Stumbled across this recently on netflix. In a nutshell, a "Walt Disney" like creator is revived from cold storage via complex cloning to assume control of the company he created over a hundred years ago. The idea alone intrigued me but it was the execution of the tale that floored me. From the acting (flawless) to the script (a tidy tale of "be careful what you wish for you just may get it.")loaded with twists and turns to the outstanding CGI backgrounds that give the film a rich science fiction flavor.This is a must see for intelligent film fans of science fiction. Add a dash of Citizen Kane, an amusing parody on Disney and the ethical question, is a clone a real person or the property of those who created it.Abel Edwards will make you believe. And you better believe ten years from now this will achieve cult status.

I think it would be the rare independent filmmaker these days who hasn't fantasized about how it would be possible to bypass the necessity of building sets, going on location, and long shooting schedules -- in other words, all the things that aren't a problem for a high-budget studio film but are for shoestring indie productions -- by the expedient of shooting the actors entirely on a green screen stage and compositing everything else digitally.Able Edwards did it, and you know what? For the most part it really works.Yes, some of the seams show -- but so what? You can look at classic movies like Casablanca and North by Northwest and see where the old process shots weren't entirely convincing. As long as there's a good story being conveyed by good acting and directing, an audience is willing to play along and suspend their disbelief. If they didn't, nobody today would have a clue who Aristophanes or Shakespeare was.The character of Able Edwards is part Walt Disney, part Howard Hughes, part Orson Welles's and Herman J. Mankiewicz's fictitious Charles Foster Kane--who in turn was based on the real-life William Randolph Hearst. Able Edwards story plays with the mythology of Walt Disney being frozen by having Edwards' frozen remains cloned, then -- in an homage to Ira Levin's The Boys from Brazil -- groomed to restore the legacy of the original.The comic irony of Able Edwards is the juxtaposition of its method --which is the creation of a virtual reality -- with its theme -- that in a world in which all entertainment is virtual, the public will crave a return to entertainment based on the infinite nuances of reality.Both Able Edwards and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow were made in 2004 using the total green-screen virtual technique. But Able Edwards was made for $30 thousand and Sky Captain for $40 million. The thing is, Sky Captain cost a thousand times as much as Able Edwards but only looks about twice as good -- and I found both movies not all that far apart in entertainment value. Digital media and production is to making movies what Colt firearms were to the Old West--the great equalizer.Full disclosure requires me to reveal that I heard about this movie because its title actor, Scott Kelly Galbreath, also played in a movie I directed. Scott is a fine actor in both this movie and mine, and, the fates willing, I predict a big career ahead of him.I hope this movie ends up on TV --either premium cable or network. It deserves to be much better known. Meanwhile, I bought my DVD from Amazon.com, which means you can, too -- and I recommend that you do.

Able Edwards is a great microcinema achievement. The story is set in a 1950s-looking B&W near-future where earth has become inhabitable. Space colonies float around the earth's orbit. Deceased Media Tycoon Abel Edwards (An inspired mix between Walt Disney and Charles Foster Kane) is brought to life in the form of a clone sampled from the original mogul's body as a desperate attempt from the Edwards Corporation to regain the falling empire's glory.This is basically a 21st century rework on Citizen Kane's story line with sci-fi overtones, introducing the theme of cloning, shot entirely against a green screen against still photography backgrounds (many scanned from a public library) and some occasional 3-D CGI. Sin City's fans will be inspired by the fact that you can actually shoot a whole epic in your living room.However, don't expect Hollywood FX hyperrealist environments, fancy camera moves, or baroque compositions. Director Graham Roberson purposely chose to do every single shot (even those which could have easily been made on location), with a green screen channeled background (whether still photographs, live action footage or CGI). You might say that at times the movie's mise en scene feels static: Some extra layers of compositing (and extra months of work in post) could have added more depth in making some of the photo backgrounds more lively, or create the impression that the camera moves a little more.However this does not detract at all from the story, on the contrary, it might even help it: The result is a prosthetic, unrealistic, yet harmonious, solid and consistent atmosphere that blends very well with the charming 1950s B&W look and epic feel of the piece.The acting complements the mood with effective performances from the whole cast. Scott Kelly Galbreath (Abel Edwards) manages to transport us to another era with his square jaw and Errol Flynn-esquire mustache. Everything here is at the service of conveying an entertaining story that despite the grandeur of the sci-fi aura, deals with the human condition and the concept of individuality: Is the clone going to behave the way the company has conditioned him to be? Or will he develop his own character?The film was executive produced by Steven Sodenbergh, who basically donated his Canon XL-1 and Mac G-4 from Full Frontal. It's easy to see why the project caught his attention. Unlike many low budget sci-fi, this is not so much about the special effects or the action, but about concentrating on telling a engrossing story. Some might say that it follows way too closely that of Citizen Kane to develop its own voice, but I find much more interesting and fresh to imitate the storyline of Kane than that of Star Wars or Halloween. Besides this has the twist cloning, which adds a whole new dimension and makes the character unique.If you love movies you will truly enjoy Able Edwards, as it is an inspiring achievement.

