Creative Control
Directed by Benjamin Dickinson
Starring Benjamin Dickinson, Nora Zehetner, Dan Gill, Alexia Rasmussen and Reggie Watts
Smooth advertising executive David is in a relationship with yoga teacher Juliette. Then his eye is caught by Sophie, the girlfriend of his best friend Wim, a fashion photographer. Things get completely out of hand during a campaign for augmented reality-glasses, for which David designs an avatar of the coveted Sophie.
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Reviews
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★★★½ review by davidehrlich on Letterboxd
The genius of Futurama was in how its pizza-delivery-guy hero, frozen for 1,000 years, stepped into a new millennium without missing a beat—still poor, still a lovelorn dork, still a delivery guy. People can change, the show allowed, but time and technology won’t do it for them. That can be a difficult lesson, and every new advancement only seems to make it harder.
Creative Control, a droll and deservingly self-satisfied new indie, is effectively a feature-length exploration into the root cause of that phenomenon. Unfolding like a live-action Ghost in the Shell as directed by a young Noah Baumbach, the film is set approximately six minutes from now—far enough into the future that every computer monitor is made out of clear glass, but still near enough to the present that no one can find reliable cellphone reception in New York City. Poised between the way we live now and the way we hope to live next, the film wends through a queasily familiar Brooklyn where everyone is waiting for tomorrow to make them better than they are today, and struggling to understand that simply showing up isn’t going to do the trick.
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★★★½ review by Jason Alley on Letterboxd
An intriguing, deadpan sci-fi dark comedy about our dependence on electronics, CREATIVE CONTROL depicts a disturbingly realistic-seeming near future. It's well-acted, imaginative, very funny in parts, and beautifully shot. It's also got tremendously good effects for what is clearly a very low budget.
The story begins to lose focus toward the end, though, which is what keeps it from attaining the same level of success as HER or EX MACHINA (two films that ponder many of the same ideas, albeit in very different fashion).
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★★★★ review by AYCH on Letterboxd
What would happen if Kubrick wanted to direct Her and watched nothing but Vice docs as research.
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★★★★ review by Career Wanter on Letterboxd
I really really liked this. Reminded me of THE MEND quite a bit, but that might be because they both tickle my Narcissistic Self-Hating Bourgeois White Dude button so tenderly. In addition, the casting of Heems, Reggie Watts (AS REGGIE WATTS!) and H. Jon Benjamin seem specifically targeted at me. But actually, I think Creative Control probably has appeal beyond shitty white dudes like myself. It's gorgeous to look at, the dialogue is sharp, and It rings with hilarity and authenticity. It could do with giving its female characters a bit more agency over the full runtime, but I think it pulls it all out in the end. I really liked it, but I can understand if that makes you hate me.
Imagine a slightly less obvious Black Mirror episode, with serious visual flair and REGGIE WATTS PLAYING HIMSELF.
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★★★★½ review by Peter Valerio on Letterboxd
Pretentious hipster scifi.
As with all new technologies, AR glasses will take off once they aid masturbation.
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