Arwen
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Spidertron Review
« Thread started on: Feb 6th, 2008, 8:52pm » |
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Last Saturday, I went to the world premier of Spidertron, a "no budget," amateur sci-fi comedy film created mostly by English and Comp Lit students from the University of Oregon. The premier, at Eugene's Bijou art theater, was a splash. The showing was standing room only, jammed packed with family, friends, and university students out to have a fun (rainy) afternoon supporting local arts. Director/producer Carter Soles gave a lovely short speech, expressing his gratitude to the many talents who contributed to the film. Then, they rolled the film (spun the DVD), and a good time was had by all.
Small Review:
This was the first major film project for most of these folks, and it does look amateur. That said, I was very impressed by how skillfully a lot of the "invisibles" were handled. The camera work was excellent in an understated way: no ambiguity about who was speaking, who was where, or what angles you were seeing. The pacing was also just about perfect and the music very appropriately woven in. And good! Nice music, and great opening credits. The writing was, I'd say, a wee bit in advance of the acting. At points I felt like, "Yes, that line would have been really funny if pitched a bit differently." But there were great acting moments, even one or two emotionally serious and well-handled scenes slipped in among the postmodern farce. The FX looked cheap as heck, but for a "no budget" film, they sure crammed a lot in there: space ships, laser guns, floating platform thingies, CGI building, space ship crash, etc. The film and sound quality were not terrific; this was doubtless more obvious on the big screen. The ending reminded me of Monty Python--not to give away spoilers. The comedy emphasized violence and swearing, but included generous doses of clever characterization and a smattering socio-political and lit geek commentary.
DVDs are available through http://www.spidertron.com for $10 (USD) (not counting S&H). (Scroll down for instructions on purchasing one.) If you like droll-yet-violent black sci fi comedy and want to support independent film, I recommend picking up a copy!
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