Let's face it - low-budget science fiction is usually the bottom of the barrel, where cheap effects, bad acting and dumb ideas can leave you feeling like your brain just got a toxic waste wax job. Like a lot of trash culture, however, when the right person comes along, the whole idea can be revived. The Hernandez Brothers did it for comics with "Love and Rockets." And director Alyce Wittenstein might do it for SF-on-the-cheap with "No Such Thing As Gravity."
The film is both an homage to and a satire of all those lame SF movies you grew up watching late at night when you were supposed to be in bed. While this might have been enough to be amusing, Wittenstein takes it further, taking aim at consumerism while making the tacky out-of-context-sets into something weirdly
beautiful. She also gets more out of her actors than those 50's potboilers ever did, charging her movie with a nervous energy and sexiness that would have sent Hugh Beaumont and John Agar screaming for the airlock.
Starring Nick Zedd, Holly Adams, Emmanuelle Chaulet, and Taylor Mead.
(R. Kadrey)
Links:
ACCESS:
No Such Thing As Gravity
Verge Video
141 West Broadway
New York, NY 10013
$30 postpaid
Here is the TEXT POPUP for No Such Thing As Gravity:
We'd rather die here than live on Earth
- Claire Forman (Emmanuelle Chaulet), Ambassador of Nova Terra
The most subversive film to come out this year.
- Orion Jeriko
"Underground Film Bulletin"
"No Such Thing As Gravity" continues with the quest [Wittenstein] begun with "Betaville," that of mixing science fiction with sharp political commentary...she once again addresses distressing problems with finesse, style, and a good sense of humor.
- Robert Carobene
"Cinemaphobia"
Wittenstein's "Betaville," a film noir send-up, is also available from Verge Video. Send for current price list.
