The Konietzky Strain

The Wilderness Downtown is an experimental interactive film using Google Chrome created by Chris Milk in collaboration with Arcade Fire and Google. It was built using HTML5, Google Maps, an integrated drawing tool and it uses multiple browser windows as the user moves around the screen.

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FILMS: Predators… Galactic jungle love.

What happened to the days of great summer films? Where have they gone, and when can we get them back? The film Predators, tries to give us a brief glimpse back to days of summer blockbusters. Too bad it is a fuzzy and empty look back.

Predators tries very hard to be the sequel that the 1987 Predator deserved, and while it is better than Predator 2 and the AvP films, the bar is set pretty low from the start. Director Nimrod Antal’s take on the franchise tries to bring it back in an awesome way… it really does. That’s more than you can say for any of the previous sequels that have been released.

The plot, the dialog, things the characters did to stay alive, all of this has already been done in the original film. There is not much “new” material in this film other than the black Predators, which is a new version to the original Predator, and there is an inter-species warring faction now. Not that it is ever further explained, or that anyone cares about it. There isn’t even a single classic Predator “roar” to be found in this entire film, and that is very disappointing.

The film starts with an unconscious Adrien Brody, freefalling to the ground. He awakens in mid-air and starts screaming. It’s a really cool way to start a movie, or it would be, if this scene were even remotely scary. Part of the reason the original Predator is so good is that it’s scary. The original is a horror movie more than an action movie and even though you never really know the characters in it intimately, you’re rooting for them to survive. It’s a brutal film, full of gore, and violence which only serves to heighten the gritty reality. Predators tries desperately to duplicate all of that and just can’t. There’s not a single edge of your seat moment anywhere in Predators.

Maybe we’ve simply seen too many Predator movies, it’s obvious from the beginning what’s going to happen, and who is going to do what. We have a group of killers, kidnapped and dropped on an alien planet where they’re hunted for sport. Aside from a single scene in which we see a bunch of weird moons, the alien planet looks exactly like that same old jungle we saw Arnold running around in back in 1987. The film contains more than one Predator, and that should be different and exciting, except you never really see more than two of them on screen at any time. Almost all of the film’s battles still take place between a single Predator and a single human.

The best part of the movie was the use of the original score from the first Predator movie. Basically the movie is all jungle and no interesting action… literally. The film sets out to pay homage to the original movie by completely xeroxing it. It’s a well made film, and a bit fun, but you won’t be thrilled, excited, or scared by it in the least. Maybe it’s time we put the Predator to bed, grab a seat on the next spaceship, and head off to newer galaxy.

35mm is a short film about cinema itself. Felix Meyer and his team picked 35 of their favorite movies and tried to simplify them. The outcome is a two minute journey through the history of film. See if you can recognized them all!

FILMS: Splice… Creepy but intelligent design.

Splice is a beautiful and warped film that we don’t see in theaters anymore, due to the fact that the Hollywood Engine never gets behind this kind of creativity. Horror/SciFi films today are generally a painful mix of remakes or mindless gore-fests, but you are in for brain-tweaking treat with this new film.

Clive Nicoli (Adrien Brody) and Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) are two young genetic engineers who have been given the job of running a genetic laboratory at a large corporation to develop a protein using animal gene splicing from several different species. To speed up the process, they secretly take a chance and add human DNA to the experiment. What they get is a new organism which Clive wants to destroy, but Elsa convinces him to let it live a little longer. As the creature grows bigger, you begin to see a new animal species. The creature looks like a human female, but it has many features of several animals. The creature has wings, a stinger, can breathe under water, and can communicate with Elsa. They begin to bond with the creature and name her Dren (Delphine Chaneac). Their little experiment has gotten out of hand, and it could be the end to their careers if it got out that they created an animal/human hybrid. Clive and Elsa finally learn the reason why they shouldn’t play with Mother Nature.

Elsa and Clive make a lot of mistakes and poor judgments throughout the film considering how brilliant they are. They try to approach the creation of this hybrid being with an objective mind… purely for the sake of science. The character’s themselves are even named after pivotal actors in Bride of Frankenstein (Colin Clive and Elsa Lanchester), homage to one of the great creatures of Science Fiction, and a source of inspiration to Director Vincenzo Natali. The creature effects are disturbingly hypnotic and the actress playing Dren is amazingly beautiful and exotic looking. Her mild androgyny and mannerisms took the creature further than what FX could have done alone. Adrien Brody and Polley were both solid actors throughout the film also. This film creeps into you on a moral, intellectual, and erotic level. The science in the film truly exists and everything you see is, or will be done in many laboratories around the world. The topic of Splice is ripe for discussion and exploitation, and will make you wonder about the strange world we live in.

