Writes the industrious editor:
PRIMA PARTE – The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: Pruitt-Igoe was a large urban
housing project that became infamous for symbolizing the shattered
dreams of many and was subject to a great documentary this year. By the
late 1960's, it had gone from a promise of a better future for thousands
of families to a place of desolation, poverty and crime. Not unlike the
fate of its inhabitants, many characters in this year's motion pictures
have had to endure a vision of the future that demanded for their hopes
to make room for despair. From the Orwellian districts of The Hunger
Games to the corporate conspiracies of Branded and the highly-controlled
buildings of The Raid and Dredd 3D, dystopia certainly made its
comeback this year.
SECONDA PARTE – Tick Tick Boom: A song that
has been attempted in online movie mashups countless times. I always
wanted to take a crack at it and celebrate every note of explosive
silliness that transpire through this epic hit from The Hives. The
inspiration I got from Tick Tick Boom wasn't that it clearly promotes
balls-out action all over the walls but that it does it with a sense of
self-awareness and light parody. This is precisely the tone that we've
found in offerings such as Battleship, The Expendables 2, and (last but
not least) Joss Whedon's The Avengers. These movies all know they're
silly but rather than convincing us of the contrary, they decide to
embrace it and focus on giving us what we crave: great walls of fire
erupting everywhere and heroes who can't bother to look at them.
PARTE
FINALE – Everything is Connected: My third segment was an attempt to
explore what can only described in Hollywood as the merger of mainstream
blockbusters and small independent films. Now more than ever, young and
emerging filmmakers have the affordable technology in their
post-production to make their shoestring-budgeted features feel as
visually striking as a major studio production. On the other side of the
coin, the big studios are increasing financing on their Oscar hopefuls
and make sure to spare no expense in order to make a resourceful
production look as indie as possible. I tried to blend the little
movies, the big ones, and put my emphasis on those who happen to be one
but pretending to be the other.
