The deafening silence of music being scored and people being consumed

Well, that posting gap was probably the longest I've had in the past couple of years. The reasons: the beginning of the school year, work on some other projects, Sean going to a new school and the hand off of version 33 to Dan for scoring/sound design. For now, some mini reviews of films I've seen.

Astronaut Farmer.
Subtitle: Desperately seeking poetry
Probably one of the worst movies I've fast-forwarded through. From the opening shots of Billy Bob Thornton riding a horse in a space suit, this one has grand poetic aspirations thwarted by images that don't make sense and an overall directorial clumsiness. I have a thing for backyard rockets, but this was really terrible.

Grizzly Man
I liked this quite a bit. Not a flattering portrait of Timothy Treadwell whose love for bears was apparently surpassed only by the size of his ego and the depth of his delusion.

Inland Empire
I watched part of this. Amazing transfer of PD-150 Standard DV footage to film aided by a super (expensive) gadget box. I liked the rabbits. But it made me realize that part of what I enjoyed about Mulholland Drive was Naomi Watts' fresh-faced appeal and simultaneous quirkiness (I liked how she repeated everyone's name in a seeming attempt at memorization). It was the surface quality of that movie that made it watchable. Less so with Inland Empire, which seems to be only about oddball characters and mysterious moments in typical Lynch-ian fashion.

Chased by Dinosaurs
This stars Nigel Marven in an imaginary nature doc in prehistoric times. It's well-performed and pretty amusing, like the croc hunter with visual effects. Marven, an actual zoologist, goes back in time, traipses among prehistoric beasts, and almost gets eaten many times.

Prehistoric Park
Follow up also featuring Nigel Marven. This one blurs the line and goes from imaginary nature documentary to all-out drama. I was waiting for Marven to fall in love with the blond vet's assistant thereby provoking the jealousy of the just-comely-enough vet herself. The idea behind this one is that Marven is going back in time to collect prehistoric animals to bring them back to the present to save them from extinction. A strangely colonialist effort. This one doesn't work as well as Chased by Dinosaurs. One major reason is that they try to have it both ways. On the one hand they want it to be a reality show/documentary. On the other hand, a lot of the shots are designed for maximum eye appeal without regard to authenticity. It's like an awkward blend of a Hollywood film with a pseudo-doc.

Koi... Mil Gaya
The first Bollywood science fiction film. I didn't mind the goofiness of this one but I was surprised by the production values which I thought would be higher. Has the goofiness that we Americans expect of international efforts. I was half expecting Bumblee Man to jump out from behind a tree. Watching this made me realize that Miike's Happiness of the Katakuris is simply Bollywood wrought Japanese.

Errata
Earlier I wrote that director Albert Pyun was a real-life Ed Wood. Ben informs me that Ed Wood was, in fact, a real person.