Home alone last night.  Two movies came in the mail and they were both short.  I popped in Primer, an indy sci-fi flick that had been recommended to me by Katie's friend Jerry.  It was really good.

Primer is about a pair of computer geeks who build a machine in their garage as an experiment in physics and wind up with a time machine.  From there, it explores the philosophical, logistical and physiological problem of being able to live a 36 hour day, as often as you like.  The whole thing is shot like a home movie with no fake sets or special effects.  It's completely dialogue driven with 95% of the story occurring between the two characters, Abe and Aaron.  A lot of the story is implied and left to your imagination.  I liked it a lot.

When Zack got home from work I told him it was worth a watch.

"I know.  I've seen it.  We've both seen it."

"I've never seen it!"

"We watched it together.  I can't believe you don't remember.  Two guys, a box, time travel, simple production values but really well done?"

"I would remember watching it.  I've never seen it."

"I can't believe you don't remember.  You don't remember anything anymore, you're so old!" he stormed into his room.

I'm not that old. I have never seen this movie before.  I just shook my head and popped it out of the dvd player.

"Maybe I watched it with Tyler." Zack admitted from the other room.

Vindication.

Primer is only an hour and 17 minutes long, so I had time for something else and the other movie that came today was Wall E, which I'd never gotten around to seeing.  I'd heard mixed reviews on it.   Tyler loved it but I know a mom and her seven year old daughter who were so bored they left after 40 minutes.  Okay, between the pair of them, they have the attention level of a fruit fly, so I didn't really count their review.

I liked it a lot.  Visually, it was remarkable and I was impressed by how well the story moved along with no dialog at all.  The body language of the two characters, WallE and Eve was so expressive that most of the actors on Hollywood's A-list would be well served to study it.  The setting for the story is ridiculous.  Not so much the fatties living in zero gravity for 700 years but the fate of planet Earth.  I don't mind ridiculous, UP was based on a ridiculous premise and I loved it to death. I'm fine with ridiculous.  I guess what bothered me (not much, mind you; it was like a minor itch ) is the fact that these days, due to all the eco-propaganda, people especially kids are prone to think  that this sort of thing is not only possible but inevitable.  Tell me, since all the goods we make and discard come from the earth itself, how do we wind up with enough of it to engulf not only the planet surface but the entire stratosphere?  You can't generate mass out of nothing.  I'm no physicist but I know that.  If WallE had come out a decade ago, I think it would've been far more popular.  As it is, I think a lot of folks dismissed it as a political screed along the lines of An Inconvenient Truth.  That's too bad. Wall E was well done, imaginative, funny and visually beautiful.  And in the end, the humans win out.  And it really isn't nearly as ridiculous as Al Gore's oscar winning fakumentary.

 

What did you think of this article?

Liked
Disliked
No Opinion