Spectres

Starring:Marina Sirtis, Dean Haglund, Tucker Smallwood, Lauren Birkell, Alexis Cruz, Chris Hardwick, Loanne Bishop, Linda Park, David Hedison, Alexander Agate, Lillian Lehman, Joe Smith (VIII), Neil Dickson
Director: Phil Leirness
Studio: Xenon
Product Type: DVD

Description

Agitprop genius Craig Baldwin, director of TRIBULATION 99 and SONIC OUTLAWS, returns with his grandest work to date! SPECTRES OF THE SPECTRUM plunders Baldwin's treasure trove of early television shows, industrial and educational films, Hollywood movies, advertisements and cartoons, combining these with live-action footage, no-budget special effects, and relentless narration to generate a wholly original paranoid science-fiction epic.

Customer Reviews:

If Ed Wood made a GOOD movie.......2006-08-17

Words fail me in describing why you should IMMEDIATELY buy this film, but I will try nonetheless. Think of it as the movie Ed Wood tried to make, resurrecting stock footage and fragments from the cutting room floor as a compelling, if low budget, SF headtrip adventure. The dark, grainy collage of surrealistic cinematic scraps is mated to a dense archeaological narrative told by two voices, a man's and a woman's. They relay a paranoid, if accurate, history of the mass media and of "electronic domination" and then go back in time to do something about it.

To be honest, the film's special effects are terrible, yet it doesn't matter, and not because of irony or kitsch either as in the case of Wood, but because their DIY aesthetic is integral to the film's critique of mass media and mass culture.

As a bonus, this is a perfect DVD for the Baked Potato in your life.

Nothing in this film is science fiction,.......2006-06-02

"Nothing in this film is science fiction," is the tagline of mad scientist/media archeologist Craig Baldwin's SPECTRES OF THE SPECTRUM, a film that picks up where his previous works have left off. In SONIC OUTLAWS (a documentary about culture-jammers), Baldwin explored the ownership of the airwaves. In TRIBULATION 99 (which Baldwin considers a quasi-prequel to SPECTRES, starring the same actor, Sean Kilooyne), he explored conspiracy theories. SPECTRES further explores and updates similar themes, using Baldwin's signature manipulation of found footage mixed with newly shot live-action to tell a futuristic David & Goliath narrative.

Kilooyne stars as Yogi, a telepathic holdout from the age before the New Electromagnetic Order (NEO)--a vertically integrated company that sounds eerily familiar in the wake of the AOL/Time Warner merger. Yogi is one of the few free thinkers left and, holed up in his radioactive wasteland, he broadcasts his views and news to other members of "TV Tesla." With Yogi is his mutant daughter, Boo Boo (Caroline Koebel as voiced by Beth Lisick), an obstreperous telepath with little love of the world that NEO has helped create. When the NEO threatens to use the earth's magnetosphere to "bulk erase" the brains of every human on the planet, the only way to save humanity is for Boo Boo to travel out into space, following the history of television broadcasts back in time, to uncover a secret her grandmother lodged in an old episode of the 1950s series, "Science In Action."

Dealing this time with the topic of the transference of energy through broadcasting, Baldwin demonstrates that there have been countless fringe dwellers that history has cast aside or relegated to footnotes. Nikola Tesla, Philo T. Farnsworth, and Edwin Armstrong are a handful of inventors who have been forgotten or overshadowed by fabricated tales of greatness about innovators such as Thomas Edison, David Sarnoff or Alexander Graham Bell. In essence, SPECTRES can be viewed as a much-needed documentary about broadcast history. Along with presenting an alternate history about the pioneers of spectral exploration, Baldwin's film is an obsessive, densely layered, and intellectually challenging vision of technology gone awry. A wildly energetic blend of science fiction and science fact, rifling through the trash bins of our image-obsessed culture, piecing together a dossier on our love affair with technology and projecting it into a dystopic future.

Entertaining and outrageous overview of the rise of mass media.......2006-01-10

This is a colourful and original attempt to present the history of the development of mass communication in the twentieth century as a series of competing narratives.

There are two basic threads. The first is a comically paranoid, alternative "history" of the development of mass media, weaved out of footage of real twentieth century events. It's very well done, mining imagery from hundreds of old movies, airforce footage, cheesy old 50's science programs, and is also amusingly outrageous. I have to credit Baldwin for working the relationship between rocket pioneer Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard into the story, which, despite appearing in the fantasy part, is almost entirely true!

