DVD Diggers #28 - March 31, 2005

Well, I never thought I’d have problems keeping pace with Josh, but the man has bested me. For a guy who started and stopped The Film Habit with the consistency of an AMC Gremlin (or Citroen for those of you overseas), lately he’s been churning out his weekly column with great regularity. My original approach to this column was, “Hey, I’ll show him it’s not that hard to do a weekly column.”, but the reality is he’s shown me just how hard it is.

The truth is, as with most online authors, I have to keep several plates spinning at once. We all have jobs, wives, and lives beyond writing for a website. I think I speak for just about anyone who writes for a website - this is what we’d much rather be doing, but if you can’t keep the lights on, it’s hard to write.

Of course the other truth is I’m a procrastinator. Where I originally tackled this column by writing it a little bit over a couple of days, now I find myself cramming it all in right before getting it online. The fact that Diggers is now up every two weeks doesn’t help. Somehow instead of giving me more time, it just makes it easier to push off. So the solution - DVD Diggers is going back to a weekly schedule. Maybe by having it as an ever present spirit haunting over me, I’ll be able to catch back up with Josh. Hey, he’s only got seven more Film Habits until #50. Think I can beat him to it?

Very_little_time

Something else that has suffered due to my hectic schedule is my attempt at looking at some amateur films. Actually “amateur” really isn’t the right word to use - let’s say, low budget films. Any yahoo with a camera can make an amateur film and submit it to “America’s Funniest Home Videos”. Movies submitted to film-festivals still have to have a certain professionalism and meet certain criteria, they just don’t have Spielburgian budgets to work with. Sometimes you get a good flick that more people should see, and sometimes you get absolute crap, but most of the time it’s fun to hunt around and see what’s out there.

The disc currently on my shelf waiting for me to watch is Very_little_time and hopefully I’ll be able to talk about it in next week’s column. I just wanted to mention it here for two reasons. One, I want to apologize to the people behind Very_little_time for taking a bit longer than expected to look at the movie. Secondly to put the offer out there for other low budget filmmakers - if you think you have a film worth being looked at, let me know. Think of this as sort of a “imagine your disc here” type offer. I am trying to avoid low budget horror flicks, but if you have something creative and imaginative that you’re looking for a review on, I’d love to take a look at your movie. Who knows, maybe you can be the next Pizza: The Movie - Winner of the 2004 Flaming Hobbit Award.

Have a low budget film you’d like us to check out?

Houston, We Have a Problem

Earlier this week I watched the Tenth Anniversary Edition of Apollo 13 and while I’ve already given it a formal review, there’s something about the film that’s been bothering me since I watched it.

At what point did we lose respect and admiration for men like those in the Apollo project? Actually, the movie provides part of the answer for that - right around the time of Apollo 13. After landing on the moon America started to lose interest in the space race, and although there are still millions of discoveries to make out in the unexplored frontier, our attention only seems to be drawn to the voyages of NASA when something tragic happens, and even that seems to be a stretch anymore.

Think about it - can you name the crew of the last shuttle to go into space? What about the crew of the ill-fated Columbia? We’ve been building on a station orbiting the planet, but I bet you nine people out of ten couldn’t tell you the last accomplishment that was made towards that. And yet every morning for the last month I turn on the news and get an update on the child molestation court hearing of a pop star, or the status of a human vegetable who is literally starving to death. Traveling to space, an event that literally involves riding a “controlled” explosion out of the Earth’s gravitational pull, has become unexciting to the American public, to the point where we can’t even remember the names of those who have lost their lives in that endeavor.

What really disturbs me is when that disregard spreads to stories about traveling to space, like Apollo 13. Ron Howard’s tale of the seemingly-doomed mission pays a respectful tribute to the men of NASA from that golden age of space travel, and ten years ago was considered one of the best films of the year, nominated for multiple awards. Today, few people are showing interest in the DVD’s release, which has even been eclipsed by the unrated special edition of Orgasmo on the site’s forums and with our syndicators.

Lets be honest - if you’re checking this site out, most likely you’re a fan of the same things we are - good movies. Sometimes good movies are fun romps with huge special effects. Sometimes good movies are emotional tales of drama. Apollo 13 gets to be a little bit of both, but at it’s core it’s a reminder of exactly why we should be paying attention to what’s going on in our space program. If we ever want science fiction like Star Trek or Babylon 5 to become science fact, we need to give these men and women our support and give them back the respect and admiration they once had. After all, don’t you think exploring space is a little more noteworthy than whether Brad and Jen stay together or get divorced?