This documentary starts out strong, introducing a topic entirely new to part of its audience: "chip music", a genre based on the audio capabilities of 1980s video game hardware. I'm just not sure they had enough material for a full-length film. Maybe it's because they get to the 2006 New York Blip Festival within 15 minutes, then keep going back to it intermixed with artist commentary. There's no forward motion. Maybe it's because every artist says the exact same damn thing over and over again - the music is "fresh", "new", "pushing boundaries", "creatively driven by the self imposed technical restraints".
The film does feature music from every artist that performed at the Blip Festival, but even that gets redundant for someone perhaps not ready to appreciate the nuance of 8-bit music. My recommendation is to put the film on in the background while doing something else, and tune in as you wish. It's a solid rental - just not theater quality.
Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet
2008, 82 minutes, directed by Paul Owens
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment