Review of Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997) by Shane P — 14 Nov 2008

A Lion Tamer, A man who makes sculptures out of Hedges and gardens, a mole rat scientist, and a robotics expert are all interviewed at oncein this Stream of conciouss documentary.

Errol Morris takes 4 interviews and edits them together into a strange, fascinating, and almost a little exausting view of life, the universe, and everything.

What could have just been a doc of eccentric scientists (none of whome are very quirky), is transformed by this process of re-arrangement into something unique. The dialogue and images on screen are often at odds or ironic, symbolic, metaphorical commentaries on each other. And alot of the images are from old science fiction and fantasy films, cartoons, news footage, and basically whatever image serves Morris most at the moment to emphasize a particular point.

Machine, Man, Animal, Plant, Idea, and Will all come together in one of the strangest, most beautiful, and fascinating documentaries I've ever seen. There's so much going on, it needs to be watched more than once, but it really is amazing, and a bit dizzying.

Terrible cover, and title though, the later is a refrence to the robitcs experts book, about sending hundreds of small light wieght simple robots throuhgout the solar system instead of one complex machine, at a time.