In Matt Moyer and Amy Toensing’s heart-wrenching documentary, the filmmakers follow a young boy named Curtis and his family in a drug-addled and impoverished community in Ohio over the course of many years.
The movie sees a struggling family that has been riddled with addiction, poverty and painstaking disappointment as they attempt to do their best in the situation that they have been raised in. Looking at the film alone, the odds have been stacked against this family and they seem to be another statistic in the making.
Just for starters, the cinematography of the film is incredibly noteworthy and is almost astonishing to look at. The beauty of its impoverished landscapes surround the audience with such vivid imagery that the people watching the film have no choice but to try and root for our subject.
Understanding the point of view of this family who are doing everything that they can to survive in an environment where they are having a grader and harder time with maintaining their family and kick their growing addictions to dirty substances.
It’s amazing that the filming takes place over a decade or so. That way audiences see how much the main characters have grown over the years and what has happened to them. It almost reminds me of Richard Linklater’s magnum opus film “Boyhood” where the character naturally got older rather than hiring new actors or using makeup.
This movie proves that making a documentary requires an expensive look at the subject and a lot of respect for said subject and/or person that must be handled with love and care.
A stark warning of what we stand to lose and a startling elegy to the great expanse of what we have already lost, Earth Protectors is environmental artist Anne de Carbuccia’s solo full-length debut. Opening her film with a touching anecdote of her father recanting his tales of oceanography with the famed Jacques Cousteau, de Carbuccia invites us into her world, an artistic mission to show the beauty of our planet, partly through showcasing the unseen worlds within our wider world.
Leaving ‘time shrine’ installations in the places she visits –atop mountains, below the ocean, amongst forest trees– de Carbuccia uses visceral symbols of time and choice in order to show the terrifying and devastating effects of the anthropocene; namely, the epoch in which human activity has begun to have a crippling impact upon the planet.
The film’s namesake, the Earth Protectors, are people from around the world at the frontlines of the climate crisis, those who seek to educate others and to help dampen –or at least delay– the worst effects of climate change through local conservation efforts. Very reassuring is the director’s decision to prominently feature indigenous voices, those already facing the first waves of anthropogenic environmental damage.
The documentarian takes great care to ensure that these indigenous stories are told, that we see what they are losing – not only their ancestral homes, but also their cultures. In the mountainous region of Upper Mustang in Nepal, we meet the villagers of Lo Manthang, which shares a border with Tibet. Tashi Bista, a local activist and filmmaker, expresses his bemusement of those who describe climate change as a matter of belief, not of fact – a painful fact that is affecting Tashi’s homeland.
de Carbuccia’s film is as fascinating as it is gut-wrenching. We as the audience are not granted the ability to be passive viewers; whether we accept it or not, we all play our own individual parts –however large or small– in climate change, and the artist challenges us to confront our personal responsibility of stewardship, putting the onus on us to become Earth Protectors ourselves. Watching many documentaries is a matter of interest, but watching Earth Protectors is a matter of necessity.
Avatar: The Way Of Water – Opening Pandora’s Box. By Connor Walsh.
Since the dawn of time, humanity has looked to the stars, wondering what life exists beyond outer space. Humans have remained the uncontested dominant race on Earth– over consuming its resources, shaping the environment to suit our needs, and filling the world with waste. Climate change is on the rise with the extinction of countless species as a result of humans. What will become of Earth as decades and centuries span–will humanity learn to take steps to repair the damage done, or will humanity look to the stars to replace the home they have damaged? Would we have to seek a new home as a result of a decaying planet? James Cameron poses these questions in his Avatar (2009-present) film series. The series began with a marine traveling across galaxies to colonize a new world and strip it of its resources, but instead he fell in love with the indigenous life of Pandora letting go of humanities greed; to fight for the planet and its many lifeforms. The sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) takes place years later, in 2169. Humanity has moved on from simply extracting the resources of Pandora and have instead has set their sights on it becoming a replacement for their dying Earth. Avatar: The Way of Water contemplates the importance of the natural world and the forms in which evil takes place throughout history, what it will take to heal the damage already inflicted on our world and the consequences of colonial efforts that view land as something to conquer instead of something to nurture and protect. Avatar: The Way of Water might contain the ingredients needed to repair our planet before it is too late.
