LFM’s Steve Greaves reviews the award-winning web series satire about the fictional, 70’s progressive rock band, “Gemini Rising.”

By Steve Greaves. Before there were hair bands, there were hairy bands. Yes, the heather was high and across the mythic plains there were hairy, sensitive barbarians in hordes of typically five, but growing in might at times to numbers almost unimaginable. Few live to bear witness. Quite often the drummer would don an afro though he be of the Celtic dynasty.

There are niches within niches, and Koldcast.com’s web TV series Gemini Rising picks up the musk of a very specific kind of band at a very specific juncture in popular (or not) music culture. For a while in the early 70’s, after the Summer of Love sounds had burned out and UK and NY punk were not yet kicking, there was a lot of soul-searching and cosmic exploration informing the kinds of themes and approaches to being a “rock” band.  Much of what emerged at that time was amorphous, exploratory, meandering, melodramatic and self-indulgent schlock.  It is to rock what “fusion” is to jazz – i.e., technically impressive, but virtually hook-free and generally leaves you in a worse mood than before.

The term coined was Progressive Rock, and while there are many, many great songs and bands in the genre when it began through today, one has to laugh at the inherent ridiculousness of the original trappings: grown men in tights and scarves singing operatically and emoting in a quasi-Shakespearian manner about wizards and astrology.  It was one big hairy Renaissance Pleasure Faire and an aural gateway to the ages for those willing to explore the far edge of listenability.

Before there were hair bands, there were hairy bands.

Allrighty then Shackleton, let’s talk bands. Experience the nerdy wrath of names like Uriah Heep, Marillion, Pendragon, Hawkwind, Elf and Rainbow (Ronnie James Dio is a movement unto himself too vast to explore here, all you need to know is he’s slain many a hydraulic dragon in as many middle-earthly bands, and is a powerful elvine singer who also fronted Black Sabbath post-Ozzy Ozbourne).

The common thing about bands amid this subterranean niche in “hardish” rock is not so much what they are but that what they’re not: not hard enough to be metal.  Not catchy enough to be pop.  Not light enough to be jazz.  Too noisy to be opera.  These are broad strokes to draw admittedly, but this is the kaleidoscopic point of entry into fully grasping the modest genius of Gemini Rising.

While there is a surprising amount of variety among episodes in the series, what holds it all together is the lack of anything much ever really happening.  Like their own music and that of their “contemporaries” cited previously, the act never really lands because the band itself is never grounded and always in juvenile crisis. As a caricature, Gemini Rising is the spawn of other “rock mockumentary” bands that are perpetually stuck in a rut even when opportunities to show off their cosmosonic magic arise … anywhere from within recording studios, to the Gong Show-styled Larry LaMay variety hour – and all guaranteed to bring a yellow and orange glow to your 14-inch Zenith.

Comparisons to This is Spinal Tap and Bad News are a given anytime a hard “rock mock” shows up, but the idea is again fresh and the large, funny and clearly dedicated cast and varied settings put an original and enthusiastic spin on the typical flailing band situations. The genius is in being so confidently loose within a sub-genre that can only be recreated through the pains of extreme specificity.  The look and feel of the people, the places and the music videos and media within the environment are spot on.  Lead singer Robert Mckenzie is perfectly cast in east coast actor and Syrrah vocalist Righteous Jolly, who sounds not unlike the formidable Geoff Tate of neo-prog metal icon, Queensryche.

The sheer dumpiness of the era and the fringes of the midwest and rustbelt provide plenty of deadpan juxtapositions, as well as a textural approach to the film that flatters its efforts – nay, its quest to be vintage ‘74 in flavor. Fake hairs on the projector, low lighting, and other distressed effects add to the smutty visual character of the series. Clever use of graphics and exacting font choices complete the whole wood-paneled non-spectacle. You’ll be craving a Tab and a stick of Big Red in no time.

Shot on a shoestring or merely made to look that way, the expansive cast and at times spacious outdoor locations (“We’re going to bring birds into the studio?” “That goose is an artist!”) go a long way to make this production feel bigger than it is.  Part of the charm of this effort is that the “young underdog band” is mirrored to an extent by the obvious “let’s put on a show” ethic of everyone involved, a sort of lo-fi equilibrium between the filmmakers and the subject matter that allows for enough discipline to stage something inventive and funny without taking itself too seriously in the process.  Overthinking this material would suck the spontaneous life right out of it. All in all this is a great example of the kind of fun, affordable, collaborative art filmmakers can actually create and get seen today with little more than talent and imagination.

Highlights include the extra episode “Amphibian Liberation Army” (the star of whom is an activist who goes by the handle “Che Johnson”) and song performances including “Lady of the Lake” and “Star Child.” A good place to start your zodiacal rock odyssey is the Gemini Rising trailer above.

[Editor's note: the trailer above contains strong language and scenes of battlefield violence.  Viewer discretion advised.]

By Jason Apuzzo. The trailer above is for a forthcoming on-line documentary series by independent filmmaker Danfung Dennis called Battle for Hearts and Minds.  On July 2nd, 2009, four thousand US Marines of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade launched a major helicopter assault into a Taliban stronghold in the Helmand River Valley in southern Afghanistan in order to break a military stalemate reached with the Taliban.  Dennis was embedded with Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Company, as they were dropped 18 km behind enemy lines.

The series focuses on the sometimes contradictory roles played by the Marines as both warriors and statesmen in their effort to ‘win the hearts and minds’ of the Afghan people.

