list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Half-Life on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Half_Life/359915/default.aspx Title: Half-Life
Year: 2008
Director: Jennifer Phang
Plot: As time starts spinning faster and a series of natural disasters send the world plunging into chaos, the disillusioned, self-absorbed suburbanites nestled comfortably in the hills of Northern California find their lives unraveling at an alarming rate. Global cataclysms are on the rise, and the air quality around the world is at an all-time low, and as the pressure begins to build up in the mind of suburban single mother Saura Wu, a sinister charmer appears and disrupts her efforts to rebuild her family. Meanwhile, across town, a troubled girl named Pam seeks comfort in the arms of affable young hipster Scott. But while Scott is more than willing to be a good friend to Pam, he's just now coming to terms with his identity as a gay man - a reality his fundamentalist parents refuse to accept. Now, as a series of disastrous supernormal continue to unfold, Saura's son Timothy realizes that he has been gifted with paranormal powers, which he quickly learns how to develop and hone. By drawing on his unique powers, Timothy is somehow able to alter everyone's reality - but what good can this do in a world overcome by misery and catastrophe? First time feature filmmaker Jennifer Phang crafts an apocalyptic fable that takes a philosophical look at the end of the world, and shows how sometimes hope can still manage to cut through fatalism with extraordinary results. . ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 18
Number of Lists: 3
Number of blog posts: 2
Number of discussion threads: 2
SpoutRating: 3
]]>Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:12:39 GMTHalf-Life2008Jennifer PhangAs time starts spinning faster and a series of natural disasters send the world plunging into chaos, the disillusioned, self-absorbed suburbanites nestled comfortably in the hills of Northern California find their lives unraveling at an alarming rate. Global cataclysms are on the rise, and the air quality around the world is at an all-time low, and as the pressure begins to build up in the mind of suburban single mother Saura Wu, a sinister charmer appears and disrupts her efforts to rebuild her family. Meanwhile, across town, a troubled girl named Pam seeks comfort in the arms of affable young hipster Scott. But while Scott is more than willing to be a good friend to Pam, he's just now coming to terms with his identity as a gay man - a reality his fundamentalist parents refuse to accept. Now, as a series of disastrous supernormal continue to unfold, Saura's son Timothy realizes that he has been gifted with paranormal powers, which he quickly learns how to develop and hone. By drawing on his unique powers, Timothy is somehow able to alter everyone's reality - but what good can this do in a world overcome by misery and catastrophe? First time feature filmmaker Jennifer Phang crafts an apocalyptic fable that takes a philosophical look at the end of the world, and shows how sometimes hope can still manage to cut through fatalism with extraordinary results. . ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide18Tag Target (>10)3223http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/s359915.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Half_Life/359915/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/groups/Film_Fridays/Re_Water_Front_2008/127/30471/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: magrebi
Post To: Film Fridays
Post Date: 6/4/2008 10:12:39 AM
Body: [quote user="lopezdash"] [quote user="csprague"] Hey, We're going to Water Front! Woot! [/quote] And I know you're excited to learn that the Michigan Film Advisory Council will be meeting at the Festival! A fun time will be held by all as the council members discuss the success of the film and production incentive initiative. Apparently ABC is considering filming a 22-episode television series in good ol' Michigan. But, anyways, I think Half-Life looks like it would be an interesting film to talk about. [/quote] I have to cast my vote for Goliath, I don't know if we will be there when it shows. But let me say (no hard feelings Xavier)-- anything BUT half-life.
]]>Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:12:39 GMTmagrebiFilm Fridays6/4/2008 10:12:39 AM[quote user="lopezdash"] [quote user="csprague"] Hey, We're going to Water Front! Woot! [/quote] And I know you're excited to learn that the Michigan Film Advisory Council will be meeting at the Festival! A fun time will be held by all as the council members discuss the success of the film and production incentive initiative. Apparently ABC is considering filming a 22-episode television series in good ol' Michigan. But, anyways, I think Half-Life looks like it would be an interesting film to talk about. [/quote] I have to cast my vote for Goliath, I don't know if we will be there when it shows. But let me say (no hard feelings Xavier)-- anything BUT half-life. http://www.spout.com/groups/Film_Fridays/Re_Water_Front_2008/127/30346/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: lopezdash
Post To: Film Fridays
Post Date: 6/2/2008 4:51:37 PM
Body: [quote user="csprague"] Hey, We're going to Water Front! Woot! [/quote] And I know you're excited to learn that the Michigan Film Advisory Council will be meeting at the Festival! A fun time will be held by all as the council members discuss the success of the film and production incentive initiative. Apparently ABC is considering filming a 22-episode television series in good ol' Michigan. But, anyways, I think Half-Life looks like it would be an interesting film to talk about.
