This movie has been designated a Critics' Pick by the film reviewers of The New York Times. 
 
 Morgan Spurlock could sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. After watching his documentary “Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” I could imagine this charming red-headed 40-year-old filmmaker raking in money as a door-to-door salesman of crummy encyclopedias in the slums of Philadelphia or as a pitchman in an infomercial peddling a flimsy abdominal toner. He could probably earn millions as a motivational speaker. 
 
 For what Mr. Spurlock says matters less than the way he says it. Cocky with an undertone of ironic self-deprecation that forestalls accusations of insincerity, he is a superb promoter of himself as a brand. In “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” he may look ridiculous wearing clothes plastered with corporate logos, but he lets us in on the joke. 
 
 “Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” is even more amusing than “Super Size Me,” the documentary that put Mr. Spurlock on the moviemaking map in 2004. In that film he jeopardized his own health by restricting himself for a month to an all-McDonald’s diet. By the end of his experiment his numbers (weight, cholesterol and blood pressure) had shot up to potentially dangerous levels. 
 
 Like “Super Size Me” his new film is a documentary comedy in the Michael Moore mode but without a political or moral agenda. Mr. Spurlock has Mr. Moore’s prankster’s instincts, though not his sense of outrage. Exploring product placement in movies and on television, the documentary is as much celebration as it is a critique of what is called co-promotion, in which movies like “Spider-Man 2” are infiltrated with images of brand-name products that pay for the exposure. If “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” affects the attitude of an exposé, Mr. Spurlock is really a gleeful participant in the corruption (if that’s what you want to call it) that his movie purports to criticize. 
 
 The conceptual joke is that the entire project was financed by conspicuously placed products in a film that is little more than a string of ads for its sponsors, stitched together with scenes of Mr. Spurlock hustling like crazy to line them up. Brief appearances by Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader lend it a frisson of cultural and intellectual weight. 
 
 Mr. Spurlock hits the jackpot with Pom Wonderful, the pomegranate juice that markets itself as an antioxidant and that is supposed to have a Viagra effect if you drink enough of it. For $1 million, Pom Wonderful earned the privilege of having its name on the marquee in front of the title of this $1.5 million film. At the screening I attended small bottles of the juice were distributed in gift bags with other items from sponsors. 
 
 For Mr. Spurlock to get his million his contract with Pom Wonderful stipulates that the movie must gross $10 million at the box office (high for a documentary), sell 500,000 DVDs and downloads, and generate 600 million “media impressions.” 
 
 Other products prominently featured include Merrell shoes, JetBlue, Hyatt, Sheetz convenience stores, and (mostly bizarrely) Mane ’n Tail, a shampoo marketed to equestrians for use by both humans and horses. Of all the film’s comedic ads the funniest finds Mr. Spurlock sharing a bathtub with a tiny pony. 
 
 His idea for a “doc-buster” supported by corporate sponsors, he says, was a tough sell. Telephone calls to several hundred companies are met with indifference and sometimes suspicion, which is not surprising because “Super Size Me,” for all its humor, attacked McDonald’s. 
 
 Finally Ban deodorant invites Mr. Spurlock to a meeting where he works his fast-talking magic. More than once the movie shows Mr. Spurlock, armed with clever storyboards, selling his ideas with an enthusiasm and skill that would put Don Draper of “Mad Men” to shame. 
 
 The actual product placements in which Mr. Spurlock is shown plugging the sponsors who eventually sign on to the project are so outrageous that you want to laugh. Here the insidious “hidden persuaders” of Vance Packard’s book on subliminal advertising are gaudily on display. 
 
 The movie takes two tangents: one productive, the other mystifying. A visit to São Paulo, Brazil, where outdoor advertising has been banned, is almost shocking for the absence of Times Square-style signs. If the city looks pure without such visual stimulation, it also seems naked and poor. 
 
 The movie, which keeps a sprinting momentum, suddenly reaches a dead halt in a section that debates putting advertising in budget-strapped Florida public schools and on school buses to raise money. If the sequence belongs anywhere, it would be in a movie about paying for public education, not advertising. 
 
 What would “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” be with a different narrator-guide? 
 
 It is hard to imagine. Mr. Spurlock has the gift of gab along with an undeniable star quality. In fact I’ve already ordered the ab toner and am saving up for a down payment on the Brooklyn Bridge should he offer it up for sale. 
 
