This diced spaghetti salad could have been riveting, but leaving out pivotal details and voices in the UFO historical narrative weakens the arguments both for and against the phenomenon in exchange for exorbitant time spent on less significant details, but worst of all the chop suey structuring of the information in this scrambled eggs documentary makes for ADHD broken understanding that jumps from point C to point X to point L to point E to point R to point A, etc. Ever heard of a zig zag? Ever heard of a zig zag that u-turns and ties itself in knots? That's this series. Great music though...
Reviews
8 Reviews
Glass
(2019)
It reveals to you that your understanding of the world is upside-down
29 January 2019
Glass represents a deconstruction of the superhero genre. It is self-conscious (reflexive) of its own content and structure.
This is primarily a revenge story in which the two villains team up to avenge the weakest (most broken) among us: the disabled and neuro-divergent.
What is most profound about Kevin Crumb (The Hoard) is that he represents the "avenging angel" who has come to punish the privileged and powerful. Despite having an inner sense of justice to make the blindly privileged feel the pain of those they have oppressed, it's easy for this to go too far to the point of morbid malevolence. But the beauty of Kevin's character is in his moral mission to protect the weak. Kevin himself was abused as a child, resulting in a "broken" identity, just as Mr. Glass resulted in physical brokenness. Hence, they both defend "the broken," to not believe what they are told, that they are broken and disordered, but instead to believe in their potential to achieve the "impossible."
On top of this, consider that David (Bruce Willis) represents the traditional superhero that does what? Kills criminals and defends the status quo. Little did we realize that those criminals are people that need help, that were abused by their circumstances ("oppressed" or "traumatized" as some would say), and that status quo is the 10 billion crimes of capitalism that exploited all cultures and ecosystems and serves economic elites. Until we realized that generations have been indoctrinated by propaganda promulgated by establishment institutions seeking to uphold their own vested interests at the expense of social and ecological well-being, until we woke up to the fact that we had been taught an upside-down view of the world, until we understood that the criminal is just like anyone of you surviving under more difficult circumstances, only then could the ANTI-HERO's story be told. Only then could we have the dissillusionment with what is "right" and "good," and have the empathy, the comprehension, the consciousness, the compassion to hear the anti-hero's story with understanding and without judgement. That anti-hero is here represented as Kevin (The Hoard) and Mr. Glass. In contrast, David (Bruce Willis) looks like the typical masculine figure that solves his problems through violence, killing "criminals" without mercy, and defending the status quo (what better represented by occupation of "security guard" ("guarding" the fortress). In this context, he looks like the villian more than anyone, perhaps second to the psychiatric institutions that force "the broken" to adjust to a system that abuses them.
This same realization of an upside-down world leads us to realize that the fallen angel, Satan, in Paradise Lost, is no more a villain than the one that sent him to the underworld.
Lastly, Glass, has an interesting exploration of the concept of "self fulfilling prophecies" and "faith" in oneself.
This is primarily a revenge story in which the two villains team up to avenge the weakest (most broken) among us: the disabled and neuro-divergent.
What is most profound about Kevin Crumb (The Hoard) is that he represents the "avenging angel" who has come to punish the privileged and powerful. Despite having an inner sense of justice to make the blindly privileged feel the pain of those they have oppressed, it's easy for this to go too far to the point of morbid malevolence. But the beauty of Kevin's character is in his moral mission to protect the weak. Kevin himself was abused as a child, resulting in a "broken" identity, just as Mr. Glass resulted in physical brokenness. Hence, they both defend "the broken," to not believe what they are told, that they are broken and disordered, but instead to believe in their potential to achieve the "impossible."
On top of this, consider that David (Bruce Willis) represents the traditional superhero that does what? Kills criminals and defends the status quo. Little did we realize that those criminals are people that need help, that were abused by their circumstances ("oppressed" or "traumatized" as some would say), and that status quo is the 10 billion crimes of capitalism that exploited all cultures and ecosystems and serves economic elites. Until we realized that generations have been indoctrinated by propaganda promulgated by establishment institutions seeking to uphold their own vested interests at the expense of social and ecological well-being, until we woke up to the fact that we had been taught an upside-down view of the world, until we understood that the criminal is just like anyone of you surviving under more difficult circumstances, only then could the ANTI-HERO's story be told. Only then could we have the dissillusionment with what is "right" and "good," and have the empathy, the comprehension, the consciousness, the compassion to hear the anti-hero's story with understanding and without judgement. That anti-hero is here represented as Kevin (The Hoard) and Mr. Glass. In contrast, David (Bruce Willis) looks like the typical masculine figure that solves his problems through violence, killing "criminals" without mercy, and defending the status quo (what better represented by occupation of "security guard" ("guarding" the fortress). In this context, he looks like the villian more than anyone, perhaps second to the psychiatric institutions that force "the broken" to adjust to a system that abuses them.
