Reviews

One of the coolest things for any silent film buff is to discover a film that they hadn't heard of or known too much about. That's the case with Fritz Lang's restored "Woman in the Moon", in the 2004 KINO DVD release, in which the print quality is excellent and a new piano/synthesizer score has been added. As has been cited by many others here, the pacing of much of the picture is slow and the acting is occasionally melodramatic, but as was occurring with most movies in the latter days of the silents, the acting techniques were moving form the broad stage performances of early film to more controlled and realistic portrayals and most of the actors were of the latter group. In addition to the surprisingly realistic portrayal of many aspects of what would become space flight, it is interesting that the space (science fiction) aspect is not the focus of the movie. The movie deals primarily with six characters and the tensions caused by greed, love, scientific curiosity and boyish hero worship. The fact that they are making a trip to the moon to verify a theory that gold might be mined there is just the vehicle of the story. And the story itself is pretty decent, especially if you have the patience to let the movie tell it. And even though I am a fairly jaded film buff, I found myself genuinely startled and surprised at least twice by plot turns.

I love it when that happens.

Be patient. Its 169 minutes, but I think it is worth it.

With the ever-growing availability of good digital cameras, high quality, affordable computer graphics systems, digital editing tools and audio sampling and mixing software, we are seeing the growing maturity of micro-movie-making and the increasing sophistication of the fan-film genre. The vast, vast majority of these films are still junk, but there are a few that point to the potential of the genre and micro-movie-making: "Reign of the Fallen" is one of them.

The producer and director of this hour long movie opted to focus on character and a simpler story based in the Lucas universe, rather than spaceships, droids, stormtroopers and other merchandise wannabes. You still get to see a few light-saber battles and glimpses of spaceships, but, for the most part, the film deals with the simple story of two "brothers", an early conflict between the Sith and the Jedi and the maturing of one particular Jedi.

I will comment that the pacing could be improved and the script could be cleaned up to clarify motives and strengthen relationships, but the director has chosen to take some time with each actor and each scene, rather than jump-cutting his way to an action scene and I think it works well. One has to be impressed at the restraint shown by the director in the confrontation between Oram Bren (Kevin Walsh) and the invaders. It is powerful in its understatement and in what it chooses not to show. The producers wisely chose to keep the main cast small and were thus able to get very good performers for the four main roles. Kevin Walsh as the aging Jedi Master has a perfect calm, strong presence and Jason Updike is excellent in his role as Eriq, the other Jedi student. The weakest of the four main actors, the director cast himself as the young Jedi, Jaren. Though his performance is okay, I wish the director had cast someone else in this pivotal role, because he could likely have brought out as good a performance in the character as he was able to pull out of the other three main actors in their roles.

The producers did an excellent job of assembling music that was appropriate for the film and especially in the use of a particular music cue at the climax of the film in a confrontation that is really pretty good.

Its a fan film. Its small. It takes itself a bit seriously. Its made on a negligible budget with unpaid actors and techs, but if you are patient and aren't expecting a wild shoot-em-up space opera, I think you might enjoy this.

Come on! It can't possibly be worse then "Attack of the Clones" can it?!?!

Comedies, even spoofs, are more difficult to make than most people realize. and when it comes to spoofing an old film style, most professional directors fail. Mel Brooks succeeded with "Young Frankenstein" but failed with "High Anxiety" and "Silent Movie". Others have failed spoofing the old 40's serials, the only exception being a movie that is not truly a spoof of the serials, but yet is funny and exciting: "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

"Monarch of the Moon" is another attempt to spoof the Flash Gordon, Batman and Zorro type serials from days gone by. Its obvious that these people love the genre and had a lot of fun making this, but, for the most part,it doesn't work. The main deficits in the film are slow pacing and a mix of acting styles and skills. Some of the actors are playing their roles fairly straight (Yellow Jacket, the Bear Scout kid and Dragonfly for example), while others are spoofing stereo-types (his drunken sidekick) while yet some others are playing it for silly slapstick (the secretary). Individually, many of these work, but together in a film, they clash against each other. Additionally, the script can't decide how far to go in the spoof and sometimes steps too close to absurdity and is occasionally derisive of the genre. There are a couple of funny lines and a few good performances, but for a seemingly long, slow-paced film . . .its not enough.

One does have to compliment all involved for their effort and for the detail they gave to the project. Good costuming, good CG, good makeup and good sets. The music score is okay as written, but is apparently performed on less-than-great synthesizers and so has a cold, distant, unexciting feel.

Worth seeing for those of us who are budding, low budget filmmakers, but I'm not 100% sure that it was worth the 20 bucks for the DVD.

Yes, its just a trailer. Yes, its just a fan film. Yes, its done by unknowns and non-actors . . . but wow! This director "gets it". He understands all the DC superhero relationships and he knows how to put together a thrilling trailer! You have to watch this over and over to see all that is going on and if you aren't familiar with that DC universe, you might still miss a thing or two. You also have to watch this trailer over and over to see how the director has assembled his cuts, shots, dialog and music cues to tell an exciting story that builds to a thrilling climax. And he does it all in five minutes! If you are a budding filmmaker or a director wannabe, study this little film to see how to really thrill and excite an audience.

Additionally, I would strongly encourage you to download and view Fiorella's "Grayson, Behind the Scenes" video. The director details how he made the film. It is a fascinating "making of" clip.

I really hope the director is shopping a story treatment around Hollywood to get this thing made!

Since I don't believe it is possible or fair to consider this film without at least an introduction to the Fan Film Universe, I decided to visit the many Fan Films sites and view as many of the hundreds of fan films as was bearable. In the surprisingly large catalog of this genre, Star Wars Revelations is among the best. One has to cite what most others already have: good costumes, good CG, good sets, a decent core plot idea (unless you are a canonical Star Wars fan) and a very good score by Chris Bouchard. Bouchard uses a few of the standard Star Wars pieces as jumping off points to some fine musical work of his own that nicely weaves known themes throughout in addition to adding excellent new character leitmotifs. One of the things overlooked in some of the other comments is that the director did quite a decent job staging shots, especially in staging the crowd scenes, which is unusual in the Fan Film World, though the fight scenes near the end are weak and the pacing was slow. I do have to agree that the acting is the weak point, but I think one has to be at least a bit forgiving of that, due to this being a production done gratis by a group of Star Wars fans, likely acting in front of a green screen for the first time in their lives. Take a look at Gwyneth Paltrow attempting to act in front of an effects screen in "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" to see how difficult or impossible that can be, even for seasoned performers. Far from being a good movie, one should still consider this a good fan film and applaud all involved for their effort. I would also encourage people to view some of the other fan films out there. As has been noted already, there are some very good ones available (look for "Grayson" as one example).