A movie review. What the heck am I doing while the world burns around us…? I don’t do many of these and I am trying to clean out my “drafts” folder.

I recently watched “Marry Me” on Peacock, because it was free (at least to me). Why not watch a free theatrical release instead of paying too much at the theater? Boy, am I glad I didn’t pay to see it in the theater, not that I would have but you know what I mean.

The movie stars Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson. If you don’t know anything about it, check out the trailer on your preferred search engine. I am not going to do a whole synopsis, but basically it was a Hallmark movie but not on Hallmark. Love, break up, new love, break up, happy ending. Blah blah blah…

What really stuck out to me about this movie wasn’t really the plot line. It was pretty generic and formulaic. What stuck out what the total and complete, blatant, product placement. It was like watching a commercial without watching a commercial!

First and foremost, the movie was basically a two hour music video for JLo’s (latest?) music. She pretty much plays herself, except that she goes by a different name. LOL The glamour, the glitz, the celebrity. All highlighted. Then there was the product placement throughout the movie. It seemed like every 5-10 minutes you were blatantly confronted with a well known product by a company that was using the movie as an advertisement. The characters fawned over the products, played pitch-people for the products on social media, learned about the product from another character, sent or gave products to other characters.

Maybe I’m weird, but I was really distracted by the commercialization in the movie. I kept saying, “There’s another one” and “Wow, that was obvious product placement!” It’s probably a good thing I was watching this at home because the theater likely would have kicked me out because I couldn’t stop talking about how the movie was being used. Obviously, this movie was paid for by a lot of corporate sponsors who all had their brands used directly in the script.

Is the future of movies? Blatant commercials DURING the movie? I have noticed this more and more in TV shows too. We can’t escape any longer.

I hope I didn’t ruin your movie or TV experience by making you more aware of the advertising. I still enjoy both forms of entertainment. This one just struck me with how obscenely obvious it was.

Subtlety has been lost.