Product placement helps keep Hollywood spinning, but holy crap, did things go totally overboard this year or what? Here's just a few examples: Furious 7 shoving an ice bucket of Coronas at the screen, the Coca Cola and Mercedes ads in Jurassic World, Baskin Robbins getting its own recurring joke in Ant-Man, and Hitman: Agent 47 basically being a feature-length Audi commercial. Yes, product placement always has and always will be around, but has it ever been quite this blatant? More to the point, have filmmakers ever been so self-aware about it, in an attempt to deflect criticisms of shilling even though it does nothing to take away from the fact they were still paid to feature said brand in their movie? And as viewers, we lapped it up, often even defending it as "meta" and therefore acceptable (as was certainly the case with the first three movies mentioned here). But still, aren't you going to leave the cinema remembering those brands? It's dumb because we're still playing directly into their grubby little mitts.
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.
