Pleasureland
2001, NR, 18 min. Directed by Bryan Poyser. Starring Jacob Vaughan, Karen Skloss, Sarah Gill-Williams, Elle Klein, Dandi Hamann, Carlos Garza, Ryan Willingham.
REVIEWED By Marjorie Baumgarten, Wed., April 11, 2001
The inspired pairing of this short film and feature is the work of Bryan Poyser, the director of "Pleasureland" and the co-founder of the CinemaTexas Short Film Festival. Eerily similar in theme, both films deal with the darker side of sex and fantasies. Both films are grounded in artistic aesthetics that emphasize compulsively repetitive actions and combine the mundane with the utterly fantastic. Both films deal nakedly with sexual content. In "Pleasureland," the porn videos taken home from the store by the protagonist come to life and interact with him. Each return trip to the video store ups the ante. In Migrating Forms, a couple repeatedly makes small talk before sex and then act out provocatively during sex. Fotopoulos' film has won numerous awards, including Best Feature at the New York Underground Film Festival, and Top 10 runner-up in Amy Taubin's year-end list in The Village Voice.
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Marc Savlov, March 12, 2010
Kimberley Jones, Dec. 4, 2009
Richard Whittaker, Aug. 22, 2014
Richard Whittaker, Jan. 31, 2013
Marjorie Baumgarten, Feb. 14, 2014
Marc Savlov, Sept. 3, 2004
Pleasureland, Bryan Poyser, Jacob Vaughan, Karen Skloss, Sarah Gill-Williams, Elle Klein, Dandi Hamann, Carlos Garza, Ryan Willingham