Hot Docs 2009: Art & Copy (Pray, 2009)


This film is just as bad as Clubland, only it feels twice as worse because the material had so much more potential. This film is an offensive misfire that is the definition of how NOT to make a documentary. As a ‘study’ on modern advertising it is one-sided in its unquestioned praise of commercial ads, narrow in its look at, almost exclusively, television commercials made since the 1980s for major companies (Apple, Nike, Budweiser, etc.), boring in its narcissistic use of music, polished cinematography of things that have nothing to do at all with advertising (rockets going into outer space, satellites, industrial factories, etc), and maddening for being a ‘well’-produced enough documentary that another, unquestionably better one won’t come along in a long time, if ever. At least 15% of the film involves watching a commercial that everyone has already seen too many times (Mac’s 1984 commercial, Budweiser’s frog commercials, Got Milk commercials, Nike ‘Just Do It’ commercials, etc.) in their entireties, often as a lead up to nothing more than an inane interview with the guy that thought it up, in which he talks about how much of a genius he is. The rest of the film plays indie rock while revealing, in text, ‘critical’ facts about modern culture, like “Americans watch so-and-so hours of TV every day” Boo hoo.