Cosmogony

This was pretty badass. The Man Behind The Mask took me on an awesome journey and I felt more at one with the universe.

Parts of Cosmogony were beautiful, combining tone poetry with reflections on life and humanity. I'm reminded of some of the documentaries and movies that have caused me to think of my place in the universe, and this ambitious edit is like a feature-length collage built from those pieces.

Cosmogony felt overly long in places, and large swaths of footage from The Emerald Forest carried unintentional goofiness that didn't match the tonality of the rest of the edit. The soundtrack was overlaid evenly and with skill and was appropriately ethereal or elegiac in places, though other musical selections didn't work so well and took me a bit out of the experience, particularly the overly dramatic synthesizers attached to the Apocalypto chase sequence.

The meditative and almost spiritual nature of TMBTM's effort reminds me of blueyoda's superb (fe) la vie series, in that they rely on no primary cinematic source to tell a deeply emotional story that cannot be neatly summarized. Definitely worth a watch.

Enjoyjoy: 8 pelvic aerothusts.

Having been intrigued by TMBTM's idea's for this, I went in with both eyes open. And, I can say I'm glad I did. A truly breathtaking experience, mixing stunning imagery, with a stunning soundtrack and a cohesive narrative.

Telling the story of us, where we've been, where we are and where we're going, TMBTM has taken some of the classics of our lifetime (The Mission, 2001, The Outlaw Josie Wales, etc), stripped them down to a core component and slapped them together to create a mind bending voyage of our past, present and possible future. And, it works. Although I would have said the scenes at the end would have been better at the beginning, but this was his choice to put them where he did, and it also works. The imagery at the beginning of space and various nebulae is truly stunning, and gets you in the mood for what is to come, and is also helped along by generous amount of Judas Priest and Beethoven, amongst others.

Picture-wise, it's great, with just a bit of pixellation here and there, but it doesn't stop the enjoyment. The music levels were sometimes a bit too high for my liking, but given the subject matter (and that it's Judas Priest), it can be forgiven.

This is the sort of movie that should be shown at festivals, as it's a thought provoking, moving and epic edit that shows that TMBTM has a true talent.

Kudos to you, sir.

TMBTM makes them like no one else makes them. This is an epic, mind bending, meditative, spiritual, philosophical brain bender of an edit. I loved the ambition and the scope, and was able to keep up with the intention of the chosen scenes most of the time.

Personal preference would have seen less wailing electric guitars (those sections distracted me a little) in favour of some ambient tracks from Arvo Part, or Sigur Ros, and I think the whole thing could have been a few minutes shorter, but that's not really the point here.

Well done TMBTM, another standout effort!

It's an incredibly ambitious project. I don't think my mind would have ever put half of these films together but the TMBTM has really showed us what can be done with fan edits if you are willing to be bold. Overall, I really enjoyed seeing so many of my favorite films in such a new light.