Are its critiques of the media particularly insightful or new? No, we've had plenty of stories about "if it bleeds, it leads" media mentality and people using violence as a means of achieving immortality. Is the story particularly strong? Not really, it kinda ebbs and flows and is really unsurprising with its twists. But even still there is something really compelling to me about Star Time. Maybe I just have a lot of admiration for Cassini's ambitious direction, shamelessly attempting to capture the styles of other directors like Lynch or Cronenberg with dreamy editing and a generally off-kilter tone to everything. It's a barebones cast but each performer really sells their role in the whole narrative, particularly Ryan's performance as the Svengali-esque villain who delivers the somewhat clunky monologues about society with enough conviction to balance everything out. It's a satisfying slasher with at least a little brain behind it to keep it interesting to sit with and enough surprisingly striking images to make the whole thing worth a watch.
Are its critiques of the media particularly insightful or new? No, we've had plenty of stories about "if it bleeds, it leads" media mentality and people using violence as a means of achieving immortality. Is the story particularly strong? Not really, it kinda ebbs and flows and is really unsurprising with its twists. But even still there is something really compelling to me about Star Time. Maybe I just have a lot of admiration for Cassini's ambitious direction, shamelessly attempting to capture the styles of other directors like Lynch or Cronenberg with dreamy editing and a generally off-kilter tone to everything. It's a barebones cast but each performer really sells their role in the whole narrative, particularly Ryan's performance as the Svengali-esque villain who delivers the somewhat clunky monologues about society with enough conviction to balance everything out. It's a satisfying slasher with at least a little brain behind it to keep it interesting to sit with and enough surprisingly striking images to make the whole thing worth a watch.
