This sober yet ultimately uplifting documentary, winner of the Palme D’Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival [1], is a poignant record of a day that changed human history forever. Director Robert Pipe shows us all the courage, the sorrow, the grief and the triumph of the human spirit of that day, and how a divided nation came together in a time of crisis, all those things that defined us and changed us forever… on THE DAY THEY CAME TO SUCK OUT OUR BWAAAAIIIINNNS!
Policemen, scientists, stoners, chiropractors… All are mobilized to battle an invasion by an alien horror from another world that is nameless! The alien horror, I mean! [2] Your blood will run cold as HELPLESS VICTIMS HAVE THEIR BRAINS SUCKED OUT OF THEIR SKULLS off-screen to cut down on the special effects costs! SEE the terrifying assault by the alien hubcaps on hapless photographs of hapless cities! HEAR people with some kind of foreign accent try to talk in American accents with varying degrees of success! LOSE IT when you see the crafty and resourceful American or possibly British counterattack against remorseless invaders from another galaxy [3]! In glorious BLACK-AND-WHITE-O-RAMA!
Needless to say, this is a rather goofy little tribute to Ed Wood, Jr., right down to the guy with the cloak over his face in the ending sequence. They had me at the opening monologue.
If the name Robert Pipe sounds familiar, that’s because he did the video that I posted earlier this month for Tomorrow Never Knows. I have a feeling you’ll be seeing more from him on this blog.
[1] In a bizarre parallel universe where Ernest Borgnine is president of the 92 United States of Atzlan, that is.
[2] A nameless alien threat just seems silly, though. I mean, think of the propaganda coup that the remorseless alien overlords could score with a good name for their invasion. I suggest Operation: Enduring Brain Suck.
[3] Which makes you wonder why, of all the planets in this galaxy, they’re hanging out on a loser planet like Earth.
