SERIES 7

Produced by Jason Kliot, Joana Vincente, Christine Vachon, and Katie Roumel
Written and Directed by Daniel Minahan
Edited by Malcolm Jamieson
Director of Photography - Randy Drummond

Dawn - Brooke Smith
Jeff - Glenn Fitzgerald
Connie - MaryLouise Burke
Tony - Michael Keycheck

The exhilaration from watching SERIES 7 is nowhere close to wearing off. It's been almost 12 hours since I hit the rewind button on the VCR, but the drop-jaw amazement from watching this arsenic-laced satire on reality television is as present now as the instant it was branded onto my brain. I don't just want to watch SERIES 7 a second time, this movie makes me want to get off my rear, grab a camera, and shoot something of my won.

I wish I would tell you exactly what it was about SERIES 7 that hit home like it did. Maybe it's that the film's sensibilities are so close to my own. It's the culmination of everything I've wanted to do and say with the medium, and validates every idea I've ever had.

And it makes me angry that someone made this movie before I could.

Original has been done, that much is a given. All that's left are to make things fresh and exciting. Filmmakers must provide different takes on old material. Eventually, somewhere, a filmmaker will get something right. The will hit the cords within a viewers soul that will invigorate their very self-worth.

For me, that movie is SERIES 7.

Dawn, 9 months pregnant and ready to burst, is the reigning champion on a gameshow titled The Contenders, where the contestants literally have to eliminate one another. Just so you know, Glock 9mm's are the method of choice. Dawn is determined to retain her crown so that her baby will have the opportunities she wouldn't be able to provide otherwise.

Bloodthirsty and mean when it comes to playing the game, Dawn is taken back when the new series of episodes takes place in her hometown, a place she left 10 years earlier and vowed never to return. She's from a town where everyone knows everyone else. Some revere her celebrity, other's, including her family, condemn animal nature.

And Dawn is every bit an animal. She likes like a lioness, queen of her jungle. 105 pounds of rage ready to kill to protect her crown, her kingdom, and her dub.

Don't think Dawn is pure evil. She's driven by love. The bond between her and her child is pure and untainted. It's something she's only felt one other time in her life, and something she will come to terms in this edition of The Contenders.

SERIES 7 is a blending of almost every genre and styling I can think of, including many that would probably never work together if the human elements of the story weren't the primary focus. Action and melodrama. Noir and comedy. SERIES 7 works because none of the elements via for the spotlight and dominate the events. All the elements work to reinforce, not over power the action.

There are only two films that come to mind for comparison, MAN BITES DOG and BOB ROBERTS. Both are wicked satires that use a cock-eyed mock-documentary approach to their subjects as a way of commenting on the art of filmmaking. The subject matter is almost secondary.

SERIES 7 represents everything that's right with independent film, but I'm afraid my hype will sour your viewing experience. After all, how can any movie live up to this much hyperbole? SERIES 7 doesn't herald the Second Coming of Tarantino, but something much better, pure fresh filmmaking.

Series 7