Reviewed by Jason Meckes

Sometimes a movie so amazing, so polished, so seemingly perfect comes out that it changes the face of movie-making as we used to know it. A movie so beautifully constructed, with a plot stronger than oak, and the most gifted group of vocalists caressing every decible, that the masses can't help but marvel in awe. A director so astounding in his ideas that he could eclipse Confucius himself. Sometimes this movie is so brilliant that even those who have seen it's awesome glory can't fully comprehend or appreciate it's intricacy. And sometimes a pretty decent movie in it's own right is released the day after such a prodigy.

This is a review of just such a movie.

Pamela, the film noir instant classic by director Aaron Haynes, is what one could simply call 'amazing.' Of course, those who would end it with that one word deserve to be impaled by a stretched cube, and each and any orifice is fair game. Released in the final stretches of the Summer Film Festival of 2004, Pamela is the conglomeration of just about every good detective parody ever put to form. Borrowing ideas from video games, classic movies, recognizable actors, earlier 3d movies, and even brilliant Sunday comics, Aaron Haynes pieces together a style that is incredibly cohesive, whether or not that adjective really fits the bill or not. Assuming that it does, the metaphor of Pamela's style being a gluish substance is certainly fitting. This glue, however, only contains all of the quality lubricated horse-hide, and none of the annoying long, sticky trails of white around one's magazine paper...But I digress. Indeed, all of the areas that make a movie great are stuck to Pamela's style, and there they fester in a mass of cinema one can only consider "amazing."



As pointed out by other reviewers, Pamela does stick to the tried-and-true syllabus for an authentic 30's detective movie: Damsels, distress, and dysentery. Well, granted, some of this is totally unique to the film noir genre, but it all works incredibly well. The largest difference between Haynes' modern classic and the films it is largely based on is that Pamela is a comedy. Unlike similar movies, Pamela remains respectful to the genre, while only creating subtle jabs and jokes about these detective stories. I can not consider Pamela a parody because, simply, it isn't. This is a true comedy, a comedy put into film noir style, not being a parasitic to the genre. It's as if Pamela sets out on an actual plot, navigates accordingly, and then allows comedy in as necessary. This movie does not revolve around it's humor, rather the humor revolves around the movie. Think about that. Because I'm too tired to do that for myself.

The music in Haynes' movie is simply incredibly fitting. This is an understatement, however. Pamela features a soundtrack that seems to be designed specifically for it and it's prime moments. The cues hit at just the right moments to make my (Mentally elongated) ears spike up, and thus allowed me to fully capture whatever moment was onscreen to it's fullest. After experiencing these moments, other such mentally elongated body parts of mine began to spike up as well. Jon Barton provides what can be considered the backbone of Pamela's skeletal style. Often on tangents other than what we are being shown onscreen, his performance and the lines written for him are equally impressive and hilarious. Barton is so spot-on, however, that we begin to take whatever he says as completely understandable and sensible, when really we could be missing an excellent joke or description if we fade into the deliciousness of the scenery. These are the problems that come with such high quality, however.



As I alluded to earlier, the visuals in Pamela are simply in a class of their own. You can not compare the scenery to any movie yet made. That's not to say that it is better, technically, than, say, Powerplay 1 (Add a few more commas here), but that such a discrete, yet mind-blowing usage of the expansion textures and intelligent building that no movie has yet come close to this look. Unlike such previous efforts at intentional darkness, Haynes adds proper shadow and light work to each scene. So much so that scenes that look to be mostly black screen are probably more complicated than those set outdoors. Animation as a whole is just as I would expect: brilliant. Everything moves, and wonderfully at that. This movie does truly put me to shame, and animation is one area which I truly do pride myself. While there aren't many handmade characters to be found throughout this piece, Haynes' mastery over the default characters and the world around them is simply stunning. A previous problem I had with some of Aaron's older work is the occasional cross-hatching (Placing two textures atop each other so that the colors change wildly) is almost eliminated in this movie. The opening scene had this fear at full-level, but instead I was treated to an incredible moving image of exceptionally intertwined 2d/3d techniques. Yee hoody!



There are lots of hidden puns and jokes in Pamela which I'm sure I haven't even caught half of yet. Heck, there's even play with 3d movie that haven't been released yet. Pamela is a haven for the little things, and that's what's beautiful about it. Scenery, jokes, expressions, they all have more than meets the eye. This is a movie that can stay fresh for upwards of 30 watches a month, though I do not intend to test if my words hold true. Instead, I think I'll just watch the guilty pleasure that is the vomit scene a good 80-90 times in it's place. Never before has directing been so well-connected with what is being portrayed onscreen and off, and the aforementioned scene is just the slightest example of this. The camera is so active and full of it's own story that we can sometimes be overwhelmed when it is used in conjunction to Barton's euphonics and Haynes' own visual stun. As hinted to earlier, this movie's largest flaw is it's perfection.. it is so polished that it's almost too slippery to tread upon! In fact, it's a good bet that most of us will fall once or twice, but we'll all return and give it another try until we cross whatever floor or ice rink I was using as a metaphor there.

While I loved Pamela, I really did, it would not be fair to say that it is my favorite movie of all time, or even my favorite Aaron Haynes movie thus far. It is brilliant in every respect, but it doesn't quite hold the charm that I felt his work in REDUX held. While strikingly original, Pamela barely out-nudged such personal favorites as In the Box and Apparent Lack of a Sniper in it's appeal to me. While this is certainly an achievement, and does place it somewhere within my top 10, I knew all along that Aaron is capable of even greater, more enthralling things. I believe that the future will show my statements to be quite true. Pamela is still one of the greatest movies ever made, but Aaron Haynes has done better. Also, for what it's worth, my favorite part of the movie was the incredibly-well choreographed and animated PAM near the end. What's even more incredible is that this all took place in default scenery. That, my friends, is talent. I reckon.



9.2/10
So original, so hilarious, and so well polished is this movie that Haynes' only competition is himself