ada the leading man is my tpye

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Blake Rivera If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

ThurstonHunger Watched about half of this film in one sitting and then came back the next day and had my twin boys (8 years as of this viewing) watch it with me. I wanted to talk to them about the idea of film, I thought maybe through cartoons they had seen fake versions of when the film would get stuck in the projector and start to heat and melt/burn.Indeed for some of us old enough, we recall this in school or at home with threaded projectors before the advent of digital. Plus I used it to talk about the idea of an image that is scrambled can sometimes have a transfixing effect on the viewer, as you are not sure what it is. I left out the porn overtones (they are 8) but in terms of UHF/VHF or any kind of corrupted signal, how interesting that is.And then we just talked about film being experimental and not necessarily telling a story. Like painting or a sculpture. Well, this is that sort of film. From reading one or two reviews here, am I to believe that the film was not doctored in anyway? Rrreaaly? The boys did see the boxer scene, and that was tremendous they had some creative responses to that, but I would have bet the biggest tub of popcorn that it, and several other images (like the reverse images early on) were indeed artistically created rather than merely damaged by time.Anyways, I might have convinced the boys, and myself too. I think some of this sort of film works better in shorter sittings anyways, but I know a friend of mine who clued me into the great Ann Arbor Film Fest definitely digs Morrison, so I was happy to get a chance to see this, albeit at home on, yep, digital disk.Oh and I cannot resist clicking the SPOILER box for this one just for a lark.

bok602 Having seen Lyrical Nitrate and been hypnotized by the beauty of it and of the artistry possible to be created out of found footage (even as it disintegrates), I bought DECASIA based on the reviews and in the hope that the same creative lightening would strike twice.I was much disappointed.The moments of "artistic" decay are few and far between. A previous reviewer pointed out (most poetically) the highlights of the film, but the majority of the film is endless -endless -endless clips of just poor quality footage.To make matters worse, most of the clips, which went on far too long to hold interest, were actually slowed down to make them LONGER. Case in point is the whirling dervish footage, which not only is slowed down, but also repeated several times. Then there is the procession of camels which drag across the screen in slow motion to the point that I had to fast-forward just to get past them. Neither sequence, by the way, was particularly decayed or showed any damage of note; certainly nothing to merit slowing them down to such extents.Likewise, a procession of schoolchildren through a convent garden is slowed to such an excruciating crawl that one actually misses the fact that this sequence IS damaged until you speed it up.My other complaint (and an artistic mis-step on the part of the film-maker) is the fact that black-and white film stock was used instead of color. As Lyrical Nitrate demonstrated, part of the artistic value of decayed nitrate (even if it was a "black & white" film) is the palette of color produced by the chemical reaction of the film stock.Lost are the yellows, oranges, rusts, browns and reds which might have lent some genuine visual interest to this otherwise rather bland collage.I personally would not recommend this film and would instead direct interested parties to the vastly superior Lyrical Nitrate.

kima-6 The premise for this film project is deceptively simple. Take a whole bunch of decaying old film negatives, splice them together and viola: instant art film. This highly recommended film by Bill Morrison creates an effect similar to the visual kaleidoscope you'd see in the Kowaanisqatsi trio of films. Opening with shots of a whirling dervish who punctuates the beginning, middle and end of the film, Morrison sets up a series of "action" shots that when watched slowed down with their naturally occurring decay, take on an otherworldly feeling. Decaying celluloid takes on emotional meaning, reflecting the new readings that the viewer brings to the film. What were probably once quite banal scenes of nuns overseeing children walking through a courtyard, for example, take on an eerie ghostly effect and a scene where a man makes untoward advances on a woman is given heighten tension by the angry swirls the rotting film creates. Some segments were disturbing, others funny, many just beautifully impressionistic.This 70-minute film is quite trippy to watch and your mind will try to make sense of it by finding "things" in the shapes the crackling celluloid creates. (Is that mould? Is it waves crashing on the shore? Neither?) The dramatic score for the film seems lifted off of the disintegrating film, with its odd, oft-times sinister, octaves. At some points near the end, the onslaught of music combined with the repetitiveness of the images was almost too much. Interestingly, no colour film was used. On the one hand it would be difficult to even call this a film, on the other it is actually a film made literally of film. Think Vertov's A Man with a Movie Camera meets Bunuel/Dali's Un Chien andalou. All up, this is a beautiful study in remediation and a film student's wetdream.

Baroque Close to 70 minutes of footage that is rotting away, accompanied by a discordant symphony. It sounds like slow torture, and to some, it may be. But to me, it was like looking at visions of a lost civilization. Trying to scry the images out of decomposing footage was akin to reconstructing a piece of pottery from shattered fragments.The "decaying" music was a haunting accompaniment to the film, complete with detuned pianos and an orchestra that played out of phase with itself. But the visuals hit me the hardest.This is what happens to film if we neglect it. All those visions of the past are being lost forever to time and the elements. The silver nitrate base of those films decomposes at the same rate as human flesh! To me, the film was both a poetic look at decay, something that happens to everyone and everything, as well as how our cinematic history is vanishing as we speak.It goes without saying that this film is not for everyone, but if you truly want to step outside the boundaries of conventional cinematography, this is it!