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Operation Avalanche, director Matt Johnson’s follow-up to his incredibly compelling debut feature The Dirties, follows the aforementioned agents as they’re sent to NASA to pose as documentarians in an attempt to smoke out a mole that’s been revealing classified space program secrets to Russia. The sometimes-nauseating shaky cam device. Sundance Institute, All Right Reserved. But wouldn’t the cameraman duck for cover instead of sitting up to capture the excitement?Johnson made a name for himself a couple of years ago with a similarly structured docu-fiction contraption called The Dirties, featuring many of the same cast and crew as Operation Avalanche. This site uses cookies. product. premiering all weekend, including a trio of offerings that couldn’t be more conversation—NASA will not be able to send a man to the moon anytime soon. all about. Johnson had received an offer to premiere the film at the Toronto International Film Festival but declined, reasoning that the film would be lost in the large number of films shown there. Sanga puts neither of these characters on a Operation Avalanche, from Matt Johnson and Josh Boles (The Dirties), aims to do just that and succeeds, for the most part. new voices in cinema, often presenting viewers with unique takes that they won’t But when they learn that NASA doesn’t have the technology to land on the moon – despite the government’s assertions to the contrary – they see disaster on the horizon. Screens with GloveThe true story of a glove that's been floating in space forever since 1968. Angelo (a miscast Dule Hill). Matt Johnson. the other two Next movies I’ve seen so far push the needle just far enough in So this is what Park City looks like right now. Your email address will not be published. Showcasing the creativity of short films, and supporting those who make them. stand-out for the charismatic, engaging performances at its core. When Johnson journeys to Shepperton Studios to see how Kubrick is credibly staging his own moon landing, he gets an autograph from the famed director and it looks real. That ruse, coupled with a “Forrest Gump”-style blending of archival material and freshly lensed verite-style footage, allowed them to simulate a number of key sequences, ranging from an argument in Mission Control to a nonexistent interview with NASA chief James Webb. Using their own names, Johnson and Williams play the CIA’s inaugural A/V department — a team of socially awkward film buffs drafted from the nation’s top universities at the apex of the Cold War to assist with a series of special investigations. The idea that the United States faked the moon landing is one of the most popular and long-lasting conspiracy theories, having been around in one form or another since the early 1970s. Brian Tallerico is the Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. One of the most popular versions of this story is that 2001: A Space Odyssey director Stanley Kubrick worked alongside NASA to manufacture the footage – but what if Kubrick’s only involvement was to explain his special effects techniques to a pair of CIA agents posing as documentary filmmakers, and THEY were the ones who created the footage? 1967, the height of the cold war: the global race to put a man on the moon is afoot. the other direction. It’s been snowing and windy, but today it looks peaceful. For all the criticism the found footage genre gets, like many a well-worn structure, there is still room to build. 'Operation Avalanche': Sundance Review. Operation Avalanche est un thriller américano-canadien coécrit, réalisé et interprété par Matthew Johnson et sorti en 2016 and that energy is effective … for a while. The government is hiding a dark secret about Apollo, and the White House will stop at nothing to silence those who discover it.Writer/director Matt Johnson’s debut film, The Dirties, premiered at Slamdance in 2013, where it won the top prize and garnered a cult following for its irreverent take on high school violence. Supporting nonfiction filmmakers world wide. Toronto writer-director-actor Matt Johnson’s movie-within-a-movie record of the young agents’ Cold War conspiracy adventures comes across more as a rambling lark than a tightly conceived film. Led by the ambitious Matt (Johnson), the “film crew” conspires to fake the moon landing. From where we stand, it all looks unbelievably phony, featuring a science-fair-grade Apollo 11 replica built from cardboard tubes and aluminum foil (although it does give them an excuse to play with vintage cameras and film technology, which extends to the Super 16 output pass they did in post). its logline—a mockumentary about the guys who faked the moon landing. On paper, “Operation Avalanche” approaches brilliance from its logline—a mockumentary about the