Expected more

Am I Missing Something?

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

I really didn't think I was going to like this movie but by the end I was pleasantly surprised. It left me thinking and wondering which is something I really enjoy getting from a movie. It's a bit artsy and snobby in my opinion which is why it wasn't perfect but stick it out and you may be pleasantly surprised by the end.

I watched this movie a while ago and it was one of the very few movies that left me completely lost in where to start the review. I liked it but there are a few points in the movie where the very fundamental genre of what this movie would be seems contradicted. I'll explain this later but while I did like it the movie is successfully 2 different movies at once.The plot to this movie starts out simple with 2 Documentary filmmakers trying to make a movie about the dangers of falling into a cult by pretending to be duped into one where they seem to worship someone from the future, with no clear cut evidence (although that's to be interpreted) It soon seems that they begin to doubt whether this cult that believes that someone from the future is guiding them to survival after the bombs drop is a lie. However whether they are duped or just playing an act can also be left to interpretation.I will say what's wrong with the genre of this movie. It's either a psychological thriller film about the dangers of being duped by a cult, done in such a way that is unpredictable and keeping you guessing or, that this is a story about people mistaking someone from the future trying her best to save people into thinking that she's a cult leader. Usually with movies like this I have a clear thought in mind as to which I believe (an example being that I think the fantasy world in Pan's Labyrinth exists in the movie's world) but this kind of threw me off at the very end. I was almost certain that the movie was a psychological thriller about the dangers of going into any kind of cult but it drops a huge bomb in a way that levels out everything else so I really don't know which to believe.Okay, onto the stuff which I can define and like. Well, The writing is one of those few unpredictable scripts. It really is left open whether they were believing the cult or not in as early as about a half hour in. After that I really don't know if the line between what they're believing or not is blurred. This angle is perfect, I was constantly questioning what the characters were saying and doing and whether they were psychologically affected or not, and I don't think you get a clear answer even after the movie is over.That and the acting is really good. If Brit Marling took up writing these movies to give herself material to work with and star in roles that show off how she can act then I think she should continue doing it because she's a pretty good actress. Everyone else is really good as well, Christopher Denham especially.I guess I better bring up complaints. The movie is done in little segments that always end and begin in a title. My problem with this is that the movie flows fine on it's own. That and characters just appear without knowing what significance they are going to have on the story until later. The cop looking for Maggie was the worst in this regard. She just appears in her apartment and the only thing I'm thinking at the time is "Um... Hi, who are you?" I also feel as though there should be some other focus on the fact that these people are documentary filmmakers doing it. I say this because there are about 3 or 4 scenes and no other people observing what is going on with them. Not speaking as anyone who knows about the making of a documentary but wouldn't there be someone else there in any way? One which role doesn't require signing up? It would have been better (and a lot more interesting) if they were unsure as to whether the people hiring them have gone crazy.In all honesty though, I think after analyzing it in my head over and over until I found out exactly what it was trying to be - this is the team's best movie. I did like Another Earth for it's drama and interesting, if unoriginal concept. This literally had me on my seat questioning the characters and what they're doing, making it one of the few movies where after a while I barely predicted any of it. I'll also say that this concept is also very interesting and one that honestly, I haven't seen before - at least not executed in this way. I'll say that it's probably at the end of the day one of the better indie films out there.

That rating -- seven -- is tentative because I nodded out about half way through. It was certainly not the fault of the film, which begins slowly but gradually turns fairly gripping.Two journalists -- a young couple -- decide to investigate a cult in Los Angeles, using spy cams and writing notes on the sly, while pretending to become devoted members. After they are introduced to the basics -- the complicated handshakes, the mandated pre-meeting shower, the wearing of flowing white garb -- they are introduced to "Maggie," who claims to be from the future, having been born in something like 2040.The male mole is Christopher Denham and he seems to enter the thrall of Maggie, weeping while she explores his past at a meeting, vomiting on cue, and so forth. He's accused by his partner, Nicole Vicius, of becoming brainwashed, but although his performances during the sessions are convincing, so are his explanations to Vicius - that it's all part of the act, designed to maintain rapport with the cult.Vicius finally decides that the rapport he's trying to achieve has more to do with Maggi than with the cult and she throws him out of her apartment on his behind. This is a reasonable enough conclusion on her part. Denham may be good at rationalization but Maggie is something else. She's play by Brit Marling, who also had a hand in the screenplay. You ought to see her. She has a fine figure, strong, arresting features, long tresses the color of a Van Gogh wheat field, and a soothing but penetrating FM-radio kind of voice. Any normal man would want to throw himself at her feet and grovel while licking her tarsals.However, she doesn't like cyncism and although she never obviously floods out with anger, she tosses out one poor Chinese kid who asks her to sing a song from the future. After she complies and comes up with some feel-good folksy tune, getting the whole group to sing along with her on the second run, the Oriental gentleman points out that this song was written in the 1990s. She has a ready explanation, she continues smiling, her mien remains unruffled, but boy does she get rid of that Wog kid fast.I was getting drowsy about the time she invited Denham into her private boudoir. I was hoping for the usual orgiastic coupling but instead, Maggie whips out a cigarette and tells Denham that either he kidnaps one of his eight-year-old students (he's a teacher) or he's blackballed. At that point, eurythmic breathing set in. This damned narcolepsy.Not being able to see the wind up was really a nuisance too. The story had a personal fascination built into it. For one thing, I'd known one of the girls who was a suicide in the Heaven's Gate Cult. For another I'd taught a seminar on cult behavior and nobody could come up with any consistent explanations for cult formation and recruitment. And the head of my committee in graduate school was the world's leading authority on institutionalized vomiting. Finally, with the exception of Brit Marling's magnetism, which her cock eyes and slight lisp only enhance, it was beginning to remind me a great deal of Ayn Rand's clique back in the 40s and 50s.If it's on again, I'll certainly try to catch it. It looked promising.

This indie film, despite its flaws, including some annoyingly uninspiring cult indoctrination moments and the sub-Lost-non-ending ending, which leaves space for weirdos to interpret as a suggestion that cults aren't really just trying to steal your money and indoctrinate you into doing something stupid like kill yourself in tennis shoes, actually kept me excited to the very "end." I'm interested in seeing what these folks can come up with next time. The story was mostly good, and the production, even for a low budget film, was beautiful. I just hope they can resolve something in their next piece.