Permit Me This Indulgence
Is it pretentious or just too much to write a review of a movie I've made? As Rhombus, I've made sixty-eight films--some of them are on YouTube channel John Berner. They haven't been seen by many people although there have been three screenings of my various films thus far at a local art gallery.
If Roger Ebert had made a movie he might've had his colleague Gene Siskel review it, in the interests of objectivity. I'm not here to be objective or subjective. The point is, I watched a movie I made in 2012 (so I'm writing about it) shot on videotape with a 1998 Sony videocamera. My ninth film, Stressed Plastic is a sequel to Stressed Meat. They take place in the same historical continuum, but the second film deals with events in A.D. 2999 when Earth and nine other planets are ruled by the whimsical absolute dictator, Wacksecker. He wears a Hitler mustache, his salute extends the right arm with three fingers raised, signifying the letter W. Center of a personality cult, he leads the Brethren of the Sword, fanatical loyalists who quash all dissent. Wacksecker provides entertainment, offering endless film shows of long perished actors and actresses like Bobby Darin, Shelley Fabares, and Paula Prentiss. He permits bestiality for part of Christmas Day. There are probably other taboo activities, including murder, that he permits for a day or two now and then, in order to get the populace out of the straitjackets of their working lives.
The film offers its goofy plot with voiceover narration and many still images of celebrities or semi-celebrities like Michelle Pfeiffer's sister Dedee Pfeiffer, the latter given a significant role as an agent seeking to thwart the planetary menace of enormous metal grasshoppers that have been sent back in time by Wacksecker. The ultimate military solution thought up by General Cramen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is to pave the world. Grasshoppers, even these metal ones, thrive on grass. Make the world grass free and they'll be unable to function. Upon this concrete world will the next generation build a new planet covered with buildings, pavement, glass and steel.
The plague begins when the protagonist, Dan Good (played as it says in the credits by Vic Neptune) finds a small metal grasshopper. This grasshopper is the first of an eventual crushing wave of much larger grasshoppers. The world darkens, humanity is on the run. Culture dies. After six months, the grasshoppers succumb to the massive paving project. The Cement Lobby makes a shitload of money.
When I made this film, I didn't have iMovie or other editing software. It's ninety-three minutes, it drags in parts of the second half, but under the humor there's political and social observations about war, the military, politicians and their ambitions, and the idiotic avoidance behavior (some of it based on pleasure-seeking) of people ignoring their peril, as a defensive reaction, perhaps.
I may or may not edit the film further in iMovie. I may combine it with Stressed Meat. I may just let the film sit as it is; another brick in my wall of making cinema.
Vic Neptune
Is it pretentious or just too much to write a review of a movie I've made? As Rhombus, I've made sixty-eight films--some of them are on YouTube channel John Berner. They haven't been seen by many people although there have been three screenings of my various films thus far at a local art gallery.
If Roger Ebert had made a movie he might've had his colleague Gene Siskel review it, in the interests of objectivity. I'm not here to be objective or subjective. The point is, I watched a movie I made in 2012 (so I'm writing about it) shot on videotape with a 1998 Sony videocamera. My ninth film, Stressed Plastic is a sequel to Stressed Meat. They take place in the same historical continuum, but the second film deals with events in A.D. 2999 when Earth and nine other planets are ruled by the whimsical absolute dictator, Wacksecker. He wears a Hitler mustache, his salute extends the right arm with three fingers raised, signifying the letter W. Center of a personality cult, he leads the Brethren of the Sword, fanatical loyalists who quash all dissent. Wacksecker provides entertainment, offering endless film shows of long perished actors and actresses like Bobby Darin, Shelley Fabares, and Paula Prentiss. He permits bestiality for part of Christmas Day. There are probably other taboo activities, including murder, that he permits for a day or two now and then, in order to get the populace out of the straitjackets of their working lives.
The film offers its goofy plot with voiceover narration and many still images of celebrities or semi-celebrities like Michelle Pfeiffer's sister Dedee Pfeiffer, the latter given a significant role as an agent seeking to thwart the planetary menace of enormous metal grasshoppers that have been sent back in time by Wacksecker. The ultimate military solution thought up by General Cramen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is to pave the world. Grasshoppers, even these metal ones, thrive on grass. Make the world grass free and they'll be unable to function. Upon this concrete world will the next generation build a new planet covered with buildings, pavement, glass and steel.
The plague begins when the protagonist, Dan Good (played as it says in the credits by Vic Neptune) finds a small metal grasshopper. This grasshopper is the first of an eventual crushing wave of much larger grasshoppers. The world darkens, humanity is on the run. Culture dies. After six months, the grasshoppers succumb to the massive paving project. The Cement Lobby makes a shitload of money.
When I made this film, I didn't have iMovie or other editing software. It's ninety-three minutes, it drags in parts of the second half, but under the humor there's political and social observations about war, the military, politicians and their ambitions, and the idiotic avoidance behavior (some of it based on pleasure-seeking) of people ignoring their peril, as a defensive reaction, perhaps.
I may or may not edit the film further in iMovie. I may combine it with Stressed Meat. I may just let the film sit as it is; another brick in my wall of making cinema.
Vic Neptune
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