Straight Line Effects - August

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Straight Line Effects :: S.L.E :: Month | one :: August | 2006

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Topic: August | 2006 (Read 128 times)

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August | 2006
« Thread Started on Jul 24, 2006, 8:43pm »

The summer is half-way over now and school seems to ever so linger at the back of everyone’s mind, soon to burst up to the front and become every ones major worry. This summer has been very hectic around here with my brother graduating and soon off to college and myself starting school in a month time is ticking away to finish this paper on time. Though school does indeed come first in my long list of things to do, we here at S.L.E hope and promise our very hardest to get out a paper each and every month.

Columns will change monthly to brighten things up a bit, but we will have a few regulars such as my little note and our soon to be famous movie reviews and site reviews. Ok, ok, maybe not that famous but well worth the time it takes to read them. Hopefully everyone enjoys what we have to offer here at S.L.E as much as we enjoy writing articles for all of you. Don’t forget to come back often each and every month to see new and very exciting things.

Sincerely,

Devon

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A few weeks ago, "A Scanner Darkly" released in theatres, albeit it was a very limited release, but there nonetheless. The story of this movie follows an undercover cop named Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves). He is accompanied by Donna (Winona Ryder) and two other guys that he is investigating, which I guarantee will make you laugh. The humor in this movie is purely original. He and the other members of his undercover team wear "scrambler suits" which constantly alter their appearance, preventing agents from knowing who other agents are as a preventative measure. Throughout the movie, you are being bounced between the two sides of Arctor; one as the scanner, and the other as the participant. Scanner of what?

Well, the movie takes place 7 years from now where everything you do is being watched, heard, and carefully analyzed by the government. For example, there is this one scene early in the movie where a woman is on the phone with another man. As she is speaking, a government official automatically finds her personal information by matching her voice with her ID. Meanwhile, the man on the other line is being tracked and the official checks whether their conversation is worthy enough to warrant an arrest. Also, there is a fatal drug out titled "Substance D" that 20% of the population is considered addicted to. In the movie, Arctor takes this drug in order to maintain control of his disguise. Unfortunately, this drug plays a major role in his sanity and he starts questioning himself and seeing things from another perspective (the scanner).

A Scanner Darkly has completely no action scenes in it. Which I was dissapointed in because I would love to see some sort of fight or chase sequence with the awesome visuals the film has (which I will get to later on). With the absence of any sort of action, what keeps you interested is what you think will happen next. Because of the film's many plot twists, it will keep you guessing and guessing. The only flaw is that if you are not paying close attention to the conversations or what is going on, it is ridiculously easy to get lost in the story and will pretty much give up on trying to figure anything out.

When you first take a look at A Scanner Darkly, it immediately grabs your attention and you notice that there isn't anything that looks quite like it, which is an extraordinary feat considering how generic and uninspiring movies' art styles are nowadays (with a few exceptions of course). The film uses a technique called rotoscoping. Basically, it is tracing done by graphic designers, where they draw out key frames and the computer fills in the rest. In A Scanner Darkly, the main characters, and only the main characters, are being filmed and after they are done actual filming, they add color to their bodies and draw in the environments and even people in the background. Sometimes when the camera is being moved, you will see an awkward transition of objects as if you put on 3D glasses and that particular object, like a table, is shifting into or out of focus. I'm guessing it wouldn't be pleasant if you are extremely naseous. The scrambler suits look amazing, but if you have a short attention span or are just fascinated by the visuals you might just concentrate on how everything looks rather than paying attention to what is going on, which I suggested to try to stay away from.

This film definitely deserves to be seen, an interesting story mixed with hilarious characters and amazing visuals is very tough to come by in Hollywood. If it just so happens that this movie isn't being played in theatres (only on for two weeks at my local theatre) you can always buy or rent the DVD. Either way, I reccomend that you go out and see this film, it was well worth the $9.00 entrance ticket.

4/5 stars.

« Last Edit: Jul 28, 2006, 11:52pm by Straight Line Effects, Owner »

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