Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

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.

ExpendableMan Decasia isn't so much a movie, more an endurance test. It is about as far away from a mainstream blockbuster as the world of film is likely to get, composed as it is entirely of neglected film stock that has decayed over time. Bill Morrison may be classified as the director, but in truth, he's more of a collage-maker, tying all these images together and attaching a haunting score over the top then letting the results speak for themselves. It's certainly an interesting approach, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty, it doesn't half make for a boring film.Sure, you can wax lyrical about the otherworldly experience of watching long dead people going about their lives and how combined with the music, it creates a trance-inducing hypnotic effect, but sitting down to watch it and then talking about it afterwards are two completely different things. If you are a chain smoking nihilist with a beard and a beret you'll probably love it, or at the very least pretend to like it in order to look clever, but I thought it sucked. I'll stick to the Indiana Jones trilogy thanks very much.

karbenbased8786 This film is a bunch of random pieces of old, deteriorating, film being played with music. Doesn't sound too interesting - and it isn't. According to the interview section on the DVD, Morrison explains that this film is some sort of symbolic expression of the decay that all life goes through. While this sounds like a nice analogy, the film doesn't really convey anything deep or philosophical. Just watching a bunch of old damaged film doesn't really end up conveying much of anything - all we get is to watch old film! The visual effect is sort of cool for about ten minutes, then its just boring. Its all black and white and just seems monotonous. Its like I get the point about decay in the first five minutes. The music in this film is excellent however, is you like abstract and dark ambiance music. In this case, the film isn't worth much but the soundtrack is great!

syllavus I was unlucky enough to catch this film at the Boston Independent Film Festival. Upon reading the description of the movie, I was intrigued as I have always had a passionate love and fascination with old photography and films. The notion of seeing a collection of old decaying films artfully woven together sounded wonderful on paper, the actual film however leaves MUCH to be desired.The film's "score" (if it can even be called a score) is a painful melange of long drawn out sharps and flats that are akin to having a gremlin in one's head scratching a blackboard with their claws.This seemingly neverending barrage of ambient noise is the number one thing that is wrong with this film. I found myself squeezing my hands to my ears in the fashion of the "Hear no Evil" monkey and wishing that the theatre speakers would just give out.The film would have improved by 150% if the "music" had been exchanged for absolute silence, or the whir of a film projector. Aside from being beastly torturous to the ears, the score also had the unfortunate affect of changing the way you perceived what you were seeing on the screen. Because of the dreadful hopeless sound of the "music" it influenced your perception of the film dramatically and made you see all of the hopelessness in the film's subject matter.Some of the imagery used in the film was quite beautiful, the shapes and patterns created by the decaying celluloid could have been displayed separately as works of natural art on their own.There were a few noteworthy film sequences, a boxer who appears to be fighting against a pulsing column of nothingness, patrons at an amusement park who appear to be jetting out of the wavering nothingness of a black hole in roller coaster cars, a solarized man and woman going out for a stroll. However, it was the segments themselves that brought the small bit of beauty that there was to the film, there was nothing that the director did which in any way enhanced or did justice to the visuals that he collected.All in all this film seemed to me to be a selfish piece of art wherein the artist forcefully inflicts his own interpretation of his piece onto the entire audience and doesn't leave them any freedom to make their own judgments. The music told you how you were supposed to feel about the decaying films and the disintegrating characters shown in them. "Despair in the shortness of life and in the fact that death and decay is an unavoidable inevitability! Despair at the frailty of our existence!" The director got that message across within the first twenty minutes of the film, the rest could have been edited extensively and we all would have left the theatre much happier. The phrase beating a dead horse comes to mind, after twenty minutes of disintegrating celluloid and ambient noise, 50 more minutes of the same thing isn't going to do much good.And interesting side note, after the film was finished, not a single member of the audience applauded, so I imagine that I was not the only viewer who felt unimpressed by Decasia. Unless you are a rabid historical film buff with a taste for insanity-inducing musical scores, philosophizing on the futility of life and endlessly long and repetitive imagery, skip this film.