It's being celebrated, of course, by the Ronald Reagan Library and Foundation; predictably by Fox News; civically by GE, which has a long history with Reagan and is funding scholarships with the Reagan Foundation; opportunistically by HBO and other networks; and broadly by the millions of Americans who remember him fondly as (depending on their politics) perhaps the greatest president of their generation. Even the Super Bowl telecast will make room for a Reagan tribute, above.

But leave it to TIME magazine to commemorate Reagan with a jaw-dropper.Continue reading...

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The Sundance Film Festival kicked off last week with news that Morgan Spurlock's new documentary — The Greatest Movie Ever Sold — had sold.

In fact, it sold itself many times over: first and foremost to POM Wonderful for title sponsorship; to Sony, which will distribute it; and to the other brands who agreed to underwrite Spurlock's film in return for being featured placing their products as part of the film.

It all means that Sony will distribute the documentary in April under its new title — POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. The bigger question, as Spurlock seeks to sell out much in the way he intended to blimp out with his McDonald's-skewering Super Size Me documentary in 2004: who got bought and who got sold? And can such a cynical exercise really show how branding and product placement work?Continue reading...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was freed on bail today in London, prompting the loose association of "Operation Payback" hackers gathered under the Anonymous banner to release this video techno-gloat featuring its mascot: the Guy Fawkes-masked character from V for Vendetta. 

The hackers are still plaguing Amazon, Mastercard, eBay and other sites that have withdrawn support for WikiLeaks, while Assange was a runner-up (and reader's choice) for TIME's person of the year — a popular vote that TIME editor Richard Stengel overruled in favor of Mark Zuckerberg.

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