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After Fall, Winter (2011)
Romeo and Juliet for the 21st Century
Mix the raw emotion and psychological disturbance of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club with a story of romance and love and this is what you get. A Romeo and Juliet for the minds who grew up reading A Clockwork Orange and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest while going through their educational careers being numbed by the despair of the writing and music of Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins, or Stabbing Westward, to I'm a Barbie Girl and Marilyn Manson. With unemployment and fiscal trouble running rampant and mass shootings on the television daily, this is a story of love that can speak to a generation who may never have known what the words "I love you" meant. This was truly an original film and I will be looking out for this writer in the future.
Ink (2009)
Ink is a truly mesmerizing journey
Jamin Winans' new film Ink plays with the classical dichotomy between good and evil. While seemingly linear in motion, Winans has a tendency to make his audience work for the meaning behind his films. Ink takes place in a world where several planes of existence are present. In the "dream world" the Storytellers and Incubi reign supreme. The Storytellers are responsible for good dreams while their darker counterpart, the Incubi, conjure nightmares that people of the "real world" experience in their sleep.
The story begins on a wild yet forthcoming tangent by introducing two of the main characters of the story, Emma and her father. We are then driven into the main theme of the film where we are presented with the abilities of the Storytellers and Incubi and their unique gift to give people the seemingly impossible through the imagination of the dream world. And thus the tragic hero Ink comes to the forefront; a disfigured and socially unadjusted wanderer of the dream world.
It is Ink's belief that by taking a child sacrifice to the leader of the Incubi he will be saved thus making the final transition into becoming an Incubus himself. What Ink does not yet know is that the journey from one child's bedroom to the lair of the Incubi will be long and distraught and full of challenges both morally and transcendentally.
With a soundtrack written by Jamin Winans himself and a screenplay co- written by his wife, Ink is a truly mesmerizing journey through the enlightening moments of the human experience. This is one film of 2009 that you will not want to miss out on.
Dollhouse (2009)
An emotional roller coaster that delves into the human soul
To ask oneself how to review a television drama that lasted only two seasons poses many questions. The obvious: why did this show get canceled? And then the not-so-obvious: why did this show get canceled? Think of it like a double-sided coin, the probability is 100%. Eliza Dushku, or Echo, the main protagonist and co-producer of Dollhouse in interview expressed her concerns about how this might have come to be. Advertising being one, but mostly it was the Friday night time slot she recalled as "death" that inevitably would drag the series down.
The series seemed to have everything going for it: futuristic technology, kick-ass fight scenes, and a slew of intriguing characters to tickle the intellect or pull at the heart-strings of any science fiction or fantasy genre enthusiast. What I won't do is sit here and complain about why the show got canceled but rather try to convince you why you should sit down and give this 27 episode masterpiece a chunk of your time.
I believe the magic behind Dollhouse was fueled by the cast and crew's inevitable realization that this show might not go on forever like anticipated igniting passion into everyone that truly believed in the project and where the possibilities could lead given a six season run. The characters were concise yet elusive and open, forcing viewers to really analyze and walk inside the shoes of these complex individuals and situations inside the schizophrenic nature of The Dollhouse.
On the DVDs there are three extra episodes, all unaired. One being a sort of prequel to the series and two at the end of each season that sort of summed up all of what writer Joss Whedon wanted to say before the series was canceled. The first unaired episode begins with the director, one of many, but our series specific "Dollhouse" interviewing her next potential client. Then Echo, well, being Echo.
What Adelle DeWitt, the director, baits her newest potential client with is the opening:
"The world is a very simple place - at first. Then, as we grow up, it grows around us. A dense thicket of complication and disappointment - unbearable for some; and even for the luckiest of us still sometimes more than we can handle -- less than we'd hoped."
The life of the average "active" is not so complicated. Get imprinted with the correct memory topography to complete the assignment, get sent to the client, come back to The Dollhouse, and be erased. The client is happy, The Dollhouse gets paid, and time moves forward. What The Dollhouse creator could not anticipate was the resilience of the human mind, the idea of evolution, and the inevitable progress of science and technology.
All of these factors play into the plot line of Dollhouse, creating an intricate web of creation, betrayal, hope, and redemption, leading us into a fantastic journey through what life could be if one was able to purchase the raw emotions needed to complete their own human experience.