Gregg MacPherson
4 Reviews
Reviews
Lucidity - An Insomniacs Odyssey
Being initially unsure where and how to post reviews I wrote this in the comments in the screening room before. Now shifting it to here. A really brave effort I thought. But I feel you are working from the outside in. It could take months of intense work to discover the core idea this way. I feel that with so little time you need to know this core idea from the begining, or at least be really confident that you will find it. I feel you are exploring. The film in total needs to have a unitary value as an experience. I know that a slice or shard of chaos or neurosis can be a legitimate thing. So are we showing this, or insinuating this into the audience experience, or making a commentary on one of these? Personally, I think finding ones way is OK. Better to try and get lost than to do something less adventurous. Then again, you are quite restrained, and nudity is oddly desexualized. I was wondering if the often naked lead should have finger banged a mannequin, or vice versa, and when the camera moved towards those women covered in sheets, you should have kept going and arrived at an ECU of a hairy bush.
Made Maid
Hard to believe this was made by the same team that made the I Still Dream in Color movie. (notes after watching a couple of days ago) The visual style at the start I liked. But as soon as people were required to act I was almost gone. The sound was unusable. Really clean, intimate sound might have helped, but you wrote dialogue that even good actors would have struggled with. Why can't the kernel of the "idea" evolve into a form that you can execute well. If the actors can't act in a conventional sense, why try? Treat them as expressive mannequins. Find a more genuinely cinematic way to explore your idea. The assumed value of lip sync dialogue is actually an obstacle here. Throw that out and you would have more freedom. I'm sorry Mike, this isn't the nasty review you were afraid off. But I was gone at around the half way mark.
Full House
I started watching this in the screening room, but bailed out before half way. This felt pointlessly dark, vicious, vacuous and irredeemable. A film that deserves its own category...NSFHB (not suitable for human beings). References to Haneke in the attempted liner notes on the forum? Translates as naive identification with something overpowering in Haneke. Overwhemingly without hope. Surely this little contest is a chance to offer the world the opposite thing, hope. Human beings digest, metabolize what they see. They become a little bit like that. This film is another small contribution to the uglification of life. How anyone can say they "liked" or "enjoyed" this film, even your friends who want to support you, is a complete mystery to me. Are the words "like" or "enjoyed" meaningless? These two old grey beards should be useful leaders within this fringe of the film community, but here they are completely delusional and leading you up the garden path. Dark, vicious, vacuous and irredeemable. Gregg MacPherson
Oranges
This was a very sweet, cool little film. The tone feels genuine and personal. This sustained, intimate tone is for me the valuable thing in the film. I confess a little part of my mind was initially held back, worrying that you might introduce some more gross, explicative narrative element. As people do. But you didn't. Well, maybe the visitor at the end is a nudge in that direction. I think I really enjoyed this film for some of the things that others may dislike or be less enthusiastic about. The sort of mono-focus on an emotional or spiritual state. Incident is almost absent, expressed mostly by pieces of dialogue from the answer phone. I think repetition is very effective here, legitimately used, and could have been pushed further. I worried a little that the mother's dialogue was a bit over written. I just watched it again and changed my mind on that. I think maybe her sound is too clean, and she is too young? This film is a perfect example of how a good idea can have an achievable form. It's an idea where you are not struggling with your limitations. So bravo, well done. I hope you develop some films beyond the competition, taking plenty of time, using similar creative principals. On a second viewing I thought the photography was over lit or overexposed. Sometimes lighting is just about what we can subtract. A more modeled look with more shadow would have worked well. But as an indication that the film is already a good watch, I didn't think of this until later. Please put me in your address book as a possible future collaborator, especially if you want to shoot on film. Cheers, Gregg. viz(at)xtra.co.nz