All posts by El Rob Hubbard

Canonically Weird (The List)

172. ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW (2013)

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“Imaginate, what we can do, when Tomorrow there’s another YOU?
On the other side, we will realize
Wishes really do come, come true.

Imaginate, imaginate, imaginate, imaginate, imaginate,
like we can do, wishes really do come true…”

“Imaginate” (from the Escape from Tomorrow soundtrack)

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DIRECTED BY: Randy Moore

FEATURING: Roy Abramsohn, Elena Schuber, Katelynn Rodriguez, Jack Dalton, Danielle Safady, Ahnnet Mahendru, Alison Lees-Taylor, Stass Klassen

PLOT: A day in the life of an American family vacationing at Disneyland… or Walt Disney World… or at least some Disney related theme park. Only this day starts out with Jim (Roy Abramsohn) getting a call from his boss, who tells him that there’s no job for him to return to. Things can only go downhill from there, but everything is filtered through a cheerful veneer. From a spreading cat-flu epidemic, to stalking teen-age girls, brainwashing by Park cyborgs, it just goes to show that “bad things happen everywhere”… even in the Happiest Place On Earth.

Still from Escape from Tomorrow (2013)
BACKGROUND:

  • Escape from Tomorrow was the “buzz” picture at the 2013 Sundance film festival, with most of the talk centering around the fact that much of the movie was shot surreptitiously at Disney World by the crew while posing as ordinary tourists.
  • The release of Canon’s 5D Mark II Digital SLR camera was the spur to get the movie made; the image quality was cinematic and the cameras small enough to allow a crew to shoot surreptitiously.
  • Pre-production was meticulous, every shot planned and blocked out weeks ahead of time, due to the limited window of opportunity, even to the point of charting out the position of the sun.
  • Post-production was done in South Korea, mainly due to the editor and producer’s contacts, but also to not allow word of the project to get near Disney.
  • Although it was widely assumed that Disney’s notoriously litigious legal department would act swiftly to stop distribution of Escape from Tomorrow, the corporation decided the wiser strategy to protect their brand was to ignore this small independent film rather than bringing additional attention to it.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: An immobile Jim, head replaced by a mini-Epcot dome, uniquely captures the tone and intent of the film.

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD:The film’s subversive commentary on Disney’s hold on the collective imagination has a solid bite that has not been previously approached as directly as it is here, by actually shooting on Disney property completely in plain sight – in the belly of the Beast, so to speak. The black and white photography also helps in making that familiar world appear alien. Plus, a mad scientist turns a guy’s head into the Epcot center.


Escape from Tomorrow original trailer

COMMENTS: “Jim, listen to me. Don’t let your imagination run wild. It’s a transitional period.”

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366 UNDERGROUND: WAY DOWN IN CHINATOWN (2013)

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Way Down in Chinatown 1

DIRECTED BY: Eric Michael Kochmer

FEATURING: Justin Dray, Stephanie Sanditz, Lisa Loring, Nancy Wolfe, Ashli Haynes

PLOT: Playwright Victor Mitchum (Dray) and his director/wife Jessica Mitchum (Sanditz) receive funding to produce their new play, “Apocalypse Tomorrow.” As they start auditions for the play, the real Apocalypse begins, involving worms taking human form and the song ‘Goodnight, Irene’.

Click to purchase the Way Down in Chinatown DVD

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: It takes more than avant-garde pretensions to make a good weird film. This is strictly a ‘love it or hate it’ movie, and I completely hated it within the first 10 minutes.

COMMENTS: One of the worst P.O.S. that I’ve had occasion to watch; yet another project to give the term ‘avant-garde’ a bad reputation. Essentially a play adapted for film, it takes all the worst aspects of experimental cinema/theater and throws it in your lap. If you’re a fan of German Expressionism, you’re better off finding the real thing to watch instead of half-baked ‘tributes’ like this that cheapen and taint the term.

