A myopic documentary about the advertising industry, Art & Copy is as lacking in critical analysis as it is historical context. The entire thing is ultimately little more than a collection of interviews generally with obscure professionals (albeit ones connected to a few iconic ads) while occasional statistics appear as segues between scenes. The resulting view of the advertising industry and its development is exceedingly shallow with virtually no take-away as well as nothing to balance the production out. The film seems to push advertising almost entirely as an art form where advertisers draw inspiration from thin air rather than a calculated process that creates benefits for the clients. Unsurprisingly, the statistics in the film refer to ad spends with no statistics relating to ad campaign return (instead you'll get either "It did well" or "The client decided to stop using the campaign").Art & Copy really could have been so much more with a tighter focus and insights from the director. That said, the film is redeemed by a few interesting bits of trivia such as the origins of the slogan "Just do it"

Wow! some of the previous reviewers are so cynical! I loved this movie! It's simply a thought provoking and sometimes sentimental journey through the evolution of advertising. I think it's also a pretty realistic commentary on the effects of advertising on our culture although some of these images may be lost on a younger generation, I connected to the Samsonite commercial and Cold War images because I was raised in that generation. I watched it with my kids (language!) as part of our homeschooling curriculum and then asked them to name as many jingles and catch phrases as they could, collectively, that are part of our lives and they were able to name quite a few! I also watched it with them because I wanted my kids to think about how advertising influences them and our culture. I am a creative person and love art work and images so this movie was like eye candy to me. I also loved the score and would purchase it if it was available. The music is somewhat haunting and builds throughout the movie until the dramatic conclusion. I liked the fact that the main premise of the movie is about creativity and bucking the system. What would our lives be like if there were no Macs or Windows? So what if advertisers are tooting their own horns? I would rather be sold to in a way that makes me feel good than in a way that makes me feel like I'm being called stupid or boring. That's what we love about products-how they make us feel and think...and that is the truth.

This film starts off strongly and contains some interesting interviews with some famous and some less well-known admen and women. But aside from brief and half-hearted questioning towards the end of the film, most of the subjects interviewed display the typical pathology of ad industry "creatives": they denigrate their clients for their lack of imagination (Hal Riney says outright that the personality he creates is more important than the product) while presenting themselves as creative artists. Deep down, they know they are whores, and thus they never tire of explaining why they are not.Countless times we are treating to disquisitions on the creative nature of what they do, how it "reaches so many people" and this "at the same time", as if this meant something. Comparisons to the work of Toulouse-Lautrec are made. The suggestion that the work consists in getting people to buy useless products is rebuffed with the argument that it is impossible to get people to do what they don't want to do. Yet many of the subjects boast that they can get people to feel whatever emotion they want and that they can create mass movements out of thin air.While there are occasional inserts of ad-industry data which might or might not shock you (likely not), no consequences are drawn. Many of the interviews are intercut with shots and images that flatter the subjects' self-image as mavericks. If the director has any critical distance on his subjects, it is so well-camouflaged as to be indetectable.Towards the middle of the film, one adman explains that great ads are based on truth, and that people can tell whether you are telling the truth and will react to it. If this film is telling the truth, then Michelangelo missed his calling.

For anyone who has either made a grab for the remote control whenever one of those annoying advertisements appear on television,this film may (or may not)interest you. Behind those thirty,or sixty second exercises in video bombast,there are the persons who are responsible (or guilty)for putting them there in the first place. Documentary film maker Doug Pray (Hype,Red Diaper Baby,etc.)directs this informative (and at times,very funny) open window on the talking heads who are behind all of this wretched excess. In a space of 89 minutes,we see the likes of Liz Dolan (a former marketing chief at Nike,who reveals the creepy origins of their catch phrase,"Just Do It"),Dan Wieden,Jeff Goodby,and especially the outspoken George Lois, among others,speak their individual minds on the ins & outs of the advertising business (so now you know who's photograph to toss darts at). In addition to television & radio ads,we also get to know about other aspects of the advertising game (billboards,which I generally consider,for the most part,an eye sore,not to mention magazines & newspapers,etc.). Don't get me wrong---I know that products need to get the word out,but they could be done a bit more tactfully (I've always considered European advertising's approach of a whisper gets more attention than a shout--just watch some of the television advertisements that appear on European television the next time you're over there). This is a documentary that is easy to like, dealing with a subject that some (most?) of us love to hate. Not rated by the MPAA,but contains strong language. Maybe not a good choice for little tykes that are learning to talk (you probably would not want them to blurt out some of the stuff that tumbles out of the mouth of George Lois in mixed company)