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After Last Season

Wow, that may be the most incompetent trailer ever made. And what the hell is with that terrible animation?

You really must visit the web site, too. If this is part of some viral marketing campaign for something else, they've done an excellent job keeping it under wraps. And if it's earnest...wow.

Director Mark Region claims that the budget was $5 million.
That's more than Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy and Boogie Town put together.

That pretty much confirms this as viral marketing or a pre-April Fools Day joke.

I'm HUGELY suspicious of that thing... I mean there's absolutely nothing coherent that's communicated via eiter the trailer or any of the clips on the site (which also contains no descriptive material identifiying the thing). The unmixed sound in a thin-walled room, the disjointed dialog with no common denominator, and all the other obvious Nothingness... keriminny. Indiewire has been WTF'ing over it too, as have-- apparently-- everybody else who seems to come across the trailer.

If it's real, this brings to light something that rarely ever gets mentioned by the industry about itself, and this pretty much applies to every arts industry regardless whether it is film, music, books, fine arts etc. The person who really brought it home to me was the great Christopher Lee, who-- via his Time In, his legend, and his little time left-- felt free to talk openly about it, on his interview on VCI's wonderful City of the Dead disc (probably the best single entry for a title in their collection, transferwise/extaswise/price-value-wise):

Good artists make good art. Bad artist make bad art. The latter can't be faulted for their lack of talent, nor for their desire to persevere in their attempts to become something in the art form they love and adore; they certainly have enough examples all about them of bad artists succeeding despite their lack of ability.

Usually when a bad film chokes, it's the filmmakers & cast members who are publicly humiliated for bringing such a gross lump of chuck to the block. They're laughed at, becomes the butt of jokes, late-night fodder, etc. Yet the executives who brought this klunk into the spotlight-- poured millions into getting it created and millions into putting it before the public after seeing its final form-- remain unscathed. Yet the reason that the public paid good money to see such hock is not because the director made the film, it's because the company backed it, picked it up, invested in it, and released it. Lee pointed out executives who pick and invest in flop after flop after flop after flop, and remain safely entrenched in their jobs, and never have to bat a lash for having sunk hundreds of millions of dollars on utter garbage... and they go on doing so. And when a movie turns out to be crap, it's primarily the artist who pays the public price and earns the ire of those within the corporate structure, is the one whose job is first and foremost hurt. And those most responsible for the financial catastrophe, for bringing this material in out of the endless available choices continue living as multimillionaires amid the shambles of a culture they've helped create.

It's the job of the bad artist to create bad art product. It's the job of the studio exec to know good art product from bad.. and when bazillions of dollars are at stake, those who show a bad eye should be quickly zapped off the map, not After Last Season but immediately, and far quicker than a bad director. Unfortunately this rarely happens.

Cde. wrote:Director Mark Region claims that the budget was $5 million.
That's more than Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy and Boogie Town put together.

You can throw Brick in there, too, which apparently only cost five-hundred grand but sure doesn't look like it. After Last Season looks like it was made by a machine.

We're getting closer to Ass, aren't we?

Finally, a true contemporary for Tommy Wiseau

domino harvey wrote:Finally, a true contemporary for Tommy Wiseau

Hopefully without the underlying misogyny. If this does turn out to be a hoax I will be sorely disappointed.

I can't tell what the deal is with this thing on youtube, where some guy does some DMT-related v/o over the trailer... but in the vid's description (the thing was put up today along with the straight trailer here) describes the plot in a bit of depth:

Trailer for the film "After Last Season" In theaters June 5th, 2009.

The temperature changes for the residents of a city with the end of the season. In locations close to the suburbs, some residents adjust themselves to the weather. Medical school students and one troubled hip-hop artist move their belongings to a dormitory. As they go through tragic events, those residents must reevaluate their lives, careers and face new questions.

Uh, sure. EE-ya!

After seeing that trailer, which looks like it was shot on video, and that site this has to be a joke. Due to the train wreck nature of it all, if this turns out to be true I'll watch it. Love me some Ed Wood styled drama.

Dylan wrote:

Cde. wrote:Director Mark Region claims that the budget was $5 million.
That's more than Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy and Boogie Town put together.

You can throw Brick in there, too, which apparently only cost five-hundred grand but sure doesn't look like it. After Last Season looks like it was made by a machine.

Revised version:
According to director Mark Region, After Last Season cost more than Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, Brick, Frozen River and Boogie Town put together.

Trailer looks like film, actually. There's some shallow depth of field showing in some of the shots plus some intermittent dirt. The highlights don't look like harsh digital video either (which leads me to believe it's not just a 35mm adapter on a digital camera). I would guess 16mm, which is incredible considering the investment needed relative to the total incompetence of everything about this film.

If the Room can cost six million dollars, this can cost five. But I think it's too bad (the ceiling fan in the "hospital" tipped the hand) to be genuine-- even Wiseau had sets

..and check the white construction paper peeling off of the cardboard "MRI scanner" in the beginning.

I just noticed that at the end of this trailer they have all the major credits listed, except the writing credit.

IMDB credits Mark Region as the writer.

My point was that by not including the writer during the lengthy glimpse of the major credits at the end of the trailer, it goes to show you where the emphasis on this project definitely wasn't. But anything's possible, of course.

My apologies --- I thought you were saying the lack of credit may have hinted at a Hollywood project in viral disguise (which it still may be).

Antoine Doinel wrote:I thought you were saying the lack of credit may have hinted at a Hollywood project in viral disguise (which it still may be).

Cloverfield redux (or thereabouts)?

This has now been classified by the MPAA. Based on their total lack of irony or humour I have difficulty believing they'd play along with a hoax. It's also starting to turn up in cinema listings.

It seems impossible, but it looks like it's an actually-really-real movie.

PG-13 for 'Brief Strong Language' by the way.

This may be a real movie in that it exists, but I stand by the footage in the trailer being too awful to not be intentional-- a five million dollar movie doesn't have wallpaper taped to half a wall with masking tape unless it's on purpose. At least Tommy Wiseau's work is awful in an organic, genuine way. I can think of few things worse than a bunch of hipsters deciding to make a fully-budgeted film worse than the Room for "fun."

...and getting it into theatres.

It's amusing to ponder the possibility that this as an earnest effort and Mark Region somehow convinced a bunch of independent investors that they could produce a remarkable indie hit. Some months and five million dollars later, imagine the cold sweat-breakouts and sinking feeling in their stomachs when their world exclusive first look at the film shows where their money has gone.

If this is a genuine, non-ironic production (which I find nearly impossible to accept), then it's possible that the 'local-investors' he says funded the film expected him to put nearly all of the $5 million into producing a very high quality work that could be sold to a distributor for a nice limited release, but instead he used as little as possible and spent the rest on securing 'medium wide' distribution...which is so misguided and narcissistic it's mind boggling.

Whatever the case, it's fairly hysterical that this will be playing in multiplexes.

So this can now definitely be said to be a 'real' film (though not necessarily a sincere effort). It opens today in 4 cinemas.

I await reports with bated breath.

First review I've seen. Sounds absolutely fascinating.

I'm still wondering whether this is simply some knock off of The Room. Has Tommy Wiseau started a whole new style of filmmmaking? It seems the anti-Ed Wood: too lazy and indifferent to even get basic things right. But there, of course, lies its fascination.