One could watch the film ironically, and see it as a parody of self-absorbed, pseudo-intellectual tripe that tries to pass itself off as deep and meaningful; but the film is so serious that even watching it ironically is exhausting and unsatisfying. Not even the presence of Lisa Loring (Wednesday Addams from “The Addams Family” television show) elevates this to camp value.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Surreal, impressionistic, and irrevocably bizarre, Kochmer’s artistic approach to the eccentric is reminiscent of a David Lynch expose.”–Dave Gammon, Horrornews.net (contemporaneous)

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366 UNDERGROUND: FAITH OF OUR FATHERS (1997)

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DIRECTED BY: Hamilton Sterling

FEATURING: Jeff Hawk, George Gerlernter, James Geralden, Cassandra Joy, Noel Webb, Clement Blake

PLOT: A satiric parable wherein naive innocent chimney-sweeper Charles is schooled in the ways of the world and business by a cynical benefactor, Nick, who encourages him to bring back the tradition of ‘climbing boys’ when a rich client expresses a wish for ‘the old days’. Charles complies with the exploitation of a child, but at a cost to himself and those around him.

IS IT WEIRD?:  Not really. Pretentious, certainly; but there’s nothing new brought to the table in terms of weirdness.

COMMENTS:  At first glance, Faith of Our Fathers appears to be very timely and prescient, considering that the film was completed in 1996, went out on the festival circuit where it did get some very good critical notice but no release until 2013, when it could be seen as an “I-told-you-so” roadmap to the current economic/political/cultural climate (much like how Richard Brooks’ reviled Wrong is Right from 1982 turned out to be a not-that-exaggerated look at what the Millennium-Ought decade held in store for everyone). It’s really hard to fault the filmmakers’ intentions, as there is a concerted effort on everyone’s part to make this a meaningful project.

Faith of Our FathersUnfortunately, for me those intentions fall short in the experience of watching this play out. I suspect those who would enjoy watching this film would also be rabid fans of hardcore symbolic European art-house films, which are usually very slowly paced, populated with metaphors instead of characters and with degrees of inscrutability. My failure to connect here is probably a failing of this viewer. It’s a film that I really wanted to like, especially since items like composition, nuanced acting and craftsmanship are usually in short supply in the majority of work that gets the “Underground” label. But honestly, I just couldn’t enjoy it, despite the impressive craft on display (the cinematography, score, and a performance by Gerlernter as fallen priest/satanic provocateur Nicholas Nickelby).

It also doesn’t help when you have this as your logline:

” …this surreal and politically prescient film deconstructs the language of religious and economic America, finding artistic alternatives within the ethos of art.”

If this sentence gets you pumped to see what might follow, instead of rolling your eyes from the stench of pretension, then you’ll enjoy the journey. Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t get past it—so fair warning.

Faith of Our Fathers was self-released by writer/director Hamilton Sterling on DVD and Blu-ray, and the presentation is of very high-quality. One thing missing is a director’s commentary, which I think really would’ve helped—not that Sterling would’ve needed to spoonfeed us every single symbol in the film, but some context certainly would’ve been appreciated, especially explanations for the jumping back and forth between color and black and white, and sequences such as the one where one of the main characters has a dialogue with Napoleon Bonaparte in the park.

Helikon Sound – Hamilton Sterling’s site. Sterling has worked as a sound tech on films like Magnolia, The Tree of Life, Gangs of New York, and The Dark Knight, amongst others.

Faith of Our Fathers Facebook page

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366 UNDERGROUND: PICTURES OF SUPERHEROES (2012)

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DIRECTED BY: Don Swaynos

FEATURING: Kerri Lindo, Shannon McCormick, John Merriman, Byron Brown, Danu Uribe

Still from Pictures of Superheroes (2012)

PLOT: After being fired from her maid service job and being dumped by her boyfriend on the same day, Marie (Kerri Lindo) picks up a job cleaning up after an overworked businessman (Shannon McCormick) and his messy roommate (John Merriman) who’s never really grown up.

