Operation Avalanche
-
To the Moon Via Stanley Kubrick: Matt Johnson on Operation Avalanche
Nothing on screen is ever fully truth. Even in the most honest and seemingly unbiased documentaries, manipulation and subjectivity reign. That caveat is accepted when there is explicit knowledge that one’s watching creative content, but blatant deceit is a much dangerous affair. In Operation Avalanche, director Matt Johnson travels in time to 1967 to ingeniously recreate and humorously speculate about some of the most divisive footage in American history, moving images that surely change the landscape of what humanity was capable of. For some, however, the moon landing is an orchestrated sham built on the artifice of moviemaking. Johnson’s sophomore […]
by Carlos Aguilar on Sep 20, 2016 -
Sundance Dispatch 1: Morris From America, Operation Avalanche and NUTS!
Chad Hartigan’s Morris From America has an unpromising logline, but so did his previous feature, This is Martin Bonner (an unlikely friendship between two men looking for redemption etc. etc.), and that turned out pretty well, so I wasn’t worried. Morris is a coming-of-age crowdpleaser, in the vein of “it’s been 18 years since Rushmore, but this version is different because…” (Son of Rambow, Submarine, et al.). I know a lot of people (I’m one of them, no shade implied) who find a deep satisfaction in action movies novel only in their details and crispness of execution while placing no value upon originality per se. That’s a principle which, of […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 23, 2016
