h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sort of a film Cliche, Product placement. This can be great fun particularly whn it's blaringly obvious. eg, Gondeneye, when Robbie coultrain actually turns the bottle of smirnoff he's drinking to face the camera. Also, teh BMW in teh film, in it for all of a minute. Similar BMW placing in Armageddon. Best product placement parody is in Return of the Killer Tomatoes (later copied in Waynes World only not done as well) Anyone know any others?

The PowerBook in ID4 - see cliche film situations.
Tomorrow Never Dies - The Ericsson mobile phone and the SAAB.
And wasn't there a film once that was all about some guy's Filofax?

Yes there was, but I can't think that anyone who saw Taking Care Of Business was moved to go "Wow, if I got one of those things my life would be full of such amusing incidents - I can't wait..."

Hmm, not really product placement. Surely tomorrow never dies placed a BMW more than a saab? HAven't Macs appeared in just about everything (Mission impossible) And of course lets not forget that phone from the Matrix.

Indeed the nokia in the Matrix is a funky phone, but the beter one
was the first of the communicators in The Saint.

I actually heard that you can't get the actual phone in the matrix. Apparently the problem was that the spring loaded lower half tended to, well, spring off. The Matrix recieved prototypes to use and teh actual sale version was released without the spring release gizmo so it just dropped by gravity. Bit of a dissapointment really.

Tis true unfortunately
They were only prototypes.

I didn't look that closely at the phones in Matrix, but to me they appeared exactly like their "banana" model (was it 8110? can't remember) sold in Finland and Sweden a few years ago - and totally out of date today

I don't know. i thought it looked like something I'd seen before too. but then I don't know much about mobile phones.

Yesh! I knew I would find it if I just kept looking: Isn't this: http://www.nokia.com/phones/manuals/quickguides/8110/overview.html the same phone as in the Matrix? Because that phone camo on the market on September 1996, and you cannot find it anywhere today. They don't sell it anymore.

But in the Matrix, you just pressed a small button on the side as
the sliding panel was sprung. They couldn't get it right apparently
You can also put different insides in the phone to change it's
functionality.

Does "change its functionality" mean "make it into something that isn't a phone"? If so, what else can you make it into? Bit small for a dishwasher...

You could have very small dishes....
It seems that they change phones into PDA's or other computer gizmos.
Although usually it just means make several phones look the same,
even though they wouldn't all work in the same place (ah that's the
good thing about standards - there are so many to choose from)

no its not a really old phone its brand new and was WAP (internet) access on it in the UK

The new(ish) nokio phone is slightly different to the matrix one, but it still has the button operated clicking cover. Kept me amused for ages.