Avatar: The Way of Water focuses on Jake Sully, a former marine turned Na’vi living a quiet life with his Na’Vi wife. These new parents are learning to raise their kids within the forests of Pandora, after earning their peace during the first film’s climactic battle. The peace is short lived as their lives are quickly upended when a familiar threat returns–The RDA (Resource Development Administration). The RDA are a threat to life on Pandora as they seek to siphon its resources and in an attempt to heal the damage humanity caused to earth. In the first Avatar, Miles Quaritch failed his task of scaring off the indigenous life of Pandora when a rebellion led by Jake Sully fought back the military. The battle between the army and the na’vi leads to his eventual demise. Quaritch 2.0 is created to lead the RDA to victory to hunt down Jake Sully. This ignites a cat and mouse chase which drives the Sully family into hiding amongst the ocean tribe of the Metkayina. Throughout the film Jake Sully and Miles Quaritch serve as mirror versions of each other with Jake Sully letting go of his self serving military interests while Miles Quaritch seeks revenge over the demise of his human body and is more determined than ever to make Jake Sully face the consequences for his victory in the previous film.
Humanity’s insatiable greed in the Way of Water led the military to implement an RDA Recombinant Program. In which memories of the dead are placed within false bodies to continually serve the military for as long as that data remains. These Avatars can die and respawn similarly to a video game character. The RDA soldiers blinded by duty don’t see that they are being exploited and recycled; they believe they are the soldiers who died–they, however, are nothing but data in a hollow shell. Their endless quest to expel the residents of this planet has removed any element of a soul. This mirrors how the military of our modern age views soldiers as a resource they need to endlessly extract when engaging in modern-warfare. If any military could produce a soldier without the concern of loss, they would do that instantly–even to the point where they’d dress their soldiers like the population they are trying to control. But would the population fall for this?
Miles Quaritch existing as false memories in a newly formed body shows what prioritizing one’s job can do to someone. Ambition can plague the mind to the point where the job has consumed all your aspirations and goals–you have become your job. Avatar The Way of Water reflects this through using military bodies as nothing more than a resource, something to obtain. These soldiers are not their human counterparts they are machines devoid of any thought or any purpose other than the task at hand–they have been replaced by these endlessly respawning clones. The military’s ambitions in Avatar represent the leaders of capitalist interests of the world and how people are viewed as resources and view environments based on how they can benefit the ruling class.
Jake Sully reflects how humanity can unlearn societal norms and seek to become something more and finds it challenging to connect with his family and see them as anything other than a military unit to command. The old life he lived, he finds himself retreating toward finding the structure difficult to break because of how much he has eternalized that aspect of his life. Both Miles Quaritch and Jake Sully represent two halves of humanity. One places itself within the idea of how serving someone else’s interests can cause one to lose what is important in life. The greed that this causes forces one to see the world and people they meet within as elements that help one to serve themself. We should strive to question how to help a dying planet instead of impulsively seeking out a new home to replace the old one. Swallowing life from one place to another is not a way to live and soon we’ll find ourselves traveling an endless void with nothing but haunting echoes of our past.
Avatar: The Way of Water further explores what science and technology create within communities, with the evolution of tech impacting the understanding of faith and religion. Jake Sully’s children, especially his adopted child Kiri, interact with the world that showcases the spirituality that remains concurrent with this fictional Native American analogy. The Na’vi have their own rules they abide by and grounding of faith concerning Eywa, known as the All Mother or Great Mother, is a biological sentient force that communicates with all life on Pandora through the roots of the trees. Everything on Pandora is interconnected, life is sacred, which is where the title of the Way of Water comes from, life-like water flows and ripples across time and space, facilitates growth and is formless. The humans from Earth do not understand this element, and their greed vs the quest for knowledge on those for and after the Na’Vi element has a similar fact. Humans see the Na’Vi as a resource in different ways–one resource is using them for knowledge with preconceived ideas concerning technology that clashes with the Na’vi’s spiritual side–asking for a sound explanation to a leap of faith. The others want to control the resources of the Na’vi and see their planet as an escape from the home they have hollowed out. In the real world today, we encounter many similarities where government-funded militaries see land primarily as a resource to take, a sense of entitlement that because they want something, they should have the right to take it–that in turn also means that those under attack have the right to keep it–whatever the cost.
Civilization has always looked towards the stars for guidance but when greed enters the fray and we start looking beyond our planet as a replacement we should ask ourselves–what are we doing? How can we fix the wrongs and repair the image of our planet? Avatar The Way of Water has answers and encourages us to look into our own spirituality and see each other as a collective whole. By chasing wealth and power we lose the aspects that make us human and we should wonder why is a series about a fictitious alien species holding answers to many of our planet’s problems? James Cameron may not be the first person to implement these ideas but his technological fears and concern for our planet could not be louder in Avatar the way of the water. Instead of looking to other planets or lands to fix the wrongs of our planet, we should be seeking voices and perspectives and what they can offer us.