The second thread consists of interviews with serious commentators, or "activists", as they tend to describe themselves, who provide insights into the real development of the communications industry. This is also illlustrated by archival footage but in this case the clips often playfully or ironically underline the narratives of the commentators.

There are two criticisms I'd make, though.

The first part is somewhat let down by average script writing and very amateurish acting. I found the acting in particular quite grating at first, although I found that eventually I could accept it as part of the joke, in an Ed Woodish sort of way.

The second half is rather too bogged down with the commentators, who tend to overstate their own importance. Beyond some interesting facts about the relationship between early media experiments and mysticism, most of what they say tends to be fairly conventional, and was familiar territory, at least for me. And other than the observation that owners of communications companies have lots of power and money, and like having even more power and money, they don't have many insights of any real originality to contribute, and seem hamstrung by the lack of any coherent theoretical perspectives.

Perhaps one interesting point is that some of the schemes of pioneers like Tesla now strike us as just as bizarre as the fictional strand presented by the film. Indeed, in the case of Tesla, the fictional and real narratives come dangerously close to overlapping.

So overall, despite the film's eagerness to represent itself as an exercise in culture jamming, the final effect is ultimately rather benign.

All the same, it's well conceived and executed, is a lot of fun, and well worth watching.

Head-ache inducing experimental film montage meets bad 50s sci-fi action adventure........2005-09-14

Initially, this film is very hard to take seriously, both for its relatively heavy use of noise-imagery and static which remind me strongly of experimental films (some of which I've made), and secondly because of an odd voice-over claiming doom and gloom in a way that calls back images of terrible sci-fi shows from the fifties and sixties with people running around in plastic suits.

Very soon afterwards, the film takes a turn for the serious, but still holds on to both the headache-causing flashings of distorted images with a couple of characters (ironically, both are epileptic) who often quote those same bad sci-fi features.

However, in order to add a certain element of the profound, the film takes images from our entire history of filmed and televised images and combines them together into a story of the world's slow suffering from the over-abuse of wavelengths by humanity. This abuse is reflected in everything imaginable, from religious ideologies of tapping into the meaning of the Universe, to scientific endeavors to gain free energy from all the Earth, to economic globalization and multimedia conglomeration. All sent with various examples and historical contexts to remind me of the advice, "If you're going to lie, provide as much truth as you can in the midst." Moments in the movie occur that, almost, touch upon a documentary-like air that makes the entire movie very forboding...

...and yet then the characters come in and construct cheesy time-travel devices and run around the Universe yelling and being annoying and talking about "hidden messages" and "saving the spectrum" and it all kind of falls apart.

All in all, because I'm very interested in avant-garde styles of cinema, it's not a bad try. It's just that it is very overstimulating (I wouldn't be surprised if everyone else in the audience got the same headache I received from it, and it's ironic that there's no way an epileptic could watch this) and eventually disappointing. A good start, but could have used a bit of rewriting to give it a much more serious tone.

--PolarisDiB

Wish it were watchable........2005-07-30

This movie seems very interesting in concept. Unfortunately, the plot and narration is so annoyingly dumb it draws attention away from the film clips and 'ficto-historical' information. What could have been a cool bit of agitprop becomes something that seems as if it were written by a freshman sociology major. Sadly, I suggest you don't waste your time with this one.

Average customer rating:

A confused, muddled, poorly written mess
'Could've' been but wasn't.
INTERSTING MOVIE

Spectres
Starring: Marina Sirtis , Dean Haglund , Tucker Smallwood , Lauren Birkell , and Alexis Cruz
Director: Phil Leirness
Manufacturer: Xenon
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Horror | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $7.49 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( S ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

The Woods (Widescreen Edition)
Terminal Error
Net Games
The Maid
The Gathering

ASIN: B0006Z2NPO
Release Date: 2005-04-19

Description

Kelly, a 16-year-old suicide survivor, and Laura Lee, her workaholic mother, attempt to mend their fractured relationship by renting a cottage for the summer. Upon arriving, strange occurrences in the house cause Laura Lee to consult a psychiatrist who in turn brings in a psychic. Soon they come to a conclusion that it's not the house that's haunted but Kelly herself. It's now up to them to rescue Kelly's conflicted soul from its dark past.

Customer Reviews:

A confused, muddled, poorly written mess.......2006-03-24

Did you ever watch a movie where it's so evident that everyone involved is trying their darndest to make it a winner, but it's a lost cause? That would sum up "Spectres", a low-budget film that plays out like a Lifetime Television take on a supernatural thriller. The plot revolves around a mother (Star Trek the Next Generation's Marina Sirtis) and her daughter, and the strange events that plague them after a retreat to a summer home for an extended vacation.

