I get a fairly regular flow of emails about independent film projects. Most of them, to be honest, bounce straight off me – which says less about their quality than it does about my own taste in cinema. Independent cinema – like independent music and literature – has lots of promise over the long term, but a lot of what I see is people trying to replicate Hollywood aesthetics on a budget, rather than turning their back on Hollywood and seeking something new, something different. Which is fine, of course. Just doesn’t push my buttons enough to mention it, is all.
Anamnesis, however, looks very different. They’re looking for postproduction funding on Indiegogo (which is a Kickstarter equivalent); take a look at what they’ve done so far, what they plan to do, and why they want to do it. Then chuck ’em a few dollars if you think you’d like to see it finished the way they want it.
Please excuse yesterday’s null output, folks; I was out on the road, chasing after a very interesting employment opportunity. As a result, today is a catching-up-with-stuff day, and job number one is hoovering out the ol’ email inbox. I’ve already deep-sixed an email linking to a Squidoo lens which begins with a pencil diagram of a perpetual motion machine and ends with a long rant about Barack Obama, the Illuminati and their mutual role in the global liberal conspiracy, which apparently involves infiltrating the Federal Reserve and – quite literally – burning dollar bills in order to create the otherwise-totally-fictitious climate change phenomenon – a rather spectacular counter-counter-bluff of last resort, I think we can all agree. I don’t know how I’ve managed to be taken in by this cruel and callous hoax for so long!
Ahem. Anyway, also in the inbox was a link to this trailer for a “sci-fi black comedy feature film” called Hellacious Acres: The Case of John Glass. Here’s the blurb and the trailer:
John Glass wakes up in a desolate barn from a long cryogenic slumber, to be informed that not only has the planet been devastated by a third world war, but also reduced to little habitability by a subsequent alien invasion. He learns that in order to help reestablish a livable atmosphere for what’s left of humanity, he’ll have to go on a solitary mission to retrieve important codes dispersed throughout remote locations. Soon enough he’ll encounter more than he “bargained” for: aliens, crazy survivors, inadequate equipment, LOTS of walking and a pretty unhealthy dose of bad luck…
I like the sound of the concept, though I find myself hoping that the film proper contains a bit more action than the trailer. There’s also a BorkFace page and a website (the latter of which has a layout that doesn’t cope well with wide browser windows, FYI).
There seem to be a lot of new indie genre cinema projects bubbling up of late, and that’s a fine thing in my book, as I can count the annual number of Hollywood-generated product-placement vehicles I have any interest in seeing on the fingers of one mauled-by-a-boltcropper-wielding-debt-collector hand…
Anyway, that’s all for today, folks. Futurismic will return to what passes for a normal broadcasting schedule on the morrow.
I say this without having actually seen it, but James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) is an interesting film. This is because its success has had the same effect upon film critics and cultural commentators as pissing on an electric fence… people are sore, jittery and annoyed at pretty much everyone, themselves included. Continue reading We are all sheep: Avatar, Bayonetta and the hypnosis of low-brow culture→
