FILMBRATS - REVIEWS

Just Kill Me

Work created between 1992 and 1999

Top Story Tonight (1999)
An extremely hypnotic piece where found footage of news anchors are distorted beyond recognition. The faces blend and melt together to create something of a kaleidoscope of colorful talking heads. The short does well to not only put you into a trance priming the audience for a good brainwashing, but also gives off a strange looming underlying Big Brother feel. If the music were different, it would make for a pretty good horror sequence.

Walk (1993)
The short not only shows a younger time, but also a younger technique. Obviously one of his first works, “Walk” plays around with every bad video effect that comes with his new package. O’Connell tries to be funny by including what I can only assume is a drug induced narration track that stuck. “I saw a skeleton couple. They waved hello.” It makes for a couple interesting clips, but mostly it’s just wackiness for wackiness’ sake.

Peep (1994)
Old found footage of strippers and dancers are the main “focus” of this video dealing with the objectification of women and the destructive nature of the male gaze. O’Connell drives the simplistic point home by superimposing a close-up of an eyeball over the girls in their gaze-worthy areas. He also includes a strange industrial music soundtrack behind the overly repeated visuals to avoid any potential for misinterpretation.

Beach (1996)
A beach never really comes into play in this increasingly random offering. The viewer is treated to a series of scatterbrained images that are essentially coming from what is either a picture frame or a television placed in the middle of our screen. The creepy, atmospheric music goes against a lot of what we are seeing, but ensures that the end result is much stranger than any dream of ours would actually be while still placing us in one.

Boy Runs to Window (1997)
The titular footage used looks like something Metallica would have used in one of their earlier videos. I don’t believe they would have repeated it nearly as many of times, and they certainly wouldn’t have incorporated Carmen Miranda and rockets, however. Good. I like it better this way. I can’t figure out the significance of the “X” patterns going across the screen. But save that little misunderstood misstep, this short and the surprise of what’s at the window each time is fun to watch.

Motion Study #1 (1999)
The title is accomplished by using classic early films where the filmmakers captured and studied motion of animals and naked women. The whole thing is put to new age, soothing music interjected with very disruptive bursts. It then regresses into porno clips that are either from that era as well or possibly just changed to look that way. O’Connell also distorts the size and shapes of their heads and other body parts, which is actually done really well. He may be making a statement here of some kind, but all of this original footage, even the porno, are legitimate studies. Either way, the video is interesting, yet the repeated shots make it overly long.

Love Street (1996)
I really don’t understand this one. I think we’re looking at a fence and maybe an elevator, possibly superimposed over each other. It’s really tough to distinguish the base images, and thus difficult to grasp much of anything else. The other assorted video clips laid over the main jumbled image don’t really help, either.

It’s a Long Ride (1993)
Something of a foray into the world of animation, “It’s a Long Ride” shows us a collection of stop motion pictures of a man “dancing.” It wouldn’t be O’Connell without video effects, and here he creates a mask for our hero and other aspects of the image are similarly affected. The short is kinda funny when the sad music plays over the slow zoom out that starts with the mask. And just when you start to wonder exactly how long of a ride it’ll be, it ends.

Phoenix Thing Or…By the Time I Get to Phoenix It’ll Be Nasty…Or…He Shall Rise Again (1994)
This dude is weird and completely random. The story involves him pulling a self-inflicted Lorena Bobbitt move, hearing voices, putting the amputated manhood into a pot so it can get the proper nourishment and thus become the largest thing in the city (bigger than skyscrapers). My psychoanalytical skills aren’t up to par, but how can there not be something deeper going on in his mind to create something like this. Whatever it may be, I think this short is probably the best result of it.

Hitchcock versus the Martian (1999)
A clip of Alfred Hitchcock and a clip from “Mars Attacks!” duke it out in a battle of wits. O’Connell puts them in screens and the two sort of…debate…if you will. It’s actually pretty funny at first. The second act is completely unnecessary and takes everything too far. It eventually turns into a total assault on your eyes and ears. What starts out as good fun becomes just visual and aural noise.

Atomic Titz (2000)
Do you like watching boobies jiggle back and forth? Of course you do. And do I have the movie for you! You don’t see the face of the girl, but you do get to see some slow motion chest shaking that’s given a video effect to make it look like it was produced in a copy machine and put to funny 80s futuristic music. It’s not all quaking breasts, however, as there is a space scene and a fifties styled montage. Maybe it would have been better if it were just the mesmerizing left to right of bouncing nipples, but even without them, you still get to see some interesting imagery.

Capitalism Sucks! (1995)
The piece makes no sense to me. He shows scenes of police whom I assume are supposedly corrupt, of fire, destruction and helicopters. To top it all off, he places some footage of cartoons and singers over a wall of fire. What any of this has to do with capitalism is beyond me. Hey, maybe that’s the point. Presuming it isn’t, however, the short then completely fails in everything its attempting to accomplish.