What unfolds seems to revolve around the young daughter's suicide attempt and some convoluted mess wherein a single soul shared by a variety of dead souls enters her body while at the same time causing paranormal activity in the house? I end that with a question mark because I just didn't get it, and I'm not stupid. It's just poorly written.

The problems with this movie all walk hand-in-hand to form a disaster. The script is a complete nightmare, with every mother-daughter cliche only exacerbated by Sirtis' desperate attempt to make their interactions seem genuine. They don't, and it's not for want of talent on her part.

The movie can't decide what it wants to be, and it does a poor job of blending genres. You know how sometimes you're with your friends and you say "I have this great idea!" This is what would happen if someone made the poor choice of turning it into an actual film. It reads like the writer said "Wouldn't it be cool if..."

Watching the bonus making of featurette on the DVD is almost painful because everyone is SO into what they're doing - the director uses the word "Compelling" about a thousand times - it's so sad how horrible it turned out.

In short, it just misses the mark on every level. It isn't scary, or even slightly creepy. It isn't emotionally moving. It just isn't anything at all.

'Could've' been but wasn't........2005-04-28

I had really looked forward to this movie, but for the first half hour or so I was lost, whafted back and forth in confusion, until it started to reveal the story for what it was. It tried, oh it tried, it could've been a winner, but it wasn't.
I think they should have given 'William' the ghost more of a part than a piano playing ghost who had about 10 lines in the movie near the end. And the premise of William could have been a story in itself...but no, he simply tried to explain all the ghosts haunting the place as being one soul...really dumb.
Don't get me wrong, I like all the talent in this movie. Well acted, by all, but the story, oh the story, if only, if only, if only....

INTERSTING MOVIE.......2005-04-26

HEY IT IS AN INTERESTING MOVIE I AM FRENCH THERE IS NO SUBTITTLES BUT I ANDERSTAND ALMOST EVERYTHING SO IT LOOK LIKE A TELE MOVIE BUT WITH VERY ATTRACTINGS TRACKS I DON T WANT TO TELL WHAT HAPPEN HERE BUT IF YOU LIKE GHOST STORYS AND MOVIES WITH GOOD CARACTERS AS MOVIES LIKE VIRGIN SUICIDE OR GHOST STORYS YOU MAY LIKE THIS ONE IT WAS NOT BORING AT ALL BUT IS NOT ALSO THE MOVIE OF THE YEAR ALL RIGHT FOLKS???

Average customer rating:

If Ed Wood made a GOOD movie
Nothing in this film is science fiction,
Entertaining and outrageous overview of the rise of mass media
Head-ache inducing experimental film montage meets bad 50s sci-fi action adventure.
Wish it were watchable.

Spectres of the Spectrum
Starring: Sean Kilkoyne , Caroline Koebel , Beth Lisick , and Craig Baldwin
Director: Sean Kilkoyne , and Craig Baldwin
Manufacturer: Craig Baldwin
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Special Interests | Genres | DVD | Video

( S ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Sonic Outlaws
Lyrical Nitrate/Forbidden Quest
Decasia: The State of Decay - A Film by Bill Morrison
Tribulation 99
Sins of the Fleshapoids

ASIN: B000189WAA
Release Date: 2003-10-15

Customer Reviews:

If Ed Wood made a GOOD movie.......2006-08-17

Nothing in this film is science fiction,.......2006-06-02

Entertaining and outrageous overview of the rise of mass media.......2006-01-10

Head-ache inducing experimental film montage meets bad 50s sci-fi action adventure........2005-09-14

Wish it were watchable........2005-07-30

Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle - The Spectres of Legend v.3

Average customer rating:

Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle - The Spectres of Legend v.3
Starring: Yui Makino (II) , Miyu Irino , Daisuke Namikawa , Tetsu Inada , and Mika Kikuchi
Manufacturer: Funimation Prod
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles - Seeds of Revolution v.2
Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, Vol. 1 (Starter Set)
Fate/Stay Night 5: Medea (Ws Sub)
Bleach, Volume 6: The Entry (Episodes 21-24)
xxxHOLiC, Volume 10

ASIN: B000OIOOWI

DVD:

DVD

DVD

DVD

Portraits Chinois

Jazz Legends - Live! - Deluxe Edition 6 : DVD

Cisco Kid Double Feature, Vol. 2

DVD: 3 Musketeers/Corsican Brothers

Harlem, N.Y.C.