His 1995 documentary "sonic outlaws" was a very detailed look at copyright infringement laws on music record companies in the U.S. and really more of a comment on medias role on cultural norms. With his most recent film, however, director Craig Baldwin took a little bit of a different approach to his experimental film-making techniques.
In "Mock up on MU" Baldwin used his gathering of media artifacts blending with voice-overs and acting performance to create a very unconventional film. As Balwin clearly stated at the Union-Theatre showing, the film is based on a true story and his real-life experiences, as well as his "make love, not war" pseodo-sixties post-vietnam war philosophies.
Although I was a little confused with the exact message of the film, which made direct connections to Jack Parsons (rocket scientist), Marjorie Cameron (artist), and L. Ron Hubbard (sci-fi writer, founder of Scientology), the film was entertaining and indeed pretty inventive for the most part. However, the film dragged on a little too long for my taste.
While the amount of work presented was pretty amazing, after about halfway through, I found myself a little disconnected. The startling images and media gathering (which included several old sci-fi, horror flicks, cartoons, sound clips, etc.) combined with very convincing perfomances (all the acting, writing, and voice-overs were a marvel in themselves), was very impressive.
It was eerily dream-like and uniquely crafted. In the end however, it was a propoganda piece and the messages were more personal to the filmmaker, leaving myself (and other member of the audience) a little confused to say the least. All in all, decent film...and I give it a thumbs up, despite the abuse of copyright laws he clearly violated.
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