Morgan Spurlock, the man who makes the world’s most adorable documentaries, is thinking big to promote his latest movie The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.  The conceit: Spurlock financed a documentary on product placement entirely through product placement to the point that the official title of the movie is POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.  (See, adorable!)  As a dedicated spokesperson and filmmaker, Spurlock is doing everything he can to spread the word about POM Wonderful and his movie.  Spurlock purchased the rights to rename Altoona, Pennsylvania “POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Pennsylvania” for $25,000.  Spurlock quipped, “I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the shifting tide of business in America.” [via The Wrap]

Now, the name change is only temporary, effective for 60 days starting April 27.  Still, it sounds like a great couple of months to be an Altoid.  The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is scheduled for limited release on April 22.  Read the official synopsis after the break.

Sony Pictures Classics have released the trailer for Morgan Spurlock’s The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, or “officially” Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.  You see, Spurlock financed his movie about advertising through advertising and he sold off the title to POM Wonderful pomegranate juice.   The documentary is actually a meta-movie where the documentary documents the making of the documentary you are currently watching (it’s not as confusing as it sounds).  Wedged into this novel structure is an attempt to look at how advertising dominates our lives.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer and click here to read my review of the film from Sundance.  The Greatest Movie Ever Sold opens April 22nd.

Here are some new posters for you to check out from some wildly different movies. First up is Priest, starring Paul Bettany as the eponymous futuristic vampire hunter (though the poster looks more like a blend of Blade Runner and NBC’s The Cape.) Next is Morgan Spurlock’s (Super Size Me) new documentary POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. The film explores product placement and advertising within movies and the poster gets that message across in a unique way. Finally, The Innkeepers is a horror thriller about the last two employees at a haunted hotel that is going out of business. It’s got a cool 80’s look to it and immediately made me think of The NeverEnding Story and The Goonies. Hit the jump to check out the posters.

Morgan Spurlock is a director who loves a good gimmick.  Sometimes it works (Super Size Me) and sometimes it blows up in his face (Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?).  The Greatest Movie Ever Sold offers his biggest stunt yet: Making a movie about the movie he’s making solely through corporate sponsorship as a way to explore the effect marketing and advertising has on our lives.  The film is loads of fun as Spurlock meshes his fascinating hook with superb comic timing.  While the film never quite gets to the heart of why companies spend so much on advertising and how effective that marketing is to their bottom line, it’s still an endlessly entertaining and effective reminder of how much advertising dominates our lives.

Over the past month, we’ve been bringing you the first images from films that will be playing at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.  Today, we have the first images from a couple documentaries that will be making their debut: Reagan from director Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight) and The Greatest Movie Ever Sold from Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me).

Hit the jump to check out images and a brief synopsis for both films. The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 20 – 30th.

Sundance has announced the premieres playing out-of-competition at this year’s 2011 Sundance Film Festival.  While we knew that Kevin Macdonald’s documentary Life in a Day and Kevin Smith’s Red State had already made the cut, we now have some other exciting films to add to the list.  Among the films in the “Premieres” category, I’m particularly stoked for Cedar Rapids (starring Ed Helms and John C. Reilly), My Idiot Brother (starring Paul Rudd), The Details (starring Tobey Maguire and Elizabeth Banks), Margin Call (starring Kevin Spacey and Paul Bettany), Salvation Boulevard (starring Pierce Brosnan and Jennifer Connelly), and Tom McCarthy’s Win Win (starring Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan).

But I’m even more jazzed for some of the documentaries.  There’s a Reagan biopic from Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight), Morgan Spurlock’s The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, and Steve James’ The Interrupters, just to name a few.  Hit the jump for the full line-up.  Click here for a list of the films playing in-competition and click here for a list of the other films playing out-of-competition.  The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 20th – 30th.