This week we’ve been talking a little about science fiction and time travel, first the book Replay which I reviewed and then the idea that science fiction as a genre is running out of good ideas.
Well, I find this a perfect time to recommend one of my all-time favorite movies, Primer.
I’m sure one or two of you have heard of it, maybe even seen it, but if I were to rank my top 5 movies in the genre of time travel, this would be at the top of the list. Hands down.
Yes, even better than Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
This is how Primer opens, with a narrative quote from Aaron:
[Sound of a phone ringing. Aaron, voiceover:] Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m gonna read this, and you’re gonna listen, and you’re gonna stay on the line. And you’re not gonna interrupt, and you’re not gonna speak for any reason. Some of this you know. I’m gonna start at the top of the page.
From there, you learn from the start how everything happened.
This is the official plot from IMDB:
At night and on weekends, four men in a suburban garage have built a cottage industry of error-checking devices. But, they know that there is something more. There is some idea, some mechanism, some accidental side effect that is standing between them and a pure leap of innovation. And so, through trial and error they are building the device that is missing most. However, two of these men find the device and immediately realize that it is too valuable to market. The limit of their trust in each other is strained when they are faced with the question, If you always want what you can’t have, what do you want when you can have anything?
This movie is fascinating. It was made on a budget of $7,000, with most of the money going to film stock. Apparently they had so little to waste on film stock, that in some of the scenes you can hear one of the actors muttering “cut” under his breath. I never noticed that, but the IMDB trivia section points it out.
Only two minutes of the original 80 minutes filmed was cut, that’s how well they did with that they had. So yeah, it’s a 78-minute long movie, or short I should say.
But what a little story they tell here. If you’ve seen Memento and figured out that plot, you will probably be okay with this one.
The guys essentially start tweaking with a machine that ends up being able to send things through time. What they do is experiment with it to see how it works and what they can do with it.
Once they get going though is where things start getting strange. They start having multiples of themselves around and controlling it all gets hairy. Other things happen and you don’t even realize it.
It definitely isn’t amazingly shot nor is the sound or lighting or anything perfect, but somehow that adds to the realism and belief in it all. These guys are just some engineers who try to invent something in their garage and then use it.
As I mentioned above about Memento, you really have to pay attention and possibly watch it through a second time to get what is happening. If you are like me, you can go search for answers online where a few people have tried to explain everything that happened and for the most part, they seemed pretty accurate.
In my blog on Thursday about unique science fiction movies, I posted a quote about how Stanley Kubrick flipped that genre upside down with 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The funny thing is, the poster for this movie quotes Esquire magazine and says the exact same thing. You can check it out below. Click on it for the slightly bigger version.
If you haven’t seen it, add it to your queue or just go down and rent it. I’d love to know what you think. Or go buy it from Amazon.com and help support this blog a bit. *grin*
AML Rating: A
Sorry Mike, but this movie was just awful. Horribly made, it was a chore just to get through the first 15 minutes.
Hmmm…I don’t think so. I mean, it got a 72% on Rotten Tomatoes, most people liked it.
And seriously, saying it was horribly made when they only had $7,000??
I can see if it had a $5 million budget and this is what it came up with.
But for $7,000, I thought it was amazing.
Also, the first 15 minutes set up the story, but once it gets going, it’s great.
I think people who didn’t want to take the challenge of trying to figure this movie out likely didn’t appreciate it for what it was.
First of all, the sound was completely out of sync and unfiltered. Sorry, but that is a BIG deal to me (considering I watched it while editing my own low-budget film).
The acting was awful (even though one of the actresses in that movie was in mine). The story was very convoluted–the problem is that if a film makes its story overly complicated, nobody notices the technical problems inherent in the film. And this one is chock full of them.
Primer? Thats my favorite color, I’m gonna paint my car that color!!!
Michael, I’m really surprised how harsh you are on it, considering what you said about doing your own film of a low-budget quality.
Again…$7,000….that’s not low budget, that’s NO budget.
It’s got a 6.8 rating on IMDB, a 72% on Rotten…I mean, if it was as bad as you said, it wouldn’t be so highly regarded.
As far as your mention of the technical problems. The whole point of the movie was THE STORY, I mean, what can you do with $7k to make it perfect? They filmed 80 minutes and used 78 of them. They had no budget to reshoot or to waste film on retakes.
I’d rather have a good story, and a not so great film, then a big budget production with a crappy plot (Pirates 3, Spiderman 3)
Again, I’m really shocked at your hatred for this thing…I’ve known you awhile and I would have expected going through what you have on your own film would have made you appreciate others who try to do the same thing.
Whoa wait a minute here boys lets not start bashin ole Spidey 3 plot lines now…. =)
Anyways Michael, you obviously didn’t like the film
I hope some others though will check it out, see if they agree with Michael.
You’re right, 7k is a small amount. But we had the same amount ourselves and our movie was technically superior to Primer. At least IMO.
There should be NO excuse for a professionally released movie to have sound that bad.
And just so you know, the original director doesn’t do movies anymore.
That’s alright, it was more of the writing and story that stuck me, not the directing and sound.
MichaelB, you didn’t tell us what your movie is called…?
Just saw Primer and really liked it. I think I got all of the plot points down in one viewing, but I am going to check it out again when I get a chance to make sure I really understood everything that was going on. If you liked Memento, you should check this flick out.
Great recommendation Mike!
Steven’s last blog post..Heath Ledger Passes Away
Steven, so glad you enjoyed it man! The Memento comparison is good…