I’ve been touting Ink ever since I watched it last year (read my review here), its a fabulous throwback to the kind of sci-fi/fantasy films that were everywhere in the 80’s yet have seemingly gone out of fashion in the decades since. Its a terrific little film from some of the nicest people I have had the pleasure of meeting. If you haven’t checked out the movie yet, let me once again urge you to do so.
Now, I’ve been not so secretly hoping that writer/director Jamin Winans would return to the proverbial well and make another film that would involve the Ink universe, and while his latest short film doesn’t do that exactly, it certainly involves a lot of elements that made Ink such an enjoyable film to watch. Most of the actors in Uncle Jack were involved with Ink (note to self, watch anything with Jeremy Make in it), the plot certainly cribs some elements from Ink and of course Winan’s visual style and flair exists in both films. So sit back and watch this great little short film, and perhaps it will finally convince you to give Ink a try.
As a youth I used to live in the shelves of my local video store. Most summers I would spend my days down at the local strip mall (a scant 1.3 miles away) bowling for hours, reading comics off the rack at the drug store, picking out the most essential candy at the grocery store and finally wandering in the stacks, searching for the perfect movie to watch that weekend. All this time spent in the stacks lead to a curious skill of recognizing films based solely by their cover art, and I’d often know the plot of the films based off of the descriptions on the back. Soon it became a bit of a game for my friends to quiz me on what the films were about, but only the films I’d never actually seen and using simply the cover as a hint.
Of course, back then I was still very young and simply didn’t have the time nor the resources to watch every film I wanted to. So I would pick and choose which I would watch, often leaning heavily towards science fiction and fantasy films (my horror obsession didn’t really kick in until my early twenties). So how is it that I never watched a post-apocalyptic film about a nomadic swordsman? Simple, I hated the cover.
I woke up this morning hoping that the first show of the day for Pandorum would be at noon as last night I screened Ichi for those of us stuck working and who were unable to watch the film during its screening. Because of that I didn’t get home until 3am, and since the print needed to be shipped out by noon today I was hoping I’d be able to get at least a few hours of sleep before heading out to the movie. But alas, AMC made sure to have the first show of the day at 110:45 am (thus ensuring a sparse crowd for the only matinee show of the day) and meaning I had to get up at 9am so that I could be at work and have the print broken down in time for me to make it to the screening. Not exactly the choicest way to view a movie, but I made it so I don’t have too many regrets.
Oddly enough Pandorum, despite the interesting trailers, was not screened for critics and has been released with little fanfare. This seems a bit curious as the film looked like it might be a nice sci-fi styled horror film and the production values alone looked impressive enough that they would draw people if even the tiniest bit of effort was put into publicizing the film.
The good news is the films visuals are stunning, the set designs are fantastic and the creatures roaming the ship are grotesquely amazing. Along with those we have some decent camera work and a solid performance by Ben Foster and a truly chilling one by relative newcomer Cam Gigandet.
That all being said, Pandorum has some serious pacing issues and it is particularly bloated in the middle of the film when the plot doesn’t quite seem to know where to go so to cover that up everyone runs around in circles on the ship for a half hour from one scene of expository dialogue to the next before they finally decide that things are much worse then they realized and they need to be fixed as soon as possible.
Luckily, Pandorum rights itself in its final act and gamely recovers from whatever pacing issues it might have been struggling with to pull off a pretty fun and somewhat inventive conclusion that seems to make the whole thing more then worth your time. Its far from a perfect movie, but it certain isn’t because of a lack of effort.
Slight delay this week at getting my theatrical and DVD recommendations posted. I had a few other updates I wanted to make and this is the one that ended up getting pushed to the back burner for the short term.
That all being said, it actually is a surprisingly strong week for theatrical releases, as Tyson, The Limits of Control and Tokyo Sonata are all released. While I was underwhelmed by Tyson, The Limits of Control and Tokyo Sonata are incredibly strong choices for those who don’t want to watch the latest Ron Howard vehicle.
As for DVD releases, While the Internet has been a buzz about Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus, a couple other films caught my eye. The first is the practically direct to DVD film Outlander, which was snuck into a few theaters early in the year then quickly dropped from booking schedules. Outside of the Vikings vs Aliens premise I know little about it, but really, do you need to know anything else?
The other film that I’m excited to see is the French horror film Eden Log. A sci-fi cyberpunk styled film that takes places underground and is shot entirely using hand held cameras. The look of the film reminds me quite a bit of The Descent, and if it can capture the same clausterphobic feel of that film, Eden Log could potentially be on hell of a horror film.
I have, at various times, been told that I belong to The Me Generation, The Pepsi Generation, The Video Generation, The MTV Generation, Generation X, Generation Y, and, briefly in the nineties, Generation Next. While this short list cannot exhaust all of the varied appelations used to designate those among us who had the great fortune (and good timing) to have been born within the first few years of the last quarter of the twentieth century, it does contain the single title for us which I am happiest to employ myself.
You see, I am a proud member of The Video Generation.
And what is The Video Generation, you ask. Well, for starters, I consider that title to have less to do with music videos than it has to do with the means by which most of us gained our information during our formative years. Members of The Video Generation must give a special nod to video because, during our misspent youths, we far more prefered to Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures” than to read a newspaper, listen to the radio, divine messages from tea leaves, or stare into crystal balls.
As evidence, an anecdote: Long after a member of The Video Generation had seen Heston’s Moses part the red sea, he was presented with a copy of The Oxford Study Bible (New Revised Standard Version, including Apocrypha). Incredulous, he asked, “You mean they made a book of that?”
I can trace backwards to the day upon which my father brought home our first VHS player from Sears. A remarkable day, it was the day that I was shocked and awed to realize that I could not only rent movies, bring them home, and watch them rather than waiting for them to be re-released on the big screen, but I could also tape episodes of Dungeons & Dragons off of TV and watch them again. And again. And again. And again.
It was also on that day that I began to discover the possibilities that this new and exciting medium held. And it is with pride, joy, and gratitude that I sit to type the premier installment of “Video Funhouse”, my little corner of this website, where I hope to revisit the films that provide me with my fondest memories of a childhood spent in the ranks of the Video Generation.
I shall begin by revisiting my childhood love of all things ape by traveling deep, deep, deep, Beneath the Planet of the Apes….
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