Originating as a play, “Devil from Mars” seized the opportunity to capitalize on the burgeoning trend of low-budget sci-fi B-movies, echoing the fascination with UFOs and extraterrestrials regularly emanating from the United States. While sharing thematic elements with its American counterparts like “The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman” and “Invasion of the Saucer Men,” this production diverges significantly in tone and execution.
The film unfolds in the quaint setting of a British pub, where a group of resilient Brits, brought together by chance, navigate the threat of an alien enemy. The dialogue, laden with turgid lines such as “Well, if we’re all going to die, dear, we may as well have a cup of tea,” sets a peculiar tone. Despite a noticeable decline in engagement as the plot progresses, “Devil Girl from Mars” manages to be oddly enjoyable in small doses.
As the narrative unfolds, the initial straightforward drama takes a surreal turn, evolving into a peculiar blend of high camp and pinch-yourself absurdity. The plot introduces Nyah (Patricia Laffan), a leather-clad dominatrix from a female-dominated planet in search of robust Earth men to replenish her dwindling supply. The film’s descent into campiness is accentuated by the appearance of a comically stubby killer robot, making “Metal Mickey” seem positively menacing by comparison.
The film’s Scottish setting introduces unintentionally humorous accents, with the exception of native Scot John Laurie, known for “Dad’s Army,” who refrains from uttering his famous “We’re doomed” catchphrase. The dialogue, delivered in a cacophony of bad Scottish accents, coupled with creaking sets and prolonged wide shots reminiscent of a stage play, results in a cinematic experience that hovers on the brink of being so bad it’s almost good.
The arrival of the leather-clad Nyah and her killer robot adds an unexpected layer of absurdity to the narrative, elevating the film to a level of unintentional hilarity. When faced with the extraterrestrial threat, the local police opt to leave the villagers to fend for themselves, displaying a lack of urgency and concern that adds to the film’s peculiar charm.
In conclusion, “The Devil Girl from Mars” offers a unique cinematic experience, straddling the line between unintentional comedy and low-budget sci-fi. While the film may not be a masterpiece, its odd blend of campiness and peculiar plot elements makes it a curious addition to the annals of British film history. Those drawn to the charm of obscure British cinema may find it worthwhile, especially considering the efforts of distributors like Network in bringing these lesser-known gems to light.
Horrors of the Black Museum (1959) stands as a noteworthy, albeit often overlooked, milestone on the tumultuous path of horror cinema’s evolution, especially within the subgenre of proto-slasher films. Nestled between the influential works of Terence Fisher and Herschell Gordon Lewis, director Arthur Crabtree, alongside screenwriters Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel, explores a distinctive facet of horror storytelling that resonates with creative kills, diverging from conventional murder methods and paving the way for later developments in the genre.
In its exploration of proto-slasher themes, Horrors of the Black Museum embraces familiar tropes, including the slaughter of promiscuous women by deranged assailants. However, what sets it apart is its fervent commitment to the notion of ‘creative kills.’ Rather than resorting to conventional stabbing or clubbing, the murderers orchestrate elaborate and often impractical methods of execution. A standout example unfolds at the film’s outset, featuring a mysterious package containing boobytrapped binoculars, leading to a gruesome demise for the unsuspecting recipient. This emphasis on inventive lethality foreshadows similar scenes in subsequent gialli and slashers that would emerge in the following decades.
At its core, Horrors of the Black Museum draws inspiration from Charles Belden’s 1932 short story “The Wax Works.” Originally adapted to film as “Mystery of the Wax Museum” in 1933 by Michael Curtiz, the concept resurfaces in Crabtree’s creation, adding a layer of complexity to the narrative. Interestingly, the film intertwines this wax works angle with the central theme of a villain hypnotizing individuals to commit murder, a subtle nod to Michael Lawrence’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” This multifaceted approach, coupled with the focus on creative kills, distinguishes the film within the broader horror landscape.
To enhance the viewing experience, the U.S. distributor AIP introduced the Hypno-Vista gimmick, a William Castle-style addition featuring a 12-minute introductory sequence by psychologist Emile Franchel. Exploring the psychology and science of hypnotism, Franchel’s presentation culminates in a demonstration aimed at leaving the audience in a suggestive state during the film. Although the gimmick missed the opportunity to incorporate subliminal images and messages, AIP attempted a daring publicity stunt, falsely claiming that the boobytrapped binoculars had been lost at the airport, triggering an unwitting and costly police investigation.
In conclusion, Horrors of the Black Museum occupies a distinctive place in the history of horror cinema, serving as a precursor to the slasher genre while infusing creativity into its portrayal of violence. Its amalgamation of narrative influences and the bold introduction of Hypno-Vista underscore its unique contribution to the evolution of horror on the silver screen.