FILMS: Crazy Like a Fox… Resonating hope.

Being in Florida you may live in an area where the surrounding countryside is being eaten up by fast-growing townhouses and their accompanying super malls, and where most of the local legislators are too busy drinking the developers’ Kool-aid to take any notice of the fast-fading beauty of nature.

Crazy Like a Fox shows what happens when neighbors unite to help one of their friends, played wonderfully by Roger Rees. He mistrusts everyone including his own wife, Mary McDonnell and his good friend the real estate agent. He fights back against the forced sale of his estate by moving to a cave on the property. Somehow, Rees manages to make that bizarre action seem like the only rational choice. Add to the mix Christina Rouner and Paul Fitzgerald, as the wealthy city lawyers who are clearly looking to make even bigger bucks in real estate investments, are terrific. Not only do they look the part, but they are both able to convey the subtle signs of “I’m-better-than-you-are” without forcing the issue.

The actors are so well cast that you will find it hard to believe they are acting. Roger Rees has the bedraggled look of a farmer, and you feel his pain with every scene. He cares about his home, his land, and his heritage with a love that is palpable. Right up there with the acting is the photography. It is achingly beautiful, capturing the countryside in all its glory. It was written and directed by Richard Squires, an actor, director and playwright with La Mama Amsterdam, and the Players Theatre of New England. The film was completed six years ago and shot over the course of 33 days in Virginia’s famously beautiful horse country. It is both moving and heart-wrenching when you see so much of that land being paved over in the name of “progress”. Nature is given a brilliant part and is a character unto itself in this film. With the recent economic downturn, the theme of a family losing their home will resonate with many families enduring such events. Even if your town or home is not threatened by developers, Crazy Like a Fox should still be on your list of “must see” films. This is a thoughtful, beautiful, and sometimes very funny movie you will think about long after the last credit has faded from view.

FILMS: Prince of Persia… Sand covered summer fun.

Prince of Persia is a great summer popcorn film if not taken too seriously. Based on the video game, the film does a pretty job of bringing the world of the game to life.

Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), the adopted son of the King of Persia and thus a rogue prince battles it out with pretty much everyone in Persia to save the Time Dagger and his lost honor. Giving the prince an attractive companion is Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) who knows a lot more about the mystical time powers of the dagger and how it has to be guarded for the safety of the universe.

It all begins when Dastan is falsely accused of murdering his father by the king’s real sons. Dastan believes only the king’s brother (Ben Kingsley) trusts him. He thus absconds in order to prove himself innocent to the uncle, suspecting his own brothers to be culprits. Will Dastan and Tamina be able to safeguard the dagger and can the dagger turn around Dastan’s fate is what forms the story.

The film has a great Arabian Nights flavor to it, thanks to its exotic outfits; it will often remind you of Aladdin. It really does come close to a live-action version of the Disney classic. The action scenes are comprised of various sword fighting, snake fighting, and horse riding and even some ostrich riding thrown in for good measure. Sir Ben Kinglsey has nothing much to do, many of his scenes have the same “phoned-in” feel of his acting in Thunderbirds, and Bloodrayne. Jake Gyllenhaal makes for a decent epic film action hero, and Gemma Arterton is a pretty set piece with no real dialog. It was very reminiscent of Megan Fox’s character usage in the Transformers films.

What blatantly stands out is pretty much every actor in the film looks Persian but speaks in a British accent. No Middle Eastern actor has been given a pivotal role in the film which would have been an ideal thing to do. Two hours of high octane action with magic and mythology is not too bad of a journey. Grab the popcorn and take the family along to Persia for some sand covered summer fun.

FILMS: Confessions of a Superhero… Up, up and away.

Superhero films, books, and games will exist until the end of time. With that thought you should settle down, and watch the 2007 documentary called “Confessions of a Superhero”. This film chronicles the lives of three mortal men and one mortal woman who make their living working as superhero characters on Hollywood Boulevard.

Superman (Chris Dennis) is a Los Angeles orphan, but claims to be the son of Oscar/Tony-winning actress Sandy Dennis, though the family denies that she had any children. Wonder Woman (Jennifer Wenger) was a Midwestern homecoming queen, who actually is the most successful of the actors. The Hulk (Joe McQueen) sold his Super Nintendo for a bus ticket to Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots and was homeless for four years before becoming the Hulk, and achieves some success, winning a small role in Justin Lin’s “Finishing the Game.” Batman (Maxwell Allen) claims to be a former mobster with a murderous past, though his wife casts doubts on his stories in the film. This deeply personal view into their daily routines reveals their hardships and triumphs as they pursue and achieve their own kind of fame.

