Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

I went to the Staten Island Film Festival today to watch Block Three: Love Is Hard To Find (1 hr 28 min). I saw the following films:

Love Bombing (7 minutes)
Director: Philip Lepherd

Four friends discuss the cult recruitment technique of ‘Love Bombing’. Three of them seem to know an awful lot about it. Is it possible they’ve tried the technique before?

I thought this film was absolutely a blast, from the brilliantly sharp production quality and cinemetography, to the lovely accents and crisp dialog. It’s a great short film on the concept of Love Bombing, a process cults use to attract new blood. Check out the trailer on IMDB, too, it’ll give you some sense of it.

Number Nine (26 minutes)
Director: Brendan Ferrer

Set in an underwear factory called Material World Garments, Number Nine tells the story of Inspector #9, a meek briefs inspector who is color-blind. This could be the worst day of #9’s life, until he meets Miss #9, his equivalent in the brassier department.

An excellent short film, Brendan’s choice to shoot in black-and-white perfectly matches the total colour-blindness of the protagonist. The 35mm gives the film and old-style Three-Stooges feel (although Brendan said he was shooting for Chaplain). At 26 minutes, it’s probably 6 minutes too long, but it rarely drags.

Avatars (30 minutes)
Director: Michael Ofenheim

When Lisa catches her husband, Tyler, cheating on her in cyberspace, HotWetLinda turns the tables on TyMeUp. And, when their avatars meet on a blind date, Lisa discovers that in real-life, two online wrongs CAN make a right.

Although you can buy this movie on Amazon, I don’t recommend watching it. From the start it drags–the cheating husband is so terrible an actor that you feel neither annoyed at him for being a bastard nor sorry for him for losing his love, but total apathy. The mercilessly repeated punchline “So, do you have any Pot?” is Avatars only attempt at humour. The plot itself is tripe, trying to weave together notions of solipsism and internet dating, with a touch of the implausible Nigerian 419 email scam. I don’t know if the director’s brains were addled with pot himself when he did this–but it’s no good at all.

2095 (25 minutes)
Director: Troy Romeo

A young man who falls in love with a woman he thinks is his female co-worker, discovers that his own computer may offer him more than any human ever could.

There’s an interview here. As for the film, it was OK. I felt that too much time and effort ($40,000 and 4 years, according to the director) were spent on the production, leaving the screenplay a bit spaghetti. Its major flaw is that it spends most of the time focusing on the things that don’t matter, and then blitzes by the important developments in seconds.

With a 9.3 rating on IMDB, 96% on rottentomatoes, and 93% on metacritic, Wall-E is Pixar’s big summer hit. I just got back from seeing it yesterday with Wendy, and it’s as good as the hype says it was; touching, humorous, and critical of consumptionary lifestyles.

Wikipedia’s summary is excellent, so I’ll just reproduce it here:

Around the year 2118, the company Buy ‘n Large supplied almost every service on Earth, from food to banking to transportation. The company has such a monopoly on every service that it simply becomes the world government, with a “World CEO” in charge of all humanity. Overrun by consumerism, humanity abandoned the planet aboard luxury spaceliners such as the Axiom. Thousands of WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) units were left behind to convert the garbage into a disposable form. The recovery plan failed, however, and 700 years later in the year 2815, Earth is completely devoid of life and still covered with trash, with only one WALL-E (the protagonist, voiced by Ben Burtt) still operational.

Go see the movie. Tell your friends to see it. And check out the Apple page for trailers, clips, and more. $62,500,000 the first weekend isn’t enough, Wall-E deserves more!

Directed by Sin City director Zack Snyder, 300 is a real treat. I had the pleasure of viewing it about two weeks ago, and I was visually impressed. The plot is quite simple, based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. Xerces is coming from Persia to conquer Greece, and Sparta must stand against it. They attempt to drabble palace intrigue, prophecy, love, and betrayal onto the canvas of the plot, but it fails. 300’s true power isn’t in the story itself, but the brilliant saturated way it’s told.

In this massive picture post I’m going to try and tell some of the story of 300 in linear order. If you haven’t seen the movie go away now because it will spoil the glory of seeing its scenes for the first time!

There’s plenty of boyhood flashbacks and children in the movie, enough to make you wonder about the innocence of humanity.

But then the Persians come, make their demands, and are thrown into a well in this climactic, but expected scene. After all, they used it as a clip in their previews.

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There are some initial skirmishes; of course the Greeks slaughter them. The imagery is mundane to prepare you for the next tumultuous scene:

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GLORY!!!!!! This is maybe the best battle scene I’ve seen; it’s almost like a dance. The style is identical to the fight scenes in the Matrix, but less artificial and more visceral.

Here there be dragons. And other monsters. For some reason, having killed large numbers of Persian soldiers, 300 decides to throw nightmares at the Greek force.

300 also has a small tragedy. Father and son shouldn’t fight together; it’s a recipe for sorrow.

The emperor of Persia is evil, has a voice which is too low, and effeminate facial features. He can’t be more scary.

But he gets what he deserves…

Especially when 10,000 SPARTANS decide to join the fight!! GO!