Friday, October 18, 2013

Jason watches ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW

This movie made quite a bit of news recently as 'The movie that was shot without permission, guerrilla-style, in Disneyworld' (to a lesser extent, it's also the movie that takes a bit of a conspiracy-theory swipe at Siemens, as the sponsor of Spaceship Earth in EPCOT.) Then as it rolled out, it became the target of a bit of backlash, as reviewers started lodging a few complaints, most notably:

  • It's not particularly incisive to note that Disney is full of shallow artifice, and so are the families that visit there.
  • It's super creepy to have the father (Roy Abramsohn) lusting after two underage French girls the whole movie.
  • The movie is just weird for the sake of being weird.
  • The movie just doesn't know what it's about.

These all--except maybe the last one--are valid to a greater or lesser extent. Yes, it's not particularly breaking news to point out that fake castles are fake. But you know what else is shallow, artificial, and uninteresting? Writing an entire article about how critiquing shallow artifice is uninteresting.

Yes (double yes!) that following the young French girls is super-creepy. But then again, well-crafted creepiness is rarely boring. Perhaps seeing this as a simple critique of shallow artifice is missing the point. Is it perhaps critiquing the ever-younger sexualization of girls (didn't Miley Cyrus start out as a Disney star?) Is it perhaps taking the idea of Disney as a 'place where dreams come true' to it's logical (and creepy) extreme? Is the Happiest Place on Earth in a stranger's snatch?

The movie is weird, I haven't gotten to the least of it. And at times it's clearly weird for the fun of it. But I don't think it's just that. I suspect there's more.

I suspect I (and most reviewers) can't get a solid handle on it. But just because I don't know entirely what it's about doesn't mean it doesn't know.

It's worth a look. Possibly worth several looks. But I can't guarantee you'll like all of what you see.

Running Time: 90 minutes
My Total Minutes: 339,092

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