Love Goddess (no date given)
This guy loves old porn and classic audio clips. The short is nothing more than a collection of porn with video effects and a few real non-pornographic movie clips in there as well. I liked the effect with the painter using his brush to bring us the new image (porno), but one cool shot doesn’t make up for an otherwise boring short.

Hooray! The Economy is Booming (no date given)
One of the few politically charged pieces, “Hooray!” fails just as “Capitalism!” does. Well, not just as…. This short attempts to be deep by showing a man struggling underwater while O’Connell provides commentary in his Tim Robbins-ish voice about how the economy is supposedly great for everyone, except for the people he knows. The socio-political statement offers nothing of value, because the paper thin premise is never given a chance to break the surface.

Wire Girl (no date given)
The shortest piece O’Connell has probably ever made. Simply, it’s a repeated found footage clip of a nude woman clashing with some wire. The music is quite strange, but even stranger is why this is given its own film and not part of the mishmash of another.

Be Active – and Make the Scene (1997)
It’s a collection of TV commercials from the 1950s. They are distorted and manipulated in typical experimental editing fashion and placed to looming music. They almost make a beat of their own, but not quite. Honestly, this film just made me want to watch the commercials straight with no editing or digital effects, but that probably goes completely against everything the short stands for.

Umbrella (no date given)
As you can probably guess from the title, this hypnotic yet overly long movie involves and umbrella. We see it circling across the screen in the digital rain. The rain doesn’t get affected by the umbrella’s movements (and if you stare at it, I think you’ll find it’s one of those Magic Eye pictures!), which is somewhat disappointing. From one, we get two and so on as the numbers and patterns of the umbrellas begin to multiply into Spirographic majesty. Once again, the music here is looming. Perhaps the rain is meant to be a portent of something more sinister. However it never comes, so if you can get past the sound track, its fun to watch. It would make for a great screensaver, that’s for sure.

No Commercial Value

Work created between 1999 and 2002

Cola Nose (2000)
I have no freakin’ clue what this movie is about. The base image is of a naked woman being tortured. On top of that, we have Coke being shoved up noses and other things. Thumper gets violated. There’s really not much more to say than that. This one’s not my thing.

56 Seconds of Keplinger Drumming (2001)
The title says it all. No one can accuse this short of false advertising. O’Connell distorts and slows down grainy video footage of the drummer doing what he does. I’m glad it’s only 56 seconds, because I’m not sure if I could have taken much more of the purposelessness than that.

Drive (2000)
The movie starts off with probably the most beautiful shot in all of O’Connell’s work. However, that same type of billowing cloud shot is also relatively standard. From there, we’re treated to a series of driving shots with the lens facing the windshield. He and his camera travel to many varied locations, but there’s little of interest to be seen. The beautiful scenery is relegated to nothing, because the real sky is replaced with the close-up shots of the billowing clouds. It would be nice if it were to say something about what it is to drive or to go on a road trip, as well. Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where the concept just doesn’t translate well in execution.

A Hangover (1999)
This is a very short piece. It’s also one of his most pretentious works. I see it as a case of an artist putting every aspect of his life into his work. He has a hangover and feels he must record this event. He does so by taking a single shot of his frazzled hair and left eye as he repeats “Please just kill me now.” Just let it go.

Happy (2001)
Simply put, this is about twenty seconds of bad video showing a shot of a dog’s torso, which is looped while a continuous soundtrack of a dog barking plays. The dog doesn’t sound all that happy to me. I don’t have much to say about it other than it’s interesting for what it’s worth and I’m glad it’s not much longer.

Happy Monday! (1999)
O’Connell’s statement about the nature of work is exceedingly random and loses much of its punch early on. After references to “The Incredible Shrinking Man” and various gun references work their way in, any point trying to be made has become moot. If there is a message to be garnered from the longer piece, it’s that work is horrible. I think he also seems to be trying to say something about the nature of life in general when he interlaces cuts showing the repetitive nature of assembly line work with that of a sex act. Not even an appearance by Elvis can make it worthwhile.

Honey Pie (2000)
This is another example of a purely off-the-wall experimental movie. The images work as a kind of song. Like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” the movie adds more elements and layers as it goes on and the primary looped track plays out in bigger chunks with each go around. It would probably be a little more fun if it weren’t so creepy. I couldn’t imagine kids would be watching this to begin with, but even some phobic adults may have a little bit of a hard time with the singing skulls and clowns.

The Eviction (2002)
The centerpiece of the DVD is O’Connell’s first real attempt at a narrative story. I can see why he does experimental. Without the video effect that turns everything into a moving painting, it would simply be a bad student film with a very loose storyline. There’s no talking in this tale of a man who just wants to live his life of reading the paper and eating soup with his wife. Then a stranger comes along and makes the dying giraffe sound from “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.” Every time he hears this noise, he must go confront him in increasingly severe manners. It’s tough to tell a time frame or really what the hell is happening at all. I suppose also that the burned toast at the end is meant to be symbolic of a massive change in their lives after the resolution occurs? I think I’d much rather see three more short wacky movies than this.