COMMENTS: I’m not entirely certain that ‘weird’ is quite the right word to apply to Pictures of Superheroes.  “Off-center” certainly applies, if you identify with the mindset of the main character Marie, who is the sanest person to be found here. If the movie can said to be about anything, it’s a wry look at the extremes of “growing up” versus “arrested development,” and the poor people in the middle who end up having to clean up the messes of those at those extremes.

Marie is the middleman in this scenario, finding herself locked in a job that she really doesn’t like that much, but that she happens to be very good at—and it’s better than the alternative. So, it’s a double punch when she loses her job due to the service being a front for prostitution (which she never gets recruited into because she’s much better as a maid, she’s told), and is dumped by her passive-aggressive boyfriend (due to his interest in a co-worker) in the same day.

She gets hired by Eric (Shannon McCormick), a high-strung businessman who’s so busy, he scrounges from the vacuum cleaner since he doesn’t have time to cook, and who doesn’t even notice that he has a roommate, Joe (John Merriman), a friend from college whose main interest is eating candy and drawing amateurish pictures of superheroes. Marie ends up, against her own wishes, becoming involved with both of them, to the point of posing as Eric’s wife for his clients and parents, and indulging in talkfests with Joe that he counts as dates.

The look and feel of Superheroes is in the area referred to as *shudder* ‘mumblecore’, but the movie is much better than that heinous term would imply. The performances are good, especially Kerri Lindo playing straight man to the crazy that surrounds her, and look-alike John Merriman playing a role that would go to Galifinakis in a higher-budgeted project. The movie was made in Austin, TX, which may account for the off-center humor that fits the film like a glove.

Pictures of Superheroes played in several film festivals and is now available on VOD from several platforms (iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play, among others), with a DVD release coming soon. This is the first feature film directed by Don Swaynos, who has an impressive resume as an editor on projects like “Shipping Wars” on A&E and the recent indie features Saturday Morning Massacre, Pit Stop and Cinema Six.

Pictures of Superheroes Official Site

Don Swaynos’ Personal Site

Pictures of Superheroes on Facebook

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366 UNDERGROUND: THE BULGARIAN PROPHET (2010)

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DIRECTED BY: El Vulgario (Yavor Batchev)

FEATURING: Will, Chetan, Sienna, Sanjita, Anuj, Chintu

PLOT: The life story of Ivan, a Bulgarian refugee who arrives in America in the early ’70’s and begins the immigrant’s journey towards The American Dream, which in his case involves being anointed by the God of Shit to start The Temple of Holy Shit and spread the Word. Bestowed with supernatural powers, he performs miracles, advises government figures and amasses a following—until he is kidnapped by KGB agents and shipped to the USSR to use his powers for their benefit.

Still from The Bulgarian Prophet


COMMENTS: As Steve Martin once said, “Comedy is not pretty”. That saying applies equally to satire, especially when the satire is as sledgehammer blunt as it is in The Bulgarian Prophet. The movie is set in the America of the early 70’s, long after the Summer of Love has peaked and degenerated, after the Summer of Manson had finished it off. Vietnam is in full swing, Nixon is in office, and the time is right for all sorts of strangeness to take root. Enter the ‘hero,’ Ivan, escaping the Communist regime in his native Bulgaria to make a new start in America, where any man can pursue his heart’s desire—as long as that desire involves insanely huge amounts of cash and loose women with insanely large breasts.

There should be a lot of things working against this, from the animation style (courtesy of 3Danimationindia.com), to the occasional stiff line readings, but oddly, they complement the broad satire. In fact, if this were done as a live-action no-budget indie, it would come off as half-assed and worse than amateurish. Animation, even crude animation, allows for the full expression of Batchev’s ideas, unfettered by budgetary constraints and laws of physics (such as when Ivan walks across a swimming pool full of sewage in front of the media as a demonstration of his newfound divinity.) And in comedy, all that matters is that you get the laugh—and The Bulgarian Prophet does get them. After all, finesse is for critics to argue about.

Normally, you’d probably would have to look for this at underground film festivals, since the style and tone is way too blunt for mainstream film and animation festivals to screen. Your best bet to see this is to check for it on YouTube, or visit The Bulgarian Prophet official website.