Anyone?

I want to see this so bad but my order with amazon was canceled. Is it any good?

It… looks good. :O

I want to see it, too.

Savvy

I personally enjoyed it when I caught it a few years back. It’s fascinating and almost impossible to guess what is real and what is scripted. It’s also very funny in certain spots.

It’s phenomenal. See it.

I had it out from Netflix and didn’t watch it.

^FUCKING MORON

Don’t let my answer dissuade you from seeing it, but I didn’t like it at all. While somewhat interesting in concept, I found the execution predictable and the film worth quite a bit less than it promised to be. One must recognize it’s importance though and the time from which it came, so, again, it’s worth seeing whether you end up liking it or not.

Edit: On further thought, it isn’t so much that it was predictable so much as it was somewhat too obvious for my taste.

quick unrelated subject- What do you think is better WR:Mystery of the organism of Tanner 88’ as a criterion release?

WR by a long stretch. Tanner 88 is quite good, but only in comparison to most tripe dealing with the US political system. I didn’t feel it reached high enough to be really great, and it certainly doesn’t stand out from the crwod as much as WR does.

I have a copy of WR somewhere but I haven’t seen it. As a commentary about election process (in the U.S.), Tanner ’88 is excellent. I though it was ahead of its time and most subsequent elections have been playing as if they were written by its writers.

Symbio* is sufficiently amusing and a sign of the times…

I enjoyed it. I wouldnt purchase it personally but it was an absolute rent for me. There is not a ton of rewatchability in my opinion because the concept is what is most interesting.

“Symbio” was moderately good and moderately interesting. Not much more than that. It really played like a stereotypical “60s modernist art cinema” film. I don’t know if that makes sense. I just got the feeling that everything it was trying to do was sort of done already and a bit hackneyed by 1968. Not as surprising and revolutionary as it maybe wanted to be.

I dug it. Most of the time, it looks and feels like a straight documentary, but close attention reveals another layer: A third film crew is documenting the second crew’s process, which means the first two layers must be largely fictionalized. All three layers are weaved together, and taken as a whole the experience is a strange, funny hybrid of reality and illusion. It’s easy to jump on its wavelength, though, and what finally emerges is a study of the tensions between fiction and non-fiction, and the tensions present on a film set, between director and crew.

See it, if you’ve not already seen it, and if you have, you’ll then have your own opinions. ‘Symbiopsychotaxiplasm’ is not only a great film class on film, but a great experiment in narrative, a time machine to the open-minded revolutionary mid-Sixties youth (not always compelling but always seeking for alternatives, real or fake) and a fun movie to watch – that is, if you’re not expecting a blockbuster, but certainly you’re not if you’re into this kind of films. Plus, it has a Miles Davis soundtrack that kicks ass, in my humble opinion. It is masterfully directed to the point that (SPOILERS follow) the crew becomes part of the film in a great subplot thanks to the (um) manipulation of Mr. Greaves: a reflecion, as stated above, on fiction, non-fiction and their borders, as well as on film itself. I tell you, a different kind of narrative. Does it work? Perhaps. Perhaps not. That’s for you to judge. But its fascinating to see. Worked for me.

I loved it, and after renting the Criterion actually got to see it projected on film, too. Keep in mind that when you see something projected on film, that clackityclack of the projector sometimes has the ability to remind you how much the stock must have cost—a real significant issue with this movie, where a crew watches a director burn through roll after roll with no real sense of actual “direction” and, frustrated, steal a roll (“Who will notice at this rate?”) and end up making the film for him. Wanna talk subversive cinema? How about a film crew mutinying and taking over the production? According to Greaves, his reaction upon presentation of the stolen footage was, “Thank GOD, now I actually have a movie! Without this roll none of the rest was worth it.” Not only was the screening then revelatory to the crew, but one of the crew returns for Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take 2.5, which was a bad idea as it made the whole thing less convincing—and now it was on video, which made it less risky, though in return Greaves ups the focus on the blocking of performances and the lack of knowledge of whether the two old actors (who dated each other) are talking about their real lives or acting out their melodramatic characters.

—PolarisDiB