Jump Out the Window (2001)
O’Connell zooms in on and rotates the video footage of a man jumping out of a window. I believe it might be stunt man shot from afar. He rolls forward as to land on his back and we never see him land or the ground he’s falling to, so you can’t be sure. The music makes the event seem like a beautiful moment in time, and I can see how it could be interpreted that way. The way it was treated, maybe he should have titled this one “Motion Study #2.”

My Summer Vacation (2002)
Every filmmaker has to have a movie about September 11, 2001, especially experimental filmmakers. O’Connell’s take on the situation is one of the best. The escapist, surreal images are used to depict the surreal event he’s trying to escape from. And even though his commentary makes for pseudo-intellectual poetry, it’s still a great companion piece to the unusual video component. I think what I liked most about this is that it doesn’t beat you over the head with anything or force you feel a particular emotional state. On the other side, if this were the first piece anyone were to see of O’Connell’s, they may mistake it as making fun of the tragedy, which certainly isn’t the case.

Scary Movie (2001)
This obviously isn’t an homage to the Wayans Brothers’ farce, “Scary Movie” is out to do the same job. O’Connell simply tries to entertain his audience with a digitally altered series of clips from various old horror movies. He provides his own narration, which starts out as a Rod Serling type and eventually morphs into a 1960s hippie voice. It’s a fun ride, but it sort of goes all over the place without any apparent rhythm or reason.

Snow Seen From Warm Window (2001)
Really grainy black and white footage (or an effect to make it look grainy) is the backdrop for what appears to be a distorted version of a winter wonderland. Snow overtakes the screen and we see people only as blurry silhouettes. The randomly assorted winter images are nice and calming, but are placed on top of a hauntingly slow rendition of “Let it Snow,” which severely effects the atmosphere and the enjoyment of the piece.

Strange Ships (2001)
Here’s another one I don’t understand. An audio clip playing the phrase “Strange ships, stranger cargo” is looped and manipulated while we watch a man walk down a corridor in a loop. As the short drags on, other layers of the same guy, coming and going are added. Each layer gets a tinted box to make sure it pops out at you. I’m not really sure what to say about it other than I didn’t get it, nor do I really care to.

On the Web

All Broke Up (2004)
O’Connell takes out the tiny spaces in between spoken words to create a slightly quickened, nearly robotic, yet completely comprehensible audio track. Doris Day appears to sing “One of Those Things” and a couple other movies sneak their way in as well, but it’s mostly news stuff. I don’t understand the need for putting boxes around the eyes and the mouth, and I really don’t get the overall purpose, but it’s still an entertaining little picture.

Arrogance (no date given)
Random clips of news are taken and placed inside a television screen shaped border. It is here we listen to President Bush and VP Cheney make a couple brief comments relating to the war in Iraq. I can tell it’s supposed to be a political statement movie, but it really makes no argument for or against the war. I can only assume the movie is meant to be against it, because not only do we have the title, but the music certainly isn’t happy, and we see a lot of images of planes and these cartoon explosion graphics he adds to an Iraq weather forecast. But while he uses clips of our country’s leaders, he fails to use their words against them or to make them look foolish or to do anything that might indicate a serious dissenting viewpoint. I like my arguments intelligent, and this one doesn’t even constitute an argument.

Clouds (2005)
There are some great visuals in this short consisting mostly of collages of frames with clouds inside. The viewer floats through them in various ways, but it’s most interesting and dynamic when the clouds come straight at you. The rapid motion aspect also increases the enjoyment. The only real downside to this particular movie is that he places long gaps of black in between the different sections. They’re long enough to make you think it should be over. If those were tightened up or if sound was included in some fashion, it wouldn’t be so bad.

General Comments
Most people shy away from experimental films, and as a general rule, I would actually condone that. However, I would certainly suggest at least looking at some of Mark O’Connell’s work before writing him off completely. What sets him apart from, oh I don’t know; let’s say…Leighton Pierce is that while they both make effects ridden, looping films concerning completely random subject matter, O’Connell does so without the pretentious attitude. This guy isn’t afraid to be quirky. He also isn’t afraid to vary the style and look of his work. It’s like stepping into a crazy dream that takes you all over the map. I wish the music were as varied. I couldn’t recommend this to anyone looking for deep insight or cryptic metaphors. But putting on most of these shorts would be a good way to soothe you. His penchant for nature sounds and the acid trip visuals combine to create often hypnotic and potentially meditative pieces (even in the ones that are somewhat disturbing). These may not be the best experimental films for newcomers, either, because they are so random and widespread. However, I couldn’t suggest a better name for sheer entertainment in the experimental field.

Just Kill Me -- ***
No Commercial Value -- **1/2

For more Information on Mark O’Connell and his work, to purchase DVDs and to watch some of his films, please visit http://www.markoconnell.org

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