i'm having a 'panic attack'

 
Panic Attack dir. Fede Alvarez

By now, you may have already heard about the internet success story Panic Attack! by Fede Alvarez. Director Sam Raimi was so impressed with the '$300' 4:49 Youtube sensation that he is giving Mr. Alvarez $30 million dollars to make an original feature.

Panic Attack! is being hailed as evidence of the democratization of cinema through the mediums of digital video and social media distribution (5 million Youtube hits!).

But there are so many things about this story that irks me as illusory, consumer, and propaganda --all of which not only constitute the death of quality cinema but the death of the human soul ...

Obviously Mr. Alvarez is crazy talented and has a great eye for spectacle, but Mr. Raimi's (and his backers) motives and outlook are troubling:

from the BBC interview

"I uploaded (Panic Attack!) on a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of e-mails from Hollywood studios," he told the BBC's Latin American service BBC Mundo.

"It was amazing, we were all shocked."...

"If some director from some country can achieve this just uploading a video to YouTube, it obviously means that anyone could do it," he added.

When you watch and contemplate Panic Attack! several realities begin to emerge.

1) No, this movie did not cost $300 dollars to make. If anyone knows anything about VFX matting, layering and rendering and the equipment and man hours it takes to do it, you will quickly realize that these effects are out of reach from 'Joe Filmmaker'. Now if you have a crazy talented buddy with a fine computer set up who you can promise favors then maybe you can start to think that making a short film like this might be within the realm of reason. The irony, like the 3D technology and VFX of Avatar, is that this sensibility put movie making even more out of the reach of everyday filmmakers.

2) Nothing happens! Panic Attack! plays like a VFX reel or, at best, a video game montage. This is very apropos considering the last post on 'arcade cinema'. $30 million dollars because someone has a good photographic eye and has a buddy who can make kick ass robots!? seriously? What does Panic Attack! have to 'say' that isn't already obvious in today's world: "Robotic phallus / Power Chords / and Eye Candy rulez the day"?

3) In the end we see yet another piece of evidence that consumer cinema, dependent on you by the way ... the consumer, could care less about meaningful cinema. It really is no wonder that the finest forms or art in the Western world today are Advertising and Porn ... Panic Attack! constitutes both.

Let us go in together,
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint—O cursèd spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let's go together.

Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 186–190

Comments

[Jesusland]

Yeah. He should be hired by Weta. But as director? I don't see it, not just from that clip.

[Greg]

It just goes to show you that Hollyhood is so desperate for something new. Comic Books and Harry Potters are drying up fast. Shark jumpers!