I'm already Primed for adventure!

Shane Carruth is an insanely talented man you've never heard of before. Well, I shouldn't say that so definitively. It's possible you've heard of him before, I mean, I'm sure he has relatives and whatnot (at least a mom, right...biologically he still needs to have had one of those). How I know of Mr. Carruth is through Primer, which would make my top 10 list of most inventive sci-fi films ever.

Quick side note - Should I do more lists? Like top 10 lists of this, that, and the other (well, maybe not the other...the other is an asshole). Other people do them all the time on other movie blogs, but then some readers bitch about how lists aren't really movie news, even though hellloooooo, did you really want me to spend another post describing who may or may not play Thor's loincloth scrubber or which non-American may direct The Hobbit? A sincere question you can feel free to answer, I'm here to please.

Returning to the matter at hand, Primer is soooooo gooooood because it's hella smart. Simplicity interwoven with inventive takes on popular sci-fi themes make the whole thing feel both real and entirely original. It's so great that you need to go watch it right now. Here's the trailer, which isn't revealing of anything, which is great because the surprises are the best part, but does capture the feel...even if someone went a little bonkers on the words printed on screen here.


I mention all this by way of introducing how excited I am about the new script Carruth is apparently shopping around. The Playlist has their hands on A Topiary, which is summarized as follows:

The script begins with a head-scratching thirty minute prologue involving Acre Stowe, a municipal worker of an undisclosed city in the 1980s … investigating strange starbursts he sees in the sky and eventually meets up with a group of people who are also researching this phenomenon and its consequences, amongst other scientific projects ranging in subject from thermochemistry to archaeology. The main story … revolves around ten boys aged seven to eleven living in a small rural town (Carruth is ambiguous in both location and time here) and takes up the remaining two hours of the film. The boys are in possession of a mysterious black box called a “Maker,” which in turn creates mysterious white discs called “funnels.” The group of kids are at once puzzled and fascinated by the nature of the box, and eventually manipulate the discs into other peculiarly named artifacts (petals, arcs, fronds, etc.). Their creations and constructions lead up to their manufacturing of seemingly sentient quasi-mechanical beings dubbed “Choruses.” Almost as if ‘Topiary’ were an abstract arthouse take on Pokémon, you can imagine the competition and troubles the beings create amongst the children.

I want to go to there. I want to go to there now. Dear Hollywood: Remember how this summer had been a giant turd burrito at the box office, likely because we had tired of all of the sequels and remakes. Please, please, please fund this movie. I'm hoping that if something like Inception, which looks both dazzling and original, really hits like I think it can, a movie this unique may have a chance. You have no idea how bad I want to see this thing right now.

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