Based on the trailer, the series looks like it will be intense and compelling – and we look forward to its debut.  You can read an interview with Dennis about his experiences with Echo Company here.  In the interview Dennis goes to great lengths to describe how the Marines do everything possible to distinguish between friend and foe in Afghanistan in order to avoid civilian casualties – often a very difficult task when the enemy hides among civilians.

We are, as most people are aware, sorely lacking in good war reporting these days – i.e., reporting that lacks a political agenda, but also that captures the complexity of the situation we’re facing.  I’m hoping this series gets some attention.  From a photographic  standpoint the series certainly looks extraordinary.  Dennis shot the footage with a custom built rig using a Canon 5D Mark II, 24-70 f/2.8 L lens, Sennheiser ME-66 and G2 wireless system, Singh-Ray variable ND filter, and Beachtek 2XAs mounted on a Glidecam 2000 HD with custom made aluminum ‘wings.’

You can find out more information about the series here.  Feel free to also follow Danfung Dennis on Twitter, or visit the Facebook page for The Battle for Hearts and Minds.

PLEASE NOTE: “Living With the Infidels” features raw language and a shot of a nude male terrorist rear end that is intended for comic effect.  If that would potentially offend you, don’t watch the webisode.  Otherwise, we hope you enjoy it …

By Govindini Murty. Continuing our theme of cinematic critiques of radical Islam, I wanted to let you know today about a funny, charming, and very brave British web series titled “Living With the Infidels.”  ”Living With the Infidels” is directed by Aasaf Ainapore, co-written and co-produced by Aasaf Ainapore and Kira-Anne Pelican, and stars Naveed Choudhry, Annie Cooper, K.M. Darwish, Abhin Galeya, Ernest Ignatius, and San Shella.

“Living With the Infidel” follows the bumbling efforts of a group of hapless Islamic terrorists in England as they attempt to carry out a terror strike in the heart of … Yorkshire, only to be distracted by the local buxom blonde and her nubile brunette best friend.  The web series is silly, subversive and very amusing in the low-key British way.  I particularly like the opening credit sequence with the animated terrorists, and I enjoyed the goofy, wistful charm of the two young men who play the main characters of Rezza and Abdul.

Blonde infidel.

However, my favorite character has to be Psycho Ali, a deranged terrorist whose obsession with the radical cause is only matched by his hysterical narcissism.  Wait for the final episode when Psycho Ali gives a tour de force performance as a frustrated actor trying to make a terrorist video, and you’ll see what I’m talking about.  All the actors and actresses do a great job, and it’s interesting to see how on a modest budget – and in the limited confines of a web series – the filmmakers are able to tell a story that is just as entertaining as bigger-budgeted feature films like Four Lions and The Infidel.

“Living With the Infidel” (not to be confused with the feature film The Infidel that Jason has reviewed below) is one of those web series that gave us hope when we first saw it that we would indeed have enough great film and video content to feature here on Libertas.  As you know, our focus here at LFM is on positively promoting pro-freedom films and videos from America and around the world, and not just complaining about how left-wing Hollywood is.   It’s very important that the good work that is being done out there by filmmakers should be recognized if we want more pro-freedom, pro-democracy films to be made.

As I noted in my posts on the new films Four Lions and The Infidel (see here and here), these films and web videos signal a heartening process of self-questioning over radical Islam within the Muslim community – and “Living With the Infidels” is yet another example of this.  I once again have to ask the question – why can’t Hollywood with its billions of dollars and enormous studio apparatus make anything like this?  What are they so afraid of?  Telling the truth?

We’ve posted Episode 1 of “Living With the Infidels” above, with more episodes to follow …

By Jason Apuzzo.  A web series I’ve taken to recently is called “Grass Roots.” “Grass Roots” is a comedic series about an inept pair of grass roots political operatives working for an aspiring Democrat candidate.

The humor in this series is pitch-perfect and dry as a martini. “Grass Roots” is the brainchild of writer-director-actor Aaron Hiliard, who really brings the episodes to life with his smarmy, impossibly self-satisfied characterization of the hack political operative ‘Miles.’ In the episode above, titled “The Black Vote,” Miles and his partner conduct some decidedly ham-fisted ‘outreach’ toward a hapless black Republican.

It would be an understatement to say that the source of “Grass Roots’” humor is the utterly crass, cynical attitude of today’s political classes – and particularly Democrats – toward the micro-targeted demographics (once quaintly known as ‘citizens’) who make up their voter constituencies.  Writer-director-actor Aaron Hiliard (who reminds me a lot of Mo Rocca) captures this perfectly, yet does so without rancor; his character ‘Miles’ is really just a benighted careerist who accepts all the inane wisdom he’s been fed about how to ‘rise’ in politics.  [Miles is uncomfortably similar, actually, to the kind of guests who pass through Rachel Maddow's show each day - smarmy, low level agitators and opportunists, each with a career to peddle.]

Congratulations to Aaron Hilliard and his crew.  We’ll be showing more of “Grass Roots” down the line.  Enjoy!

The new Libertas Film Magazine (LFM) is almost here!  LFM is a new on-line film magazine focusing on the idea of freedom as expressed in movies and popular culture.

LFM celebrates the democratizing of film. Talented, free-thinking artists from America and around the world are currently using digital technology to make films that celebrate freedom and the individual.  LFM will feature the best of these independent and foreign films – and occasionally even Hollywood films – that promote the ideas and values vital to the future of democratic civilization.

Stayed tuned for the launch of LFM on May 19th, 2010! The independent film world will never be the same. LFM is the new voice for freedom in movies and popular culture. Join us each day … and free your mind.