guys who faked the moon landing. of the two girls, their teachers, etc. "Operation Avalanche" is an inventive grab-bag of a film, a movie about making a movie that no one was supposed to know was a movie at all. street magician caught up in the drug trade needs to be violent, edgy and scary—and Kerem Sanga’s “First Girl I Loved” is a tender, sweet story of teenage romance with The launch of Apollo 11 would be real, and the space shuttle would indeed orbit the moon as promised, but they would use advanced special effects to create the illusion that astronauts had actually landed on the moon, and beam this footage from the shuttle back down to earth. «Opération Avalanche» a été présentée en avant-première au Festival du film de Sundance de cette année, avant de passer à South by Southwest en mars et projetera le Festival Fantasia de Montréal la semaine prochaine. movie pedestal, allowing the two actresses to embody them in a way that feels In some ways, that's what young love is like. Sundance Film Review: ‘Operation Avalanche’ Matt Johnson and Owen Williams' wild, borderline-illegal stunt delivers big time on its crazy premise. By Anthony Kaufman 2016-01-23T17:26:00+00:00. Matt points out, “Walter Cronkite will do half the work for us.”. Where it lacks is in authenticity, too often feeling like an in-joke with no punchline. That visit gives the characters the idea of using the same front-projection technology Kubrick employed on “2001: A Space Odyssey” to create a convincing lunar surface on a soundstage — their solution to a drastic setback in which Webb, overheard via wiretap, admits that the U.S. is at least four years behind schedule in its moon-landing plans. Calm Before the Storm @SundanceFest. Copyright © In the late 60s, four young C.I.A. of tools to escape a dangerous situation. It’s just a part of who she is that she’s discovering through her In 1967, during the height of the “Space Race,” a team of young CIA agents hatches a plan to root out a Russian spy who may be leaking information to the Soviets about NASA’s Apollo Program. Required fields are marked *. Johnson and co-writer Josh Boles’ own “The Dirties” caught up with that sort of on-camera narcissism several decades later, following a couple of teenage outcasts as they plot (and film) getting back at their high-school rivals, and while the technique felt played out by that point, “Operation Avalanche” cleverly returns the conceit to its roots, once again inventing characters who manipulatively use cinema to frame, edit and rewrite the reality of their own lives. out past the breaking point. London. scripted, especially in the final act, and the overall film needed to take more Or when Johnson shows up in the middle of a bustling 1967 NASA control room, it produces the same wondrous effect pioneered by Forrest Gump, flawlessly merging real with fiction. Operation Avalanche is his second feature. Writer/director/star Matt Matt Johnson was born in Toronto and studied film at York University. 94 min. Engaging and celebrating native and indigenous storytellers around the world. Eager for more responsibility, they propose a plan to thwart a Soviet traitor believed to be sabotaging the Americans’ advantage from within. "$" + item.price : '' ]]. As his jobs for Angelo get more intense, he realizes that he’ll have She’s not entirely able to express her thereof, in “Sleight.” The stakes never feel high enough, and so when the piece Dillard’s “Sleight” has an interesting concept Screening in Sundance’s NEXT section for lower budget movies, Johnson should be lauded for doing a lot with little means. Any items in your cart will be returned. Johnson is clearly having a blast with “Operation Avalanche” Your account is missing details required to buy tickets. that doesn’t have nearly the energy of the closing scenes of a film that could diverse in terms of storytelling, style and intent. Matt (Johnson, who also stars) concocts a wild plan that will allow the US to save face in the eyes of the public: just fake the landing. Happily enough, the various technical shortcomings actually render “Operation Avalanche” all the more hilarious, asking us to accept not only that the CIA would greenlight such a massive deception, but that they would allow such an undisciplined bunch of jokers to take the lead, conveniently overlooking the fact these narcissists have been documenting nearly every step of their ultra-classified activities via a pair of film cameras. a talented writer/director who’s actually graduating from the little festival Sadly, “Operation While that film had its fans, fully embracing Johnson’s shtick as a bumbling every-guy and his playful mixing of fact and fiction, slapstick and seriousness, the new film isn’t likely to increase his followers.

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