Architects of Control (movie review)

This comes from the equivalent of the horror shelf at the Laughing Horse co-op. Michael Tsarion does a stream of consciousness rant, eloquent yet annoyed at peoples' evident gullibility.

He pushes the conspiracy theorist envelope by bringing in a lot of interesting history and fringe characters, providing a kind of 101 introduction to Esozone type threads, ala Da Vinci Code and like that.

One gets the impression the mind controllers hold all the high cards ("resistance is futile..."), plus the production values are good, so this becomes one more mesmerizing piece of media in the hard to find category. The irony in controlling (checking the power of) other mind controllers is not lost on this audience. Spin doctors R us eh?

The scene where Clark Kent and Superman get into a knock down drag out fight in a junk yard... where was that from again? What are these movies we keep excerpting? I admit to being out of the loop on a lot of pop culture. "What's the difference between sorcery and magic?" is one of the questions, fair warning to the science-minded that we're talking to your irrational side in this film -- but about building up your rational powers as a counter, heightening your skepticism quotient. That's a positive community service in my book, so I'm hardly panning this film.

Michael reminds me of our own Alex Ansary, a kind of on-steroids version given all the help he's been getting from props and production. I recommend this film if only for the archival footage and the obscure historical allusions. This was only Program One in the series, after which I fell back into a passive state, the effect of the trigger words having worn off already.

Followup: when Maureen showed up next day, I offered to screen this to her United Methodists, maybe answer questions. But then it's not mine to show in public, could get in trouble with ASCAP or one of those. Also: the excerpts from other movies are clearly labeled i.e. I don't want to leave the misapprehension this isn't a scholarly work with the equivalent of video footnotes. Plenty of thinking went in to this rendition. I haven't seen Program Two yet (it's a four DVD set right?). Laughing Horse only has Program One.