Parts Per Billion

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source: Parts Per Billion

In my opinion, this movie is a contender for one of the worse movies I've ever scene. Just my opinion, but....! So, in a sense, this review is, indeed, a spoiler cause anyone who reads it may not rent or buy it cause I consider it such a terrible production. The acting is not that good and the director must have been inexperienced. In short, I'm sorry I rented it.

This movie was very depressing and moved along very slowly with the actors mainly talking to each other with infrequent action and love scenes. The script could have been better written but the cinematography was excellent and the actors did a good job considering what material they had to work with.

But with a Whimper, that is how the world ends" So wrote TS Eliot. Spoiler Alert, some plot points revealed. I have seen many of the, "End of the World" scenarios played out, of late. This one takes a more intimate approach then many, closer in spirit to movies like, "Melancholia" which only hinted at the global repercussions. Three or more couples, journey to meet their fate. The cutting from past to present,to a possible future, is done seemingly randomly, As is the mixing and interweaving of each couples background recollections. It's all here folks, the love and the tears, the hopes and the fears, only in the end to seem pathetic and meaningless. with the exception of the little girl shot, which if showing the future offers the possibility of redemption. Ultimately it did get wearisome, toward the end, even all the passionate embraces could not enliven. I am grateful for these independent films to hire senior actors,and younger actors too. There were a few touching moments, scenes well played, I liked the soap label scene, having had personally met Dr Bronner, of the "All One" persuasion. I thought the "sick boy" parable was creditable. I suppose my biggest objection with, "Parts in a Billion" was the seeming haphazard editing. For example; We see a nurses body, and then we flashback to get the story of the nurse. Things like that made the events anti climatic. Not a good story telling device. The actors took their parts in earnest, the film was capably shot, with good production values, The music was marginal, pared down to suit the action. last word, Yeah, it was a depressingly serious little movie.

Brian Horiuchi's "Parts per Billion" is about rising chaos as trade winds blow toxins from the Middle East westward, but the focus is on the characters and how they try to get on with their lives amid the disorder. I interpret this to mean that the movie's gist is that we have to avoid giving into sheer hysteria when something bad happens. We've seen how psychotic people can get when they're scared, whether with 9/11 or with Ebola. As for the movie itself, most of it came across as a little slow. I did think that "Outbreak" (which emphasized the biology) and "Contagion" (which depicted the government agencies as competent*) were better. *This is in stark contrast to the movies that portray the rugged individual saving the day.

So sad, that this movie has not hit the theater screens and has only been released as a DVD/Blu-Ray disc. So sad, that too many Hollywood consumers have lost their souls to big money sci-fi flicks. Remember sci-fi movies by Andrei Tarkovsky. There was a time when cinema was not all about special effects, but poetry, realism, and surrealism. This movie is wonderful and dreadful at the same time. If you care for real cinema, go watch it now. The acting is excellent. The dialogues are outstandingly smart. There is no reason why you would deprive you from watching it. It's a billion times better than 1995's Outbreak. For a first movie of his own, Brian Horiuchi is signing a masterpiece that so many people will not see, because it's a true UFO in the Hollywood jungle. "They are unripe and only fit for green boys." says Jean de La Fontaine in 'The Fox and the Grapes' fable, quoting a stupid fox unable to reach his meal, only capable of complaining and moaning. Like Threads, the 1984 BAFTA award-winning BBC television drama, Parts Per Billion provides a highly depressing experience. Though, Horiuchi makes it a bit less straightforward, less graphic, and chooses to focus more on the relationships between human beings, like in Melancholia (2011). Only, these beings are less sophisticated than in Lars Von Trier's movie. Though they are chosen ones, they look like simple and common individuals with valid, simple thoughts, but also so living, so unique, and so exceptional beings. The characters do express genuine sincerity like in François Truffaut and Wim Wenders' movies. They sound precise and exact. The only drawback is a shaking camera, the reason why I don't vote 10/10 but only 9/10. Such an intense drama would have benefited an adequate, more professional handling. So, let's change the director of photography next time. And I hope it's not Brian Horiuchi's last movie despite a likely loss of cash. We need independent directors to remind us that intelligent cinema is still alive, and really enjoy their movies.

Essentially, there is a virus that is gonna kill everyone. there are several couples in the film, and they tell each other how much they love each other, over and over again, for one and a half hours. I kept thinking something was going to happen. The lines are pretty poor, they attempt to sound really deep and meaningful, but in reality, if you have seen a film about couples in love, you will have heard all the same garbage before. It includes lines such as, I love you, I have never met anyone like you, I'm so lucky to have you, I never want to lose you. Yep, all classic lines that even someone who has just started learning English as a second language, could muster in an attempt to perform a Nigerian 419 Scam.

Watched this on Netflix, and it became so tedious I started to fast-forward through the prolonged, meaningless rounds of chatter. The ending was so incomplete you might think that they all just decided to call it quits and walked off the set. It was an interesting premise, the status of relationships against the backdrop of a global health crisis. However, the crisis itself wasn't developed in a believable manner. Dude is playing basketball blissfully unaware that an airborne chemical weapon is drifting to the US, after having left hundreds of millions dead in the Middle East and Europe. (Really, that didn't turn up in his news-feed?) And there was little reflection within the relationship, in regard to these terrifying events, as most of what you are subjected to is the events in their lives prior to the release of the toxin.

I kept watching thinking surely this movie would develop and do something other than bad mush. The bubble gum philosophy was mangled to the point it begged to be put out of it's misery. The acting was first rate but the script doesn't even move enough to be coherent or incoherent. It just lays there softly whimpering and perhaps whimpering is too strong a word. It would be impossible to write a spoiler for this movie since something would need to happen to spoil. What a waste of a great cast. Give me a week and I could write something considerably better than this. Even the romantic angle was bled out so painfully slow with so many pointless interruptions that it does not even rate up with a trashy romance novel. Save your eyes, mind and any other organs you wish to spare the agony of enduring this movie.