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Tag Archives: Experimental
CAPSULE: BABY INVASION (2024)
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Baby Invasion is currently available on VOD for purchase or rental.
DIRECTED BY: Harmony Korine
FEATURING: Juan Bofill, Shawn Thomas, Steven Rodriguez, Antonio Jackson, Tej Limlas Ly, Anonymous
PLOT: Six baby-faced goons massacre guests at a mansion in search of stacks of cash and Internet notoriety.
COMMENTS: My only real quibble with Mr. Korine’s latest romp is that it could have been far, far more disturbing. Of course, a “romp” can really only be so disturbing before it leaves romp territory, so perhaps the director did things correctly. Regardless, Baby Invasion is, without a doubt, exactly what Harmony Korine wanted it to be, for better in a number ways—and for worse, according to the general impressions that have caught my ear.
This brings me to the primary characteristic I admire in Harmony Korine: I believe he does not care what I think, what you think, what the Academy thinks, what the French think, what anyone thinks. Like Frank Sinatra, albeit filtered through Syd Vicious, Korine can stand proudly and shout: I Did It My Way. In this case, “his way” went as follows: 1) Invasion. A home invasion, the home being an expansive and expensive mansion, with several pools both indoor and out, countless objets kind of just taking up space (whoever owns this place can afford a decorator, and should seriously consider hiring one). This home is invaded by a squad of alarmingly well-armed guys who show up in a van, eat some of the inhabitants’ fruit, take some of their drugs, and otherwise lark about as they search for the mansion’s safe.
2) Baby. Now, this “found footage” is flanked by a documentary-style (à la late ’90s camcorder, judging from the film quality) conversation with a programmer who explains how her game was hijacked halfway to completion and converted into a quasi-avatar/quasi-livestream showcase for real home invasions. The gaggle of goons have their faces obscured by baby-faces; there is a constant side-scroll of remarks and emojis from real-time ‘Net observers; pixel-splosion boosts and power-ups sparkle on the screen as our pseudonymous protagonist goes through the motions.
Baby Invasion is a novelty, and for its eighty-minute runtime is entertaining enough. Whatever commentary one gleans will not take a lot of effort. I can only recommend this—somewhat—because of my degree of disorientation by the end, as game, meta-game, meta-life, and life became increasingly difficult to differentiate. The occasional shots of the “gamers” suggest none of this is real. The security cameras suggests it is. This muddling, I suspect, is Korine’s overarching goal, and he achieves it nicely. However, I would have preferred to be either slightly more amused, or considerably more dismayed, by the goings-on.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL: THE BIG SHORTS COMPENDIUM (2025)
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Short films are a delight for me—whether they be hit-and-runs from artists I may not stumble across ever again, or “business cards” for up-and-coming feature film directors. Today we dive into a one-and-a-half-feature to explore this year’s animation showcase and a few of the experimental selections from SlamDance 2025.
CARTOON CORNER:
MIMT (dir. Ted Wiggin; 4 min.)— I swear I’ve seen this animator’s work before. Simple computer graphics (think Glory Days of MS Paint), whose basic nature allow for innumerable flights of form. I recently adopted a cat who seems to be part snake—thanks to Ted Wiggin, I can visualize how that could happen.
Gemini (dir. Jamie Griffiths; 7 min.)— Back in ’82, the Alan Parsons Project used this title and created a wistful, float-y musing. There’s a bit of that sensation in Griffiths’ cartoon here, with its shapes, spirals, and a double cat who has a penchant for pranking its owner in a subtle manner. We all have a reflection.
mnemonic (dir. Raffaele Gans-Pfister; 6 min.)— Described in the digital program as “Building thinks thought, has realization. Landscape in translation.” Can’t say I can improve on that. The animation’s means for this nebulous plot are mesmerizing clay works complemented by pen-scratch 2D representations. Not sure what I saw, but it was gratifying to see it.
‘Never Fall In Love’ (dir. Lucy Sao Wa Lao, Angela En-Yu Lao; 6 min.)— Hate to hate on things, so I’ll just say that this was the only short among the dozen which disappointed. Dog and cat, doomed romance, with one interesting thing barely emerging from the back-ground: what’s up with the merged and split flags? I’m sure I’m missing some political connotations.
