I\u2019ve often studied the way smart people are portrayed in movies. There are trends. In the 1920s-40s, we had the frizzy-haired mad scientist who dreamed up amazing inventions in his Ken Strickfaden-charged laboratory. In the 1950s, we had the manly macho scientist (often Richard Carlson or John Agar) who was calm, visionary, and took control of the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the 1960s, it\u2019s been Jerry Lewis-style geeks. Eddie Deezen has made a career out of playing this stock character. He\u2019s loud, socially inept, smart, and no one likes him. This isn\u2019t to trash Eddie: he does a great job of playing a stock character, but what are you gonna do with a stock character? Lon Chaney Jr. was great as Lennie, but they asked him to do variations on it for the rest of his life. Same with Eddie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is why I particularly love a film called Real Genius <\/em>(1985), which is one of the few movies since the 1950s to depict smart kids as smart kids. The smart boys get the girls, and the girls are smart, too. There is social ineptitude, but it\u2019s real, not cartoonish. The characters are all well-drawn. But Real Genius <\/em>was an anomaly, and we went back to the loud geek cliche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I came with trepidation to this new movie, Welcome to the Future<\/a><\/em>. It\u2019s an indie film, and Sturgeon\u2019s Law applies: 90% of everything is junk. In the world of indie films, 99% of them are junk. And this is about smart people who go to conventions. So I expected the worst. I expected to last 5 minutes and have to turn it off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But one thing saved it: Larry Blamire liked it. Larry, for those of you who read here often, is one of those guys who makes indie films that are in that 1\/2 of 1% that are very good indeed. So I thought, well, if Larry liked it, I\u2019ll give it a shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, I know that a lot of you rib me that I don\u2019t like any movie made after 1934. Some will rib me that I don\u2019t like any movie shot in color. A lot of you don\u2019t think I will see modern films at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I like modern films. I just don\u2019t like films that suck. I don\u2019t like films that are the same old thing. And yes, I don\u2019t like comic book movies these days because THERE ARE JUST TOO MANY OF THEM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m happy to report that Welcome to the Future <\/em>does not suck. In fact, it extra strongly does not suck. It\u2019s got some of the cleverest screenwriting I\u2019ve seen in several years. Really. And it\u2019s about smart people, geeks, and there\u2019s not a single Eddie Deezen-style stock character in it. Well, maybe one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Welcome to the Future <\/em>was actually shot at a Comic Con. The logistics of doing such a thing are so daunting that I would never attempt it. How they got a usable soundtrack and intelligible dialogue are beyond me. It doesn\u2019t look like much of it is overdubbed, and if it is, it\u2019s amazingly well done. But enough about the technical stuff. I know it\u2019s my favorite part, but not yours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The movie is essentially about Gene (Leon Morgan) and his pal Mike (Frank Bonacci, also the screenwriter and director). Mike\u2019s girlfriend Taylor (Concetta Rose) is frustrated with him because he keeps ignoring her, and Mike seems to think Taylor is, well, it\u2019s a plot point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gene is prone to panic attacks for some strange reason and has trouble dealing with certain topics. We eventually learn why. Enter Angry Cliff (Christopher Ryan) and Rod (Mike Bocchetti), and we\u2019ve rounded out the main cast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rod is the most Eddie Deezen-like in the cast, but he\u2019s much more believable than the stock character. Rod simply is so deep into his fandom and his own little world that he can\u2019t really cope with other people. He can have conversations, but he obsesses about characters like Boba Fett and has few contact points with reality. Mostly he just sits silently. I\u2019ve met people like Rod.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Angry Cliff is upset that people and things aren\u2019t going his way. He\u2019s nearly as obsessed as Rod, but he feels alienated from mainstream culture and hates the newbies that have invaded his world of geekdom. I\u2019ve met people like Angry Cliff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gene looks at it a different way: the mainstream has invaded geek culture because the geeks won. Mike isn\u2019t so sure. He especially hates the fact that some people are dressed as characters from the film Xanadu<\/em>, a position I find completely defensible, but you all know I hate disco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Welcome to the Future <\/em>hits all of these notes and still captures the love and joy that these characters get from their fandom. It also touches on some other stock characters: the drunken, out-of-work actor (Craig Geraghty) who\u2019s been in some movies that the fans like but doesn\u2019t get the whole fan thing. The classic-era artist (Jack Piccinni) who\u2019s too old and out of it to care anymore, only egged on by his wife, who seems to be holding on to their last source of income.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These characters are all real, and they resonate well here. Bonacci\u2019s script doesn\u2019t talk down to us or condescend to his characters. It\u2019s talky: there\u2019s a lot of discussion, but there needs to be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Gene\u2019s character gets a good story arc and has some redemption toward the end. He doesn\u2019t reject geek culture but rather learns to share it and distance a little. Rod is beyond any sort of redemption, and Angry Cliff probably is, but Mike doesn\u2019t seem to be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I get the feeling that there is more to the story of Mike and Taylor after the end of this film. Sequel? I\u2019d watch it. I think Mike has some more character growth in him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I guess one of the reasons I like this so much is that I relate to the characters so much, and there seems to be very little of these kinds of people in regular media. The only note Bonacci seems to miss is a typical person I seem to find at every convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m speaking of the people who are so obsessed with fan culture that they wrote their own book\/screenplay\/comic book about something. At Star Trek conventions, this person is almost always female and has a story about Mr. Spock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If someone up to you and says, \u201cI wrote this story about Mr. Spock,\u201d you should always politely run in the other direction. It will save you an hour of discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is a manifestation of the fact that a great number of these people are actually closeted artists who can\u2019t quite get to their own art. They express it by over-loving others\u2019 work. They may be too untalented, too antisocial, too unlucky, or just plain too scared to succeed at creating their own works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think most of the characters in Welcome to the Future <\/em>are frustrated artists and creators, if they\u2019d admit it to themselves. They\u2019re archetypes that I believe. And that makes this all the more real. I recommend it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After all, I wrote this story about Mr. Spock.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve often studied the way smart people are portrayed in movies. There are trends. In the 1920s-40s, we had the frizzy-haired mad scientist who dreamed up amazing inventions in his Ken Strickfaden-charged laboratory. In the 1950s, we had the manly macho scientist (often Richard Carlson or John Agar) who was calm, visionary, and took control … Continue reading “It’s a Wonderful, Mad Future”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"powered_cache_disable_cache":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,207],"tags":[210,211,41,212],"class_list":["post-1975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-films-pocket-rants","category-film","tag-frank-bonacci","tag-independent-film","tag-review","tag-welcome-to-the-future"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1976,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions\/1976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}