]]>Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:51:37 GMTlopezdashFilm Fridays6/2/2008 4:51:37 PM[quote user="csprague"] Hey, We're going to Water Front! Woot! [/quote] And I know you're excited to learn that the Michigan Film Advisory Council will be meeting at the Festival! A fun time will be held by all as the council members discuss the success of the film and production incentive initiative. Apparently ABC is considering filming a 22-episode television series in good ol' Michigan. But, anyways, I think Half-Life looks like it would be an interesting film to talk about. http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/3/16/26278.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 3/16/2008 6:01:14 PM
Body: Jennifer Phang’s Half-Life is a story about the decay of family, religion, and the environment in northern California in the not-so-distant future. Basically, it gives you a lot to chew on. There’s even a little metaphysics thrown in for us overly brainy types. For more, listen to the interview or check out David Lowery’s review. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:01:14 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com3/16/2008 6:01:14 PM Jennifer Phang’s Half-Life is a story about the decay of family, religion, and the environment in northern California in the not-so-distant future. Basically, it gives you a lot to chew on. There’s even a little metaphysics thrown in for us overly brainy types. For more, listen to the interview or check out David Lowery’s review. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/3/14/26226.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 3/14/2008 5:00:54 PM
Body: As the first decade of this new millennium ticks towards its conclusion, we find ourselves in the general temporal vicinity of what recent generations have perceived as ‘the future,’ and there’s nary a flying car or replicant in sight. Resultingly, most recent science fiction films - from the relatively successful (A Scanner Darkly) to the utterly ridiculous (Southland Tales) to the annoyingly didactic (Sundance hit Sleep Dealer) - have recast the near future in more immediate and recognizable terms, predicting the throughlines of current socio-economic and political trends to imagine what might be just around the corner. Director Jennifer Phang takes the same approach in Half-Life, but to a more unique end. Her film takes place sometime within the next ten years, after global warming has flooded the world’s coastal regions and parched the land left above sea level. Social disorder is rampant: there are riots in the streets and whispers of endtimes. And amidst all this is the Wu family, dealing with the suburban woes of a million cinematic families before them. Phang’s science-fiction conceit doesn’t affect the core of her story; indeed, it could be removed entirely without affecting the plot. But what it does do is reflect the plot, giving the characters’ emotional turmoil a greater context to ebb and flow within. This family is a microcosm of the world they live in; but because it’s their story, the circumstances around them become epic extrapolations of their most intimate moments. The first of those moments occurs on the ground, to which nineteen year-old Pam Wu (Sanoe Lake) has just plummeted in a moment of desperation. She wakes up, bloodied and bruised, and sees her little brother Timothy looking at her, down there amidst the Northern California fauna. She smiles reassuringly; that moment is gone, and she brushes herself off and resumes her role as surrogate mother to her younger sibling. Their actual mother, Saura (Julia Nickson-Soul) is in the midst of a mid-life crisis, and is looking for the fastest possible solution to all the things that are wrong in her life. The answer she’s come up with is a young white jock of a boyfriend named Wendell, who moves into the Wu’s home and innocuously lets Pam know that he wouldn’t mind extending his affections to her as well. Pam’s soulmate, though, is Scott, the gay adopted son of an Evangelical pastor. They meet frequently on the grassy knolls high above the city, talking shop about sex and love and all the nasty details of both. Pam pines for him. He pretends not to notice. The other central character in this drama is the Wu patriarch, who is defined entirely by his absence from his family’s lives. He was a pilot, whose departure some years prior coincided with the rise of the oceans and the increase in solar flares, occurrences which allow the characters to ignore or make excuses for the sad state of their lives. Likewise, they separates Phang’s film from similar tales of middle-class unhappiness, of absentee dads and clinically depressed children. Indeed, a simple synopsis of Half-Life fails to encapsulate the scope that the film traverses: it jumps from epic to intimate, from the end of the world (conveyed via newscasts and subtle special effects) to the private thoughts and daydreams of its characters, which take place in an animated world of disintegrating airplanes and beached leviathans. These formal shifts are drastic, but they’re bound by a unifying tone that weaves these melodramatic threads and surreal flights of fancy into an elegiac tapestry of unrest. The film’s slow boil eventually come to a head; everything hits the fan, and those threads spire together and begin to fray as one. Secrets are revealed, accusations are made, true love is requited and the sun burns brighter than ever. There’s an achingly beautiful moment where Pam and Scott lay in each other’s arms and wait for the world to end. “Now,” Pam says, “or now.” Snapping her fingers as the seconds pass by and the world moves on anyway. It’s the sort of scene that is so perfectly irresolute that no actual ending can top it, and indeed, the actual denouement is where the Phang’s ambition finally falters. She attempts to justify the conceit of her film with an awkward step into magical, almost messianic realism. Whether or not anything that happens at the end of the film really happens. Such tropes always work on a superficial level, which is why filmmakers so often use them to wrap up unwieldy narratives; but what happens here is both too subtle to qualify as deux ex machina and too bombastic to work within the literal world the film has established. Considering how much of that world gives way to dreamscapes and reverie, that the ending doesn’t work is actually a tribute to the difficult tonal balancing act Phang has pulled off in the rest of the film. What the