The following has been brought to you 100% free of all 'drive you crazy/ride of your life' puns. All other awful jokes are the full responsibility of the author.

The Flash and the Furious
Commercials: the best friend of the business sector and the nemesis of the consumer. At their best, ads not only show off the item in question, but stick in people's minds - perhaps even so far as to become water-cooler conversation later. Look at the Super Bowl for how pervasive they've become in our culture, with shows hosted by B-List actresses to show off these mini-cinemas of product placement with punchlines. The Mr. Hyde side of the coin shows advertising as corporate Jehovah's Witnesses, interrupting our lives to tell of salvation available for a limited time introductory offer while predatorily gauging our reactions. This causes the ad, and by extension the purchase in question, to become forgettable or even hated by the public at large.

Hence, snaring the smarter-than-average consumer requires better pic-a-nic baskets as bait. The most popular method is to create an icon that people can quickly identify with the product. For instance, fast food is identifiable with the trustworthy clown, like Ronald McDonald, Jack, or Shaq. Need to make a call? You can probably summon to mind more annoying celebrities talking in bad puns than actual numbers. And would you have ever known you were getting a Dell unless you were notified by a horrible grinning parody of a human being every 20 minutes, dude?

Another widely used tactic is to make a commercial whose message is only remotely connected with the actual product, like a perfume ad featuring women pawing at a screen like zombies demanding the audience "give them the Glow", or a Disneyland commercial with kids discovering how their parents make babies. Of course, this elicits the same response from the viewer as a child staring at an adult pretending a forkful of asparagus is an airplane in the hopes the kid will eat it. The company just becomes this huge retard making engine noises, fooling no one but itself.

Serial Thriller
Thus, by all means, the concept of BMWfilms.com shouldn't work. A series of short movies based around a product, in this case, a car, seems preposterous, self-important, and doomed to failure. Why not simply show a bunch of twenty-somethings in a glossy vehicle 'gettin' down' to some licensed tune while driving and be done with it? Put in a girl doing the robot in the passenger seat and perhaps someone with an Afro and you're set.

However, BMW had both the capital and the competence to change up the formula somewhat. With a veritable who's who of screen talent like David Fincher (Fight Club, Panic Room), late action director John Frankenheimer and Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Hulk) behind the camera, plus cameos from Forest Whitaker to Madonna, The Hire came to life. A commercial more subversive you'd be hard-pressed to find, because it honestly isn't one. There's no palpable urgency to give the viewer the hard sell - just to sit back and enjoy the show.

You Are the Wheelman
The Hire centers on an unnamed driver played by British actor Clive Owen. A freelance courier, the Driver will get your package to any destination you need in style... for the right amount of cash. Of course, the job is never as simple as point A to point B as this road warrior pushes his various cars to the limit for customers as various as James Brown to the new Dalai Llama.

Each under 10-minute segment is helmed by a different director and features different actors, the Driver and his brand-name ride remaining the only constant. Both get to flex their muscle equally - Owen shows off his chops interacting with the cast of the week, while the BMW corners and powers along in amazing chase scenes. All in all, the experience becomes commercial art; a nebulous entity both bite-size action movie and ad, but transcending the sum of its parts.

Some of the more outstanding selections of the collection are the tense series premiere Ambush, as John Frankenheimer shows the Driver narrowly escaping black ops goons, or Ang Lee's Chosen, where the Driver protects a Golden Child from abduction. The new 'season' runs with the quality standard, as action god John Woo and some lesser-known but equally skilled directors pit the Driver against a mad kidnapper, a government asassination attempt on Don Cheadle, and even Satan Himself, Gary Oldman.

Guest-starring in Beat The Devil, Gary plays as the Lord of Hell as though burnout British rock stars like Pop and Bowie collided to form Iggy Stardust, come to collect on the soul of the Godfather of Soul (My guess is he must've seen James in The Tuxedo this summer). Though for my lack of money, nothing tops the delightful comeuppance the Driver gives Madonna in Star, at the hands of her director husband Guy Ritchie, no less. I highly recommend it as therapy for dealing with Swept Away.

O.K., Go!
Pointing your browser to the featured link will allow you to screen the movies with a speedy connection, plus trailers, director's commentary, and more. I severely doubt that anyone reading this has the funds to lay hands on a Beamer themselves, but can at least settle for the next best thing being a free double-click away. Thank goodness subliminal advertising has gone the way of Native Americans in flying cars powered by dodos, as you'll definitely be sold on the undeniable Grand Theft Auto sensibility of The Hire.