Homo Sapiens (2016) – It sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it does. This documentary is entirely composed of long (20-30 seconds) static shots of abandoned human structures — theaters, hotels, railway lines, apartment buildings, schools — accompanied by nothing but ambient sound. There’s occasionally some movement from wind-blown papers, falling leaves, birds, dripping water, etc., but it’s as close to motionless silence as most of us come on a daily basis. One thing not ever seen is the title species; this is a film showing what’s left when humans move on. It’s Homo Sapiens without homo sapiens. It’s hypnotic and entrancing, although you’ll probably need to be doing something with your hands to stay awake.
T.N.T. (1997) – Olivier Gruner (he to whom I recently referred as “the poor man’s Jean-Claude Van Damme”) plays a Alex, Gulf War veteran who moved on to become the employee of the “Tactical Neutralization Team” (the “T.N.T.” of the title), a private special ops contractor company. After a few too many shady missions, he realizes that his employer (Eric Roberts) isn’t wholly legitimate, hiring our the team’s services for assignments like knocking off a druglord’s competition, etc. Alex quits, which of course you’re not supposed to do, and disappears off the grid… ending up in a small Western town where he runs a gym and teaches an aerobics class and he’s buddy-buddy with the sheriff (Randy Travis) and has a girlfriend and everyone knows him. This is totally NOT how you’re supposed to maintain a low profile while in hiding; what are the odds that his past employers are going to hunt him down in his idyllic new life?
Actually, so much of the movie is setup that it’s literally twenty minutes before the closing credits that Alex realizes his old teammates have tracked him down. That’s NOT really a good proportion of cause-to-effect in a movie like this. Alas.
Believers (2007) – Taking its cues from the real-life stories of Heaven’s Gate-style pseudo-scientific cults, this disturbed little thriller from director Daniel Myrick (co-director of The Blair Witch Project) follows two paramedics as they respond to a call about a collapsed woman at a semi-rural telephone booth, and then get abducted by identically dressed cultists who can’t afford the “quantum anchoring” of anyone having seen them right before their “ascension.” Trapped in their dingy compound, placed under duress to fast-track convert them, the two paramedics — one with a wife newly pregnant with their first child, the other with an ambivalent relationship to God and his childhood religion — react very differently to the mysterious psychological pressure applied by “the Teacher” (Daniel Benzali) and his mysterious pseudo-mathematical “formula.” Recommended.
Abandoned movies: Humongous, Assassinaut, Starship Rising, Beyond Sherwood Forest, Alone We Fight, Helix, Bloodsport 4, More Dead Than Alive, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
“This is totally NOT how you’re supposed to maintain a low profile while in hiding…”
I read a book by a crooked cop who went on the lam and used all the skills he learned from criminals who had successfully evaded capture: hide in larger city, anonymous job w/o BG check by employer or bank, avoid LE contact, no relationships, live private. You are right. Gruner’s character does everything wrong: small town, public business, friends with LE, girlfriend, Mr Popularity.
It is one thing when a movie is so real, you have to remind yourself “It’s only a movie.”
It is another thing when a movie is so unreal, you have to remind yourself “It’s only a movie.”
Homo Sapiens
Let’s see.
I remember as a teen exploring a long abandoned house in the country and wondering about the lives lived there.
While she was still mobile, Mom, my sister and her gf, and I hiked out to the long abandoned Abrams Falls tourist attraction.
For decades I went to the abandoned Five Caves rock quarry to target practice and explore the maze of tunnels.
I think I am part of the audience this movie was made for.
Thanks for the tip.
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Homo sapiens sound like an entire move of some of the most powerful moments of Amour, and for similar reasons. That move takes place in a house where the old couple is slowly dying. So the long shots of their empty house is moving in its absences. Great movie, but hard to imagine watching again.
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No idea why “movie” came out twice as “move.” I apologize for the inconvenience.