 “Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has some language and sexual material. 
 
 POM WONDERFUL PRESENTS: 
 
 THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD 
 
 Opens on Friday in New York; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Chicago; Washington; Boston; Philadelphia; San Diego; Phoenix; and Austin, Tex. 
 
 Directed by Morgan Spurlock; written by Jeremy Chilnick and Mr. Spurlock; director of photography, Daniel Marracino; edited by Thomas M. Vogt; music by Jon Spurney; produced by Mr. Chilnick, Abbie Hurewitz, Mr. Spurlock, Keith Calder and Jessica Wu; released by Sony Pictures Classics. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes. ||||| Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Morgan Spurlock made his name with the documentary Super Size Me, which looked at the effects of eating fast food 
 
 US documentary film-maker Morgan Spurlock has publicly confessed to a history of sexual misconduct, referring to himself as "part of the problem". 
 
 Spurlock, who made the hit film Super Size Me, wrote on Twitter that he had been accused of rape and had paid to settle a claim of sexual harassment. 
 
 He also admitted cheating on "every wife and girlfriend I have ever had". 
 
 The US entertainment industry has been rocked by claims of sexual abuse and harassment going back decades. 
 
 In a lengthy statement, Spurlock said that after months of such revelations he had come to the conclusion that "I am not some innocent bystander, I am also a part of the problem". 
 
 "As I sit around watching hero after hero, man after man, fall at the realisation of their past indiscretions, I don't sit by and wonder 'who will be next?' I wonder, 'when will they come for me?'," he wrote. 
 
 He said the allegations of rape took place at college. It did not lead to charges or investigations but he said the woman had written about the incident in a story writing class and had named Spurlock. 
 
 The settlement for alleged harassment involved a female employee and took place about eight years ago, he said. 
 
 "It wasn't a gropy, feely harassment. It was verbal, and it was just as bad," he wrote. 
 
 "I would call my female assistant 'hot pants' or 'sex pants' when I was yelling to her from the other side of the office. Something I thought was funny at the time, but then realised I had completely demeaned and belittled her to a place of non-existence." 
 
 Spurlock, 47, said that when the woman decided to leave she asked for a settlement in return for her silence. 
 
 "Being who I was, it was the last thing I wanted, so of course I paid," he said. 
 
 "I paid for peace of mind. I paid for her silence and co-operation. Most of all, I paid so I could remain who I was." 
 
 'I will do better' 
 
 Spurlock said he himself had been the victim of sexual abuse as a boy and a teenager, and also had a longstanding drink problem. 
 
 "I haven't been sober for more than a week in 30 years, something our society doesn't shun or condemn but which only served to fill the emotional hole inside me and the daily depression I coped with," he wrote. 
 
 Spurlock said he hoped that by "recognising and openly admitting what I've done to further this terrible situation, I hope to empower the change within myself". 
 
 "We should all find the courage to admit we're at fault," he said. 
 
 "I will do better. I will be better. I believe we all can." 
 
 Responding to messages on Twitter, Spurlock said he was "seeking help". 
 
 Fresh claims of sexual misconduct against entertainment industry figures have been appearing on an almost daily basis for weeks. The revelations have sparked the #MeToo movement in which women have come forward with their stories. 
 
 Actress Salma Hayek recently alleged that Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed and threatened her, describing him as a rage-fuelled "monster". 
 
 Dozens of actresses, including Rose McGowan, Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow, have accused Weinstein of harassment or assault. 
 
 Weinstein denies all allegations of non-consensual sex.
– Morgan Spurlock, the guy behind Super Size Me, calls his latest documentary—an exploration of our ad-obsessed culture—The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. And critics seem to agree: Spurlock “has this habit of making documentaries that come hidden in the Trojan horse of silly and then stab at your conscience,” writes Peter Travers in Rolling Stone. “As ever, he makes you laugh till it hurts.” Spurlock "spoofs himself into an exuberant documentary that demonstrates the all-pervasive influence of modern advertising by satiric example, and with great ingenuity,” notes Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal. Spurlock has an appeal all his own, adds Stephen Holden in the New York Times: It’s “the gift of gab along with an undeniable star quality," making him "a superb promoter of himself as a brand." But “something gets lost as the distance between filmmaker and subject disappears—I think we call it objectivity,” warns Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times. Still, Spurlock offers “some surprisingly salient observations.”