It takes guts to do way more than you should even try, and talent to make the audience still feel it.While everyone else at the SXSW festival was at JERSEY GIRL I wandered over and watched ABLE EDWARDS, which was an object lesson in what can be done for $30,000 and some software. This movie has a great script, actors, and sparse sets-and fake backgrounds. That's what you have to get over, moment you walk in. It's a `greenscreen movie,' like Sky Captains, but less polished, because the director and the writer are one guy, Graham Robertson, who decided to do whatever his imagination told him to.Here's the thing. The movie is basically, `the Disney Corporation clones Walt Disney in the far future to re-invigorate the company, but he instead struggles with his own identity and threatens the company as a whole.' This is a future so far-flung that, a la GUNDAM, mankind lives in vast spaceborn cities circling the planet, which drips with disease and acid rain. And yeah, the special effects are a little shaky-the spaceship effects are not cutting edge. Same thing as the green screen. You can those hallways are projected.And yet, and yet-hey, I go to a play, I can tell that cityscape is a model behind the window. It's like that. You watch the movie for a few minutes and you don't care. Cause here's the thing-these guys made a movie for peanuts and did what they wanted, and what they wanted turned out to be a clever homage to Citizen Kane. Scott Galbreath plays Able Edwards as if he's channeling Walt Disney himself, the queasily tyrannical, Errol-Flynn-moustached patriarch with a vision and no time for people who don't share it. Watch the way he can fire someone and smile. The idea of the movie is that Able, like Truman in THE TRUMAN SHOW, has been watched his whole life, groomed to take over the company. This means arranging everything that will happen to him (in a nod of sorts to THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL) and creating every emotional travesty. Able throws himself into his corporate role, as expected. And he immediately turns the company upside down, setting out on a vast undertaking that tracks with Disney's fight to create his theme parks. In Able's world, the draw of the parks is their danger-reality has long since been replaced with digital fun, and Able wants an actual big park, with actual animals and gravity-defying rides. As he falls in love with a designer played by Susan Allison, who really seems to have stepped out of a 40s movie here, Able's story becomes-how can I put this-you watch it and one part of your brain is going, `wow, who would have thought you could do the Disney story, Citizen Kane and Boys from Brazil-all in a Space City.' And the other half is forgetting all that and feeling genuinely affected by the tragedies of Edwards' hubris, which are vast and wrenching. I dunno. This movie-if Graham Robertson had thirty million, and not thirty thousand, I'm betting the movie would have looked about a hundred times better. But I'm also betting we would have lots about half the character development and richness of imagination, and that wouldn't really be worth the money. Robertson, a set director who decided to make a movie, has done a great thing-he's let his imagination fly and produced a 90-minute production that for all its technical limitations still affects on an emotional level. Think how easy it might have been to just make a sci-fi film, or to re-film THE ODD COUPLE, which would require no special effects. Robertson just goes for it, and it works. I hope we see more of him.