Tunnel Wandering (dir. Li Zehao; 10 min.)— Blue ink, or blue water-color? …Not to mention that Windows® dungeon screen-saver interlude. I may never find out what this (mostly) first-person journey is about, but at least I’ll have good company: the character wandering these tunnels doesn’t guess the right answer, either, and never gets past the giant naked woman.
Croûte-mousse (dir. Badminton Plus; 4 min.)— Copyright? On this thing? You better bet your bottom dollar that Badminton Plus ain’t having none of that. Day-Glo tinted TV samplings skitter along, all bound by Day-Glo frames. I believe the title might translate into “bread pudding”, but considering what B-Plus is laying down, most bets are off.
Birth Controlled (dir. Isabela Fraga-Abaza; 5 min.)— Following the school of ugly imagery, this slice of feminist commentary hits the mark—no surprise seeing as the protagonist is a dead-eye shot in the great game show of sex, birthing, and oblique oppression. Violent and graphic, and Continue reading SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL: THE BIG SHORTS COMPENDIUM (2025)
SATURDAY SHORT: MIMT (2024)
The many shared shapes of a snake, a butterfly, and a cat.
CAPSULE: ED AND ROOSTER’S GREAT ADVENTURE (2025)
AKA Ed and Rooster’s Big Adventure
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DIRECTED BY: Lucy Fazely
FEATURING: Voice of Bryan Crespo
PLOT: Two seagulls discover a laptop containing a spell that allows them to access alternate realities.
COMMENTS: Sometimes I wonder whether there is a point to reviewing movies that no one else will ever see. I’ve concluded that the value to the reader is the same as when they encounter any description of a thing they will never experience directly: they get to add one more item to their mental catalog of things of which they are aware. So, if you’ve read this far, your life has been enriched (although perhaps imperceptibly) by your knowledge that Ed and Rooster’s Great Adventure exists.
Still reading? Then you are not content to simply know that a thing called Ed and Rooster’s Great Adventure exists, and wish to learn what it actually is. I applaud your curiosity. Ed and Rooster’s Great Adventure consists of footage of seagulls on the beach, with voice actors dubbing in fanciful and humorous conversations between the elder (Ed, with a faux British accent) and the younger (teenager Rooster, who’s slightly dumber than birdbrained Ed). The two feathered friends find a portal to alternate realities and get lost in a dimensional vortex, moving from a universe where they are suddenly avian Lotharios to one where humans have set up free feeders to one where gulls are completely unknown species, and so on. Usually the alternative reality seems immediately superior but then reveals some major flaw: e.g., in the world where the female gulls are all attracted to Ed and Rooster, Ed’s favorite snack, cheese puffs, do not exist. Therefore, the pair continually try to get back to their own universe, but instead end up in another slightly novel variant.
My goodness, you’re still here? Well, I’m guano drop some more knowledge to make you a certified expert on Ed and Rooster’s Great Adventure. The voiceovers can be mildly amusing, but hardly drip with wit (“wanna flock?,” an amorous female gull asks Ed). There are a lot of shots of seagulls pooping, and in fact pooping, or more precisely, the inability to do so, becomes a major plot point in the second new reality the pair visit. Unless you’re a fan of seagulls pooping, though, the film is visually dull—the same local birds pooping on the same local beaches for over an hour. Perhaps bird-watching hobbyists would find it tolerable. There are a few moments of Adobe After Effects-style visuals—the green spiral inter-dimensional portals, animated flapping bird silhouettes, a snapshot of a child that gets sucked into a portal—which are tossed out with an impish disregard for realism. In the best effect, they simply reverse the film to show fish and shrimp shooting out of a bird feeder; it’s completely goofy, in the best sense of the term. But overall, the entirety of Ed and Rooster’s Great Adventure is like a feature film version of a 20-watch YouTube that never showed up in your feed. The movie is available for rental on YouTube or Google Play, but the filmmakers will probably never make back the $50 they spent on it. That’s OK; you get the feeling that getting rich is not the motivation for the team behind Ed and Rooster’s Great Adventure. They wanted to have a fun time making a cheap movie, and they did so. And now you know they did it.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
No reviews other than this one currently exist