Last night, I saw Jodorowsky’s Dune, a documentary about a film which was never made but has nonetheless had a remarkable impact on science fiction film since its development in the 1970s.  In all honesty, I had never heard of this ill-fated “adaptation” of Frank Herbert’s classic novel, and so it was with great pleasure that I saw the poster at my local theater and realized I’d have the chance to watch a documentary about something science fictional. Jodorowsky’s Dune (JD from now on) is an insane journey into what may have been the most experimental science fiction epic ever devised.  Alejandro Jodorowsky was a noted surrealistic filmmaker in the 60s and 70s, producing such works as El Topo and The Holy Mountain, and so anyone familiar with his work might understand just how ambitious, and, indeed, insane, Jodorowsky could be.  The documentary, however, provides enough context about Jodorowsky’s career — namely, through short excerpts from the aforementioned works — to convey the wildly imaginative vision that led to Dune.  Throughout the documentary, Jodorowsky passionately lays out the spiritual and ideological agenda that guided the film from start to finish and his view of film as a medium for producing art and capturing the human spirit.  From his perspective, Dune was always meant to be a spiritual journey created by spiritual “warriors” (his term), and so the eccentric and seemingly counter-intuitive choices made throughout the initial development has a certain kind of logic to it.  The documentary lays these elements out primarily through Jodorowsky himself, whose passion and yearning for the promise of Dune almost flows out of the screen like a river of dreams.  Insofar as a documentary can present beauty, JD does so by giving room to its primary subject. Part of the documentary’s charm, as such, rests in Jodorowsky’s character:  an enigmatic, uncompromising filmmaker who appears to honestly believe in the liberative potential in film as an art form.  It’s that uncompromising nature which might explain why Dune was never made, though JD never explicitly says as much.  Whatever one might think of his filmography, JD’s character study reveals a visionary whose passion and spirituality guide his artistic process.  This isn’t just a film about Dune; it is a film about Jodorowsky and his methods, about the processes of making art as opposed to entertainment.  From the often humorous tales about cast selections and negotiations (Salvador Dali being one of the more amusing examples) to Jodorowsky’s amusing style of telling these tales, there is much to love about the framing of JD as a kind of surrealist documentary adventure.  Jodorowsky himself acknowledges that he imagined Dune as taking the audience on an LSD trip without them ever actually taking drugs and that this process should alter their perceptions:  of film, of the human subject, of reality.  JD explores this vision with an unmeasured hand, giving Jodorowsky space to expound upon his visions, desires, and dreams rather than remaining focused on the objective truth one might receive with a history.  Unlike, for example, a Star Wars documentary (which I happen to be watching at this moment — Empire of Dreams), JD is a deeply personal exploration.  That subjective perspective gave me a deeper connection to the material, as it is only through the personal element, I would argue, that we can understand what Dune was meant to be. In that respect, the remaining elements are all funneled through Jodorowsky’s spiritual agenda, such that all of the production crew and cast choices are identified with the spiritual “warriors” about which the audience is repeatedly reminded.  H.R. Giger (Alien), Michel Seydoux (Cyrano de Bergerac), Dan O’Bannon (Alien, Total Recall, etc.), and others each have their moment in the spotlight, each reinforcing Jodorowsky’s narrative, which JD frames by beginning with Jodorowsky and ending with a brief discussion of the influence Dune has had on sf film since — the actual conclusion tells us that Seydoux and Jodorowsky have teamed up to make another film (The Dance of Reality).  I do take issue with the conclusions drawn from this influence, though, as it seems specious to assume similarities in future films are always necessarily influenced by a single predecessor.  True, Giger and O’Bannon worked together on Alien, but JD tries to support this claim by placing images side-by-side, as if suggesting that two similarly-shaped items are necessarily connected on the same line rather than, perhaps, the product of an individual’s visions (Giger’s, for example).  There are also moments where JD tries to argue that other films were influenced by Dune without having any direct connection to its creative talents — at least, no connection that is made apparent to the audience.  This seems to undercut Jodorowsky’s claim that Dune was meant to inspire, even if the final moments of the film are, indeed, rather inspiring.  Perhaps I expect such claims to be more firmly grounded in objective truth, which JD seems averse to doing precisely because of its primary subject. For me, part of what made this documentary so fascinating was the feeling that I too was being taken on a journey of sorts.  I didn’t know about Jodorowsky’s Dune, and so every stage of documentary revealed details which breathed life into a project I had no personal connection to.  By the end, I felt the same yearning for Dune that Jodorowsky relived as he explored his memories of the film that was never born.  There is something unique about this version of Dune that I now feel deserves to be on the screen, even if it will never be so.  The worst case scenario would be the release of the rare production book Jodorowsky and Seydoux used to entice the studios to fund them; this would give all of us access to a vision that has remained hidden, and it just might open new pathways to the imagination in a manner consistent with Jodorowsky’s spiritual agenda.  Whether that will ever happen is up to speculation, but it should happen.  It must happen.  I’d