ending does succeed in, though, is offering a different perspective on the standard apocalyptic tones of recent sci-fi, which generally imply that the world is on a fast track to man-made annihilation. Consider the title, which is taken from the scientific term for “the time required for one unstable element to decay and transform into another,” and put it in the context of the film, and we’re left with a vision of the future that has a bit more faith in humanity. Half-Life sees past dissolution, past the end of the world, all the way to something else. What that something is is anyone’s guess; the point is that there’s something there at all. SXSW news, reviews, interviews and discussions Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 14 Mar 2008 21:00:54 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com3/14/2008 5:00:54 PMAs the first decade of this new millennium ticks towards its conclusion, we find ourselves in the general temporal vicinity of what recent generations have perceived as ‘the future,’ and there’s nary a flying car or replicant in sight. Resultingly, most recent science fiction films - from the relatively successful (A Scanner Darkly) to the utterly ridiculous (Southland Tales) to the annoyingly didactic (Sundance hit Sleep Dealer) - have recast the near future in more immediate and recognizable terms, predicting the throughlines of current socio-economic and political trends to imagine what might be just around the corner. Director Jennifer Phang takes the same approach in Half-Life, but to a more unique end. Her film takes place sometime within the next ten years, after global warming has flooded the world’s coastal regions and parched the land left above sea level. Social disorder is rampant: there are riots in the streets and whispers of endtimes. And amidst all this is the Wu family, dealing with the suburban woes of a million cinematic families before them. Phang’s science-fiction conceit doesn’t affect the core of her story; indeed, it could be removed entirely without affecting the plot. But what it does do is reflect the plot, giving the characters’ emotional turmoil a greater context to ebb and flow within. This family is a microcosm of the world they live in; but because it’s their story, the circumstances around them become epic extrapolations of their most intimate moments. The first of those moments occurs on the ground, to which nineteen year-old Pam Wu (Sanoe Lake) has just plummeted in a moment of desperation. She wakes up, bloodied and bruised, and sees her little brother Timothy looking at her, down there amidst the Northern California fauna. She smiles reassuringly; that moment is gone, and she brushes herself off and resumes her role as surrogate mother to her younger sibling. Their actual mother, Saura (Julia Nickson-Soul) is in the midst of a mid-life crisis, and is looking for the fastest possible solution to all the things that are wrong in her life. The answer she’s come up with is a young white jock of a boyfriend named Wendell, who moves into the Wu’s home and innocuously lets Pam know that he wouldn’t mind extending his affections to her as well. Pam’s soulmate, though, is Scott, the gay adopted son of an Evangelical pastor. They meet frequently on the grassy knolls high above the city, talking shop about sex and love and all the nasty details of both. Pam pines for him. He pretends not to notice. The other central character in this drama is the Wu patriarch, who is defined entirely by his absence from his family’s lives. He was a pilot, whose departure some years prior coincided with the rise of the oceans and the increase in solar flares, occurrences which allow the characters to ignore or make excuses for the sad state of their lives. Likewise, they separates Phang’s film from similar tales of middle-class unhappiness, of absentee dads and clinically depressed children. Indeed, a simple synopsis of Half-Life fails to encapsulate the scope that the film traverses: it jumps from epic to intimate, from the end of the world (conveyed via newscasts and subtle special effects) to the private thoughts and daydreams of its characters, which take place in an animated world of disintegrating airplanes and beached leviathans. These formal shifts are drastic, but they’re bound by a unifying tone that weaves these melodramatic threads and surreal flights of fancy into an elegiac tapestry of unrest. The film’s slow boil eventually come to a head; everything hits the fan, and those threads spire together and begin to fray as one. Secrets are revealed, accusations are made, true love is requited and the sun burns brighter than ever. There’s an achingly beautiful moment where Pam and Scott lay in each other’s arms and wait for the world to end. “Now,” Pam says, “or now.” Snapping her fingers as the seconds pass by and the world moves on anyway. It’s the sort of scene that is so perfectly irresolute that no actual ending can top it, and indeed, the actual denouement is where the Phang’s ambition finally falters. She attempts to justify the conceit of her film with an awkward step into magical, almost messianic realism. Whether or not anything that happens at the end of the film really happens. Such tropes always work on a superficial level, which is why filmmakers so often use them to wrap up unwieldy narratives; but what happens here is both too subtle to qualify as deux ex machina and too bombastic to work within the literal world the film has established. Considering how much of that world gives way to dreamscapes and reverie, that the ending doesn’t work is actually a tribute to the difficult tonal balancing act Phang has pulled off in the rest of the film. What the ending does succeed in, though, is offering a different perspective on the standard apocalyptic tones of recent sci-fi, which generally imply that the world is on a fast track to man-made annihilation. Consider the title, which is taken from the scientific term for “the time required for one unstable element to decay and transform into another,” and put it in the context of the film, and we’re left with a vision of the future that has a bit more faith in humanity. Half-Life sees past dissolution, past the end of the world, all the way to something else. What that something is is anyone’s guess; the point is that there’s something there at all. SXSW news, reviews, interviews and discussions Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/religion/MemberTagFilms.aspxreligion
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