1 - The Filmmaker Neil Breen, The Light of This World
I wrote more on the Run the Director thread, and I also watched Breen's 5th film which has too high a rating
for this challenge.
1.
Double Down (2005)
4.5
Where Are You? Where Am I? You're Me.
In which Neil Breen somehow fights off the devastating depression caused by witnessing the fiancee he had proposed to literally seconds before, which they were naked together in a poll, being gunned down from afar, fights off this mortal blow in order to become the world's greatest computer hacker/assassin/anything else needed at the moment, and to save his beloved Las Vegas, or perhaps destroy it. Neil Breen can disguise himself, keep safe from electronic surveillance and prying eyes with force fields that kill - with innumerable laptops and cell phones - with many fake license plates - and with his incredible ability to look like a completely different human simply by exchanging blue jeans and a black tank top for black jeans and a blue shirt. Shot on film and with very few special effects, because even Neil Breen had to work his way up. A gold nugget talisman is his power. Or IS IT?
2.
I Am Here....Now (2009)
4.9
In which Neil Breen first plays a character analogous to - and perhaps almost as mighty and lordly as Himself, a being who comes down to earth to lay waste to it's evil denizens...or save them. A being covered with computer hardware and needing to strip the clothes from a couple of strangers he meets, despite the fact that he can stop time and heal all wounds. Clearly those who understand Breenicism better than I will have answers to this and many other mysteries herein. Man - God - and Mummy Man coexist; the Healing of the Cripple (and de-aging to boot), who wanted only to see this, the Eiffel Tower or Taj Mahal of our time
before he died. The theme of the Double. Drugs. Preparation for later greatness, and a God both Merciful, Loving and Vengeful to come (see #4).
3.
Fateful Findings (2013)
4.7
In which Neil Breen loves and loses his life's partner at nine. A token - a black piece of plastic - keeps her alive for all these years; it is His genius that when he meets her again, she is still young and beautiful, much younger than he apparently, though of course if we have eyes to see we will notice much more below the surface of this middle-aged imperfect flesh. Felled by a Rolls Royce - the care, the blackness of death - Neil Breen, the writer, comes back to life, to search for Leah, the One. Many laptops, many cell phones. A party of five and then seven, full of distant voices which clearly do not belong; again, those with less advanced eyes for the viewing of Film and ears for the hearing of Words may see this (and every other moment of these 7 1/2 hours) as a "fault", but they have not seen the light. In the end, in this most romantic and nostalgic of Breen's work, he does - and perhaps they will. Closer to the old, dead, dry "narrative art" of cinema than any of his other work, and thus perhaps of less interest - only in comparison to these other landmarks of art, of course.
4.
Pass Thru (2016)
5.4
In which Neil Breen revisits the landscapes, the dryness, the desert of
Double Down... the Being at the center of
I Am Here....Now. Many beginnings and endings, endings for 300 million of the Worst. Television, the idiot box. The bad people go away - Neil makes them go away - isn't this what we are looking for? Was Neil anticipating our current problem? It'll all just go away in the warmer weather. Neil knew even before The Donald (whose name graces one of the beautiful buildings of great Las Vegas as seen in
Double Down). A jacket. The jacket earlier Neil Breen worse, a medal-covered jacket. Every medal. From the first film to this one, on the person of Someone Else. Who is he? Why? Refugees, drug mules, from the border. A tiger. A rare moment of Acting that is not of the Breen-world: Chaize Macklin (I think - Breen credits are sometimes as challenging as His work preceding them) as Kim, someone who might appear Elsewhere in Cinema - not of the Breen universe, not of his advanced purpose. Watch her to see a human of our world in Breen-world; it may be enlightening to you. A tiger, a tiger burning bright with the qualities of 1991 digital technology; part of being the Being (or "A.I.") is knowing when to call on the past, and Breen does so time and again, particularly in this film and the next. There is a reason, a profound reason, for the use of 30-year old technology here. It Is.
Avg 4.875
Very cool film made on a shoestring budget with only 3 cast members.
but of course I can't recommend them for this challenge anymore. But I'll give this a try anyway -
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