Creative Control (2015)

I feel so hip now after we saw (and liked) this sci-fi satire about a young adman testing virtual reality glasses in a near future Brooklyn. Benjamin Dickenson stars, wrote, and directs (he says he wouldn't do it all at once again) his second feature. Also starring are Nora Zehetner (she was in Brick (2005), The Brothers Bloom, the series Maron, and more) as Dickenson's girlfriend, Dan Gill (new to me, he has worked some before) as his promiscuous best friend, and Alexia Rasmussen (ditto) as Gill's girlfriend. Then there are cameos by Reggie Watts (musician on The Late Late Show with James Corden as well as many other gigs) as himself and Jake Lodwick (in real life he invented vimeo) as the guy who invents Augmenta (the VR glasses).

Its script chugs along and the sets are cool with floor to ceiling windows in the apartment, office, and hotel. Inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni and Woody Allen, it's shot in black and white (with one exception) using anamorphic lenses.

This movie won a Special Jury Award at South by Southwest for visual excellence and was nominated for the Grand Jury Award there.

The music is also cool, by Dražen Bošnjak AKA Drazen Bosnjak, but isn't available for streaming on any site that I can find. If you google his name you'll find a few other tracks. Here's the one I liked best.

I subscribe to a number of email newsletters that I occasionally read before throwing away. Thrill list recommended this movie as among the best of the year so we went last week during its one week in town. It may cause mild MPMS (motion picture motion sickness) so is going on that list, but I was okay in the back row.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are cool in its other definition, averaging only 64% to audiences' 71. Kellie, you can watch the trailer from the Rotten Tomatoes link, but I consider it to contain major spoilers. The DVD is coming out May 10 and I expect it to be streaming at that time as well. We thought it fascinating.

Milestone alert: this is movie #850 summarized in the blog! See the alphabetical list here.