The Garden of Fetish Review

Art is a strange subject these days. People have this idea of the art world and what it should be. However no one seems to have the same idea of what that is. The concept of art, as most people will tell you can be a very subjective thing. What is good for some people is bad art to another. Many people take that to mean that whatever you create with the intention of making art is by extension, itself art. There is a lot of validity in making such an argument. Some of the best art out there today was at one time seen to be strange and disturbing is praised in today’s art scene as classic.

But filmmaking is a different animal, art for the sake of making art, which is an idea held by many filmmakers today, is not necessarily the best approach because not everyone gets art for the sake of art. Many people are put off by it at first and that can be a troubling thing. You can’t wait for an audience to take the time to grow with you and appreciate your art over time in the way that a painting can be seen multiple times and appreciated more over time.

Film is an instant gratification medium in a lot of ways. You have to grab your audience emotionally in the first few minutes or you will lose them for the rest. In short films this is an even shorter period and on the web where most film is going you have seconds because of the volume of content that is out there. So art for the sake of art has trouble attracting an audience if not giving something for the audience to latch onto immediately. The Garden of Fetish attempts to be a commentary on this type of art.

Much like a lot of film entertainment today, it attempts to buck the trend of online film and storytelling by being art for the sake of art. There are definitely a lot of symbolic elements to the story that is attempting to be woven into the film that plays to that but I worry that this type of film does not give an audience what they are looking for emotionally to keep them entertained long term in today’s online entertainment driven culture. It’s a nice little film about the state of the art world today, but I am not entirely sure the filmmaker understands the art world today to speak about it that way.

Still, it is an interesting film and you should check it out if you have a chance. You can also check out more on Film Annex.

TiM Review

Tim Burton has a particular type of style. When he first came onto the film scene and people noticed him, it was definitely something we hadn’t really seen before. He brought us dark tales of stories we had previously thought we understood so well. Some might say it even changed the way we are making movies today. He might have even created his own film genre. Most would agree that he was a power house in the film and entertainment industry once upon a time, a title that might not really apply to him today.

The fact that he was so prolific made him saturated and sought after. As a result, people aren’t as interested in what he does anymore. But needless to say his saturation inspired a whole group of young people to go into filmmaking. His work in animation in particular managed to get people to take the art form seriously in a way that hadn’t been.

One such person appears to be the writer of TiM. A cute little film very clearly inspired by the great Tim Burton. A black and white stop motion animation piece with an obvious understanding of what made the Burbank native great. The voice over poetry being used is both smart and simple enough to get to both an adult audience and a younger or child focused audience.

The short is simple in its story about a young boy who just doesn’t fit in with other people. Any child watching this would either understand exactly what Tim is going through or learn to treat their classmates better. But they do a great job making it great for older filmmakers as well. The rhyming of the poetry as a voice over is fun and not repetitive the way some poetry can be.

Overall it is a great little film that anyone who is looking for a good animator should get involved with. I say see it.

You can also find more at Film Annex.

What's next for my blog?

So I started my blog about a year back now and I have done my best to have consistent content. Now it appears that I will be adding more content to the mix for the near future. I've been hired as an intern at Syndicado, which you can learn more about here, for my reviews and I am going to be uploading those reviews to my blog for them on a regular basis. I still plan on reviewing my own content from time to time and voicing my opinion on the film industry and other things whenever possible. The only major difference now is that I will have more content and links to where you can see it for yourself if you're interested.

My normal schedule for this has been to have content available every Wednesday, and that will remain the same for the time being, although I have been considering moving it to Friday and adding something else for Mondays recently. If there is a change, I will definitely be letting you all know. But for now, my blog will be on the same schedule with regular injections of content from Syndicado. Where things will seem to change is in the way I title my blogs. I am going to continue to title and close each review with a question for my own content, but the Syndicado reviews will be a little bit more straight forward.

I'm really looking forward to putting out this content for you guys to see and hearing your opinions.

What's next for my blog? At the moment, a lot of good things.