"There’s a headlong temerity to Mr. Johnson’s style that places the dippy thrill of moviemaking front and center, revealing a director (and a character) so high on his power to misrepresent reality that a future in politics seems all but assured." - Jeannette Catsoulis (The New York Times)
"It's impressive to see how Johnson manages tone in the film, as things go from sort of giddy and fun at the start to increasingly paranoid and then eventually taking a turn into a sort of brutal sadness." - Drew McWeeny (HitFix)
"While the movie balances a spirited celebration of America’s space race ingenuity with a satire about the cleverness of mass deceit, it’s hard to ignore the one thing Operation Avalanche understands implicitly: whether you’re a believer or a skeptic, a well-crafted image can sell anything." - Robert Abele (Los Angeles Times)
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"This is one of those good lies, like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny." - Matt Johnson
[Steve]
Ahoy folks, welcome to part two of Matt Johnson month. This week we'll be watching/discussing his second feature, the history-bending OPERATION AVALANCHE (2016).
What if the moon landing actually was fabricated? Matt Johnson & co. explore what an alternate America circa 1967 would look like had that conspiracy theory been true.
To no one's surprise, OPERATION AVALANCHE blends equal parts hilarity and paranoia, as due to technical difficulties, NASA is unable to land on the moon until 1971. And of course, our favourite mastermind Matt Johnson is quick on his feet to ensure this landing "happens" as soon as possible...
Matt Johnson and Owen Williams (who both starred in last week's THE DIRTIES) return here, again starring as "themselves." Similarly to Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of TIM AND ERIC fame, Matt and Owen seem to always play different versions of themselves, further blurring the lines between reality and fiction.
Through Johnson's characteristic social engineering and manipulation, we see Johnson tinker behind the scenes, both outside of and within the narrative, to turn one more setback into another success. Johnson & co.'s cunning tactics convince the CIA higher-ups to let them proceed with their staged moon landing, so as to beat the Russians to the moon.
OPERATION AVALANCHE differs from Johnson's previous efforts like NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW and THE DIRTIES in the sense that much of what we see on-screen here is more or less constructed from a script, whereas with the aforementioned works, much of what results on-camera is improvised within the public sphere and edited in post to form some semblance of a narrative.
I'll divulge more details during our discussion, but a fun fact about OPERATION AVALANCHE: Johnson & co. wanted to greenscreen Matt into documentary footage of the filming of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY by the late great Stanley Kubrick, however, no such footage exists.
So in keeping with the manipulatory nature of the film, editor Curt Lobb and Visual Effects Supervisor Tristan Zerafa were able to splice together their own footage of Kubrick stills and make faux conversation between Kubrick and Johnson, which they use in the film. Neat!
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Join us Sunday, February 8 at 10am at the Red Brick Cafe for our second discussion of Matt Johnson month!
You can watch the film for free on Kanopy, as well as stream it here: https://youtu.be/Td3sNSOEf9g?si=6Fi6djJ0CYPY6N34
Happy watching! 👨🚀🚀🌚