This same realization of an upside-down world leads us to realize that the fallen angel, Satan, in Paradise Lost, is no more a villain than the one that sent him to the underworld.
Lastly, Glass, has an interesting exploration of the concept of "self fulfilling prophecies" and "faith" in oneself.
Strange New World
(1975 TV Movie)
Better without Gene Roddenberry
24 November 2017
This film is often grouped with Gene Roddenberry's "Genesis II" and "Planet Earth." The big difference is that Roddenberry didn't participate in this film. For those who are not fond of Roddenberry rather campy style of writing, you'll find this film a more sober depiction of his imagination. This film completely lacks the campiness and bulges at the seems with seriousness. There's nearly zero humor in this film. The astronauts (except Saxon), and many of the characters they meet, maintain a stoic demeanor. The director's choice to hold shots during dialogue adds an additional layer of subtextual realism. The entire film maintains a sense of dis-ease. However, the first episode/story suffers from poor set and costume design. The second episode fares much better.
Hum
(II) (2015)
an overly-sappy over-long tale
28 October 2017
Another robot as pathos story. Overly sappy. A story told much better if it were compressed to 3 or 4 minutes instead of 10.
Great CGI but doesn't do much with it in story.
A dumb human is cartoonish mean guy abusing and enslaving small robot with big eyes (that couldn't plausibly see).
You want to like it a lot, but can't.
Great CGI but doesn't do much with it in story.
A dumb human is cartoonish mean guy abusing and enslaving small robot with big eyes (that couldn't plausibly see).
You want to like it a lot, but can't.
Omega
(V) (2012)
Imaginative post-human vision
27 October 2017
Imagine a distant future in which humans barely cling to life via a technological complex yet within a post apocalyptic world filled with evolving machines. Can you?
This short film vividly imagines machines undergoing their own evolution and one that stands apex to all, and it's not human. The stop motion animation adds a quality of realism to the visuals. Strange, alien, but Earth nonetheless. A surprise ending as well.
This short film vividly imagines machines undergoing their own evolution and one that stands apex to all, and it's not human. The stop motion animation adds a quality of realism to the visuals. Strange, alien, but Earth nonetheless. A surprise ending as well.
Fired on Mars
(2016)
A pleasant mix of absurdity, humor, and poetry
16 October 2017
The animation style keeps you just a mood away from taking it too seriously. The writing wavers between humor and (eventually) poetry. But the music imposes a somber tone. Some events, obvious absurdity. The story invites feelings of familiar discontent. It makes you wonder: what were they thinking?
Prime example of a new wave of abstract parable
16 October 2017
Thanks to the increasing power of resources and availability of digital tools to the world's population, we get short films such as this, entirely CGI animated without dialogue or particular characters. Instead, it tells a story using abstract forms in sequences of implied causality. Interesting for the cerebral among us. The form, though existing on occasion as 2D traditional animation sprinkled across past decades, offers much more visual spectacle when rendered as CGI. Perhaps a new frontier in visual narrative.
Take the 5:10 to Dreamland
(1976)
Much praise to the musical score
26 July 2017
The music gives all the power to this scrapheap of footage. The footage is dumb and represents no meaningful connections or contrasts, except to the extent that you, the viewer, project into it like a rorschach inkblot, in which case you, the viewer, deserves credit for its "brilliance" (the brilliance of your own associations) - not Bruce Conner. Conner had no hand in controlling the associations people create in the footage. He followed no rationale, principle, method, theory, etc. Therefore, a gust of wind blowing film stock into a pile of fragments deserves as much credit for "directing" or "authoring" the meaning. You might as well remove his name from the film entirely and replace it with one word: "Arbitrary." Or sell the musical score by itself as a profoundly haunting composition. All praise to the composer of the music. None to Bruce Conner.
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