One thing learned in this film is don’t judge a book by its cover. They are out there working and they’re taking pictures with tourists and making them happy. They’re sort of ambassadors to Hollywood. Although many critics say that they are pathetic people who would rather waste time begging for tips than actually work toward their dreams of acting. Most are missing the point of this film. The odd weariness of their strange lives is overlooked by the critics complaining about the way they are seeking fame and fortune. It really does hold a mirror up to American’s obsession with being famous.

The film even had some fallout from the way a certain actor was shown. Apparently, Batman (Allen) really didn’t like the film and had a falling out with the director, and he stated the film was edited to portray him in an unflattering way. You may initially be interested in this film if you are a fan of documentaries or comic books, but you will come out of the film with a better understanding and appreciation of your fellow human. For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our challenges and makes for the best heroes. Share & Enjoy.

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FILMS: Metropia… Mind-controlling shampoo?!?

Tarik Saleh, who made Metropia, is a Turkish graffiti artist living in Sweden, now turned to Orwellian sci-fi, with nods to Kafka and Hitchcock.

Robert (Vincent Gallo) is a dull call-center worker whose expressionless face and big soulful Keane eyes exude a preternatural calm; or is there massive Valium in the water system? After Roger starts hearing Big Brother (Alexander Skarsgard) talking in his head and responds by following pert, tough-talking Nina (Juliette Lewis), which leads him into a meeting of gangsterish world leaders and their overlord, Ivan Bahn (Udo Kier), head of the Trexx Corporation, which owns everything and is pushing an ominous shampoo, whose ads feature Nina. Yes… ominous mind-controlling SHAMPOO. This is one of those worlds where paranoia is fully justified; but the dangers don’t seem very imminent.

This computer-animated photo-based animated film starts out promisingly and has an appealing and transcendently drab look with memorable visuals right up to the end. This is futuristic film noir that shares a kinship with movies like “Blade Runner” and “Dark City.” The Visuals are far from the weak point of this film. The comatose quality of the main characters and the its meandering and ultimately uninteresting plot leads to a ho-him final feel. Not a horrible film, but it could have been so much more with some better pacing. Who wants to wash their hair now?

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FILMS: Darkon… Imagine Braveheart, funded by Kmart.

Be warned old-school D&D players, The film Darkon is not just nerdy but it is Nerdcore to 11.

The same Maryland woods that yielded The Blair Witch Project now bring forth Darkon, a clear-eyed and oddly touching film about a gaggle of Baltimoreans who dress up in homemade medieval garb and chase each other around soccer fields and meadows. The film follows the real-life adventures of the Darkon Wargaming Club, a group of fantasy live-action role-playing (LARP) gamers.

Some explaination of this term is needed… a LARP is a form of role-playing game where the participants physically act out their characters’ actions. The players pursue goals within a fictional setting represented by the real world, while interacting with each other in character. The outcome of player actions may be mediated by game rules, or determined by consensus among players. That is putting it mildly and sugarcoating the hell out of a definition. It’s basically like Dungeon and Dragons on crack, with a splash of Mountain Dew and Pixy Stix.

More than 200 role-playing adults brandish foam swords and elaborately plotted identities in service to a complex saga of blood and glory. That saga is the fascinating subject of Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer’s thoughtful documentary about a subculture that invites ridicule more often than respect. Yet the warriors of the film are more than just social rejects in foam and cardboard armor.

“I’ve always felt like I was kind of born out of time,” says Skip Lipman, aka Bannor of Laconia, a stay-at-home dad bitter over his exclusion from his father’s business. For Mr. Lipman and others, the immersive appeal of Darkon offers an escape from low self-esteem and a world without heroes or meaning.

“Playing Keldar helped me become the man I wanted to be,” explains Kenyon Wells, whose character’s freedom to claim land, hire evil elvish mercenaries and purchase magic spells eases the restraints of his real-life office job. Eloquent and occasionally touching, the film is haphazardly photographed but generous toward subjects who exhibit an astonishing degree of self-awareness. “It’s like watching the TV, but you’re the hero. Who doesn’t want that?” one enthusiast says.

Darkon could have been a “let’s make fun of the gamer-geeks” film, but instead it is able to pull off the fine balance between looking at the gamers as an outsider and drawing the viewer into their unique worldview. The film is sensitive to the individuals shown, and for the most part, they are portrayed as three-dimensional people rather than caricatures to be laughed at. It is highly recommended it to anyone interested in learning more about LARPing, or role-playing in general. This is just one of those documentaries you have to watch because not a word written will do it justice. Huzzah!!!