I can’t remember when I saw the first footage for The Lego Movie (2014), but I do remember thinking to myself that it would be the geekiest, most reference-laden work of 2014.  Indeed, if any film tops this one in its insistence on crossing genres and referencing geek cultures from comics, films, books, and, hell, even Legos, then that would be a feat unto itself.  As it stands, The Lego Movie is sort of like that friend who beats everyone at Trivial Pursuit every single time because he spends too much time on the Internet or with his nose buried in Netflix or the library stacks (or her, for that matter).  And I mean that in a good way.  What makes this such a lovable film is the fact that it shows so much love to the communities from which it borrows, not just in terms of the Lego work, where franchised media properties are well represented, but in terms of the worlds from which those properties originate.  This is, in point of fact, a film for geeks, and it is a film I think everyone should see, if only to count off all the jokes based on DC characters or pirates or Star Wars or a number of other geeky things.  Expect a drinking game upon the DVD release. The Lego Movie follows Emmet, a regular construction worker in a regular town with a regular job and a deep desire to be like everyone else.  Indeed, in this ordinary city, everyone is like everyone else.  Everyone sings the same happy song (“Everything is Awesome“), enjoys the same television, and goes through life with the same hopes and dreams:  to be part of the team that is the city.  But when he stumbles upon a mysterious woman searching the ruins of a building, Emmet discovers the Piece of Resistance and learns that he is the Special, tasked with preventing Lord Business from freezing the entire world just as it is with the Cragle (crazy glue with some of the letters missing).  With his world thrown into chaos, Emmet must discover who he really is and how to put the world back to rights. If it’s not already clear, I loved The Lego Movie.  For the most part, there aren’t a lot of good geeky movies that reference things that I actually know, and so to sit there in the theater laughing at jokes that were funny on their own to everyone else, but also funny to me on a different level was a treat.  Much as Pixar’s films frequently engage their audiences on multiple levels (jokes for kids that work for adults and vice versa), this is a comedy film with multiple levels of engagement.  That’s not an easy thing to do, and so I have to give this film major props for keeping me, and my less-geeky friend, utterly entertained from start to finish.  The geek-minded, I’m sure, will find so much to love about this film based solely on its referential nature; indeed, this is the kind of film built just for us, and it knows it.  There’s an almost charming awareness in the film — surely translated from the geek love of the writers and cast — as if it were subconsciously crashing down the 4th wall to share with us its own in-jokes. All of this referential humor is supported by a stunning cast of voice actors (and equally stunning and hilarious characters or caricatures).  Batman (Will Arnett) is the caricature we’ve all known and loved, but with a side of emo-EDM artist and frat-douche; it’s hard not to find him hilarious, even as we recognize the qualities that make him a horrible person.  The clueless Emmet (Chris Pratt) gives solid grounding to the film, as he is the closest character to us — not a ninja fighter, not a wizard, just a guy lost in a world of craziness (maybe not as much like us after all).  Even his boneheaded ideas — the bunkbed couch — are fodder for hilarity; they also happen to be important to the plot, which gives depth to the comedic elements.  It’s too easy to make jokes for the sake of the joke, but to make that joke central to the development of the plot requires some degree of writing skill.  Additionally, Morgan Freeman’s turn as Vesuvius, a Gandalf-esque figure, adds a certain gravitas to the cast, if only because it’s Morgan Freeman playing a silly wizard with crazy light eyes, and Elizabeth Banks’ rendition of Wyldstyle, the “love interest” and biggest ass kicker of the film, adds some much needed sass to main cast (the Lego fight scenes are hilarious, by the way).  There are even brief appearances from Green Lantern (Jonah Hill), Superman (Channing Tatum — oddly enough, not dancing without a shirt on), Wonder Woman (Colbie Smulders), and more.  Throw in Liam Neeson as Bad Cop/Good Cop, a two-faced (literally) caricature of the classic cliche, and Will Farrell as Lord Business, the high-style, crazed villain, and you have an exceptional comedy cast. It’s here that I’d like to talk a little more about one character in specific.  A lot of people have talked about the treatment of Wyldstyle throughout this film.  Some have suggested that she is unfairly shafted here, that it should have been her that got to be “the Special” or perhaps that she simply fell into the trap so many female characters do:  the love interest/object.  Much of this is true, in a sense; Wyldstyle is coded as “love interest” from the second Emmet sees her — the camera shows her in slow motion, waving her Lego hair in the wind for an inordinate amount of time — but I must admit that I found this less a reflection of the film’s adherence to the tropes of Hollywood than a deliberate play on the absurdity of the trope itself.  I also always viewed her as a major supporting character, as Emmet seemed central from the start.