Fast, Cheap & Out of Control

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Product Details

Director : Errol Morris
Actor : Dave Hoover, George Mendonça, Ray Mendez (II), Rodney Brooks
Format : Import, NTSC
Binding : VHS Tape
EAN : 9780800182595
Product Group : Video
Release Date : 1999-03-16
UPC : 043396238138

ASIN : 0800182596

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Editorial Reviews

From Amazon.com

George, Dave, Ray, and Rodney. Not a singing group, but four real-life individuals dedicated to controlling the entities that don't take kindly to their efforts. George Mendonca is a topiary gardener who spends his time taming tendrils of plant life into animal shapes. Why? Because he can, and apparently it's no easy job. One slip of the clipper and a green and leafy body part can go bye-bye for years. Dave Hoover takes on big cats under the big top. An admirer of the famous lion tamer, Clyde Beatty, Dave comes out of the lion ring covered with sweat. Not from working hard, but from hand-trembling fear. Ray Mendez, a mole-rat expert, waxes eloquently about the social structure of these sightless, hairless natural wonders who wear their teeth on the outside of their lips. But if you want to see a real wacko at work, watch Rodney Brooks, a robotics expert who is convinced our extinction will be the first step in a takeover of tin men.

In Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, documentarian Errol Morris proves that the weird and obscure are just as interesting as the rich and famous. Morris tries to add depth to his subjects with his out-of-control editing technique, which after a while becomes an annoying distraction; these guys are fascinating enough all by themselves. The blare of the background music is also a bit much. Despite these shortcomings, though, if you like taking a voyeuristic peek into other people's lives, Fast, Cheap & Out of Control gives you plenty to look at. --Luanne Brown

Customer Reviews

compelling (2005-12-30)

this movie had a strong effect on me, but i also saw more in it than just the desire to control things. the 4 subjects really reflect different aspects of life.the lion tamer is a bit scary, in that he violently intimidates beasts. the gardener is amazingly skilled, but laments that he has no apprentice. when he dies, his 'art' will dissappear. the mole rat man describes a mammal that literally changes due to its social position (like insects), offering a scary social idea when applied to humans, who also have highly specialized social positions. the robotics researcher believes all organic things are a series of 'yes/no' sensors, and dreams of making a robot cockroach, requiring about 6 million (?) sensors. this idea is also scary when applied to humans, as if humans are souless organic computers, just a series of programmings.all 4 subjects offer a wildly different take on the human condition, and all strike me as true. i don't give it 5 stars, because it is long and meandering, but it is definitely a great film.

Not Good. (2004-07-02)

'Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control' was a film I lost interest in very quickly. I turned it off after about 30 minutes.

Excellent documentary (2004-06-23)

Documentarian Errol Morris points his lens at four men who are attempting to exert control over and wrest meaning from the raw stuff of nature through highly idiosyncratic means. They include a topiary gardener, a lion tamer, an expert on the naked mole rat (the only mammal that has the same social organization as insects), and a roboticist. They each discuss the intricacies of their individual callings; the parallels and recurring themes that emerge result in a rather touching meditation on man's drive to impose control on his environment.

It is also worth noting that each of these men is clearly happy, at least when working. In this way, they show us how to be truly alive--find your passion, let it consume you, and don't worry whether the reviewer for Amazon.com thinks you are a weirdo.

Field guide to the nerds (2004-02-02)

Well, not really. This is, however, a field study of men passionate about some self-taught, arcane body of knowledge. It really does come across like those nature shows where the camera has intruded into the lives of wild animals. (Yes, the subjects are all men. Why no women might be an interesting conversation, but irrelevant here.)

One of the subjects is in fact a fan of an exotic "mole rat", a social mammal with a distinctly non-mammalian society. He studies that animal almost the way the movie studies him. Other analogies emerge - the roboticist wants to create societies of robots much more like the mole rats' than like human societies. The gardener is another creator, sculpting menageries from living plants. The lion tamer is likewise intent on understanding and shaping the living beings with which he interacts. He, like the mole rat researcher, tries to understand the mind that lives in a very non-human brain.

The editing of this movie is patchy and quirky, but that is part of its charm. There's no action here, no plot, just four real characters. They are characters much larger than life. They are passionate about what they do, and their joy in their chosen fields is unmistakable. Maybe that is the movie's point - to prove that such joy exists and to give it a human face, four times over.

A Review Haiku by Todd Marrone (2003-12-16)

Compelling premisethat never gets off the ground,you'll only watch once.

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