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"      The Super Bowl ads this year were remarkable for how unremarkable they were. Instead of trying anything new, most of them, even the exciting ones, played on our nostalgia for their pleasures. The Audi ad was basically a John Hughes movie in miniature. Budweiser trotted out a baby Clydesdale and had us watch him grow up. Even the Willem Dafoe ad, in which he played the devil, used a Rolling Stones song to charm us. Destiny&amp;#039;s Child, reunited for the first time since 2006, tipped their hat to Charlie&amp;#039;s Angels. Then there was the Dodge Ram ad dedicated to farmers. The aesthetic template for it had already been set, by Levi&amp;#039;s sentimental work-themed ads and Clint Eastwood&amp;#039;s solemn Chrysler commercial last year. It may have been the most nostalgic spot of all, actually. But among all the other ads drowning in celebrity cameos and Twitter hashtags, it actually managed to be effective. The use of all still photography shots isn&amp;#039;t something I can remember seeing recently. The photos were stark. The narration was offhand (literally so, taken from the late Paul Harvey&amp;#039;s 1978 address). It&amp;#039;s hard to call ads like these \u2014 and for that matter, Eastwood&amp;#039;s work \u2014 conservative. They exist to remind us that we are all part of one country, which is something hardly ever done outside of Obama speeches. It was by far the ballsiest ad in the whole game. If only more companies tried to surprise us with their Super Bowl ads. They spend a whole lot of money to look more and more like all the other guys. It was nice to see Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd together again, but all they were doing was... being Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd. The next time someone spends $3.6 million on a Super Bowl ad, I&amp;#039;d really like them to show us what that money means, not just soothe our nostalgia. Maybe they could even shock us. Follow The Culture Blog on RSS and on Twitter at @ESQCulture. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/sports/a18803/dodge-ram-super-bowl-ad-15056987/?click=news>