Other Cinema
Mock Up on MU
Institutions (universities, libraries, museums, cultural centres…) must add institutional rights to their order. Rates vary by region (North America, Europe & UK, Asia, Oceania).
Add rightsFormat DVD Interzone NTSC Region 0
Original format video
Year 2009
Language(s) English
Artist(s) Craig Baldwin
Running time 110 min
Films
MOCK UP ON MU (1996) 110'
Description
LAST COPY. OUT OF PRINT
A radical hybrid of espionage, science fiction, western, and even horror, Craig Baldwin’s feature-length “collage-narrative” Mock Up On Mu is founded on (mostly) authentic histories culled from post-WWII Californian countercultures: rocketry pioneers, alternative religions, and the Beat lifestyle.
Excerpts from popular serials, industrial film outtakes, and B (or even Z) movie sequences alternate with newly shot live action footage, propelling a playful and allegorical journey through the occult—now legendary—matrix formed by Jack Parsons (founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Crowley acolyte), L. Ron Hubbard (sci-fi author turned guru), and Marjorie Cameron (bohemian artist and “mother of the New Age movement”). Their intertwined destinies unfold into a speculative farce on the militarization of space and the corporate takeover of spiritual fulfillment and leisure. Selected press quotes
“...an allegorical cyclone of images and ideas haunted by sardonic humor and gnostic longing” —Erik Davis, Techgnosis
“...this new work hits your synapses like a cluster bomb, assailing your quivering gray matter with a fusillade of cinematic fragments (mostly recycled, some newly shot), diatribes and meditations of every stripe” —Manohla Dargis, New York Times
“...Mock Up on Mu is a modern American myth fashioned from all kinds of cultural detritus” —Jim Hoberman, Village Voice
“...Nuclear waste, orbiting space weapons, cocktail lounge seductions—all of it anarchically shuffled with images and sounds from sources ranging from The Brain That Wouldn’t Die to Capricorn One” —Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York
“...Culling from such disparate genres as beefy spaghetti westerns, sordid Las Vegas potboilers, and cheapo papier-mâché sci-fi extravaganzas, the borrowed materials comprise an alternate US history: a Hubbard-Martin plot to colonize space (and harness energy technologies for militarization) runs up against resistance from Parsons and Cameron, who invoke occult magic to fight power” —Michael Joshua Rowin, L Mag
“...an often hilarious, sometimes impenetrable, always original film at the cross-section of pop phantasmagoria and critiques of capitalism” —New York Magazine
“No one dissects the entrails of our schizoid culture with as much glee and enthusiasm as Baldwin; Mock Up on Mu will leave its viewers dazzled and slightly disoriented, blinking in the harsh light of a subtly altered world.” —Peter Culley
“With Mock Up on Mu, Baldwin may have discovered a new method of cinematic storytelling. Don’t expect Hollywood to embrace it anytime soon.” —David Bordwell
Extras:
• Director’s Commentary
• Behind-the-scenes clip by Damon Packard
• *Mu* Trailer by Lars Auvinen
• Upcoming Other Cinema DVD releases