The new documentary from Room 237's Rodney Ascher asks if we live in a computer simulation
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Rodney Ascher is one of the most exciting documentarians working today. In films like Room 237 and The Nightmare, he set logic aside and allowed Kubrick conspiracy theorists and sufferers of sleep paralysis to unspool their obsessions, crackpot as they might be. The emphasis isn’t on proving any given idea, but in highlighting the spiral of the mind, the mythologies we create and then cling to. Rest assured, then, that when we tell you his new movie is about people who believe we live in a computer simulation, that Ascher himself is not also making that argument. He is, however, entertaining it.
A Glitch In The Matrix is slated to debut at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, and a synopsis promises “contemporary cultural touchstones like The Matrix, interviews with real people shrouded in digital avatars, and a wide array of voices, expert and amateur alike.”
And here’s Ascher himself: “The film was an amazing opportunity to engage with big ideas and explore animation and science-fiction inspired imagery on the biggest canvas I’ve ever had, so I’m thankful we’re in such good hands to get it out into the world.”
Watch the trailer below, preferably while stoned:
A Glitch In The Matrix arrives on February 21, following its Sundance premiere.
[via Dread Central]
36 Comments
The trailer and the official website both say February 5.
It’s a conspiracy OR ALIENS.
“ALIENS” as in immigrants or as in extraterrestrials?Or… as in both? My God, are the Greys behind the White Genocide!? It makes sense, that’s the only logical explanation for why the term “alien” can be used to refer to either group. The Islamic crescent represents their Moon base. The Star of David was a real star all along. Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams, but I bet UFO fuel can – that’s what the holographic projectors were actually for, to disguise the flying saucers as Boeing 767s.
Build a space wall and make Zeta Reticuli pay for it!
In films like Room 237 and The Nightmare, he set logic aside and allowed Kubrick conspiracy theorists and sufferers of sleep paralysis to unspool their obsessions, crackpot as they might be. Can we be done promoting crackpots who are “just asking questions?”What elevates this documentary above the countless Flat Earthers and Anti-Vaxxers out there?Stop it.
Because there’s artistic and cultural value in exploring subcultures of people who don’t necessarily share the same beliefs/ideas as you and I. I haven’t seen Nightmares, but Room 237 is pretty direct and clear about letting the subjects speak for themselves, while also making it clear the interview is not an endorsement.If you can’t discern the difference between depiction and endorsement, you might be just as susceptible to suggestion as the flat earthers and antivaxxers.
Well put. Was going to respond with something similar but you nailed it better than I could.
Thank you. I’m so tired of the current culture of “Shut up if I don’t agree with you.” I want to understand why people think the things they do and they only way to find that out is to let them speak. Just dismissing fringe or unusual beliefs as the works of kooks is arrogant and myopic.
It’s also eliding any subtlety; of course there’s a difference between a movie like this and, say, What the Bleep Do We Know, a “documentary” that directly posits unproven pseudoscience as revolutionary new thinking. Like did this guy watch Les Blank’s Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers and scream about how irresponsible it is to propagate the idea that garlic has healing properties?
See also: People who cannot enjoy a movie or TV show unless it espouses their values at all times and everyone who made it is also on the same team.
Humans make things up because they are bored.
“In the beginning man realized he was bored eating and humping. So he climbed down from his tree and imagined something. Thus reality was born.”
he was bored eating and humpingSee, already a flaw in your hypothesis.
My coach Mr. Schiff who looked like Eugene Levy’s head on Sylvester Stallone’s body used to tell us, “If you’re hungry and horny, go fuck a sandwich. Now get back on the field.” LOL!
Is this a quote from somewhere because I really want it to be the start of a book so I can read it. 🙂
There was a documentary released about flat earthers called Behind the Curb. Let me tell you first hand that letting them explain it for themselves with an objective documentarian did nothing to make the subjects look sane or justified in their beliefs (in fact, there’s a point where the main subject performs an experiment that hilariously disproves his belief of a flat earth). It was, however, an interesting look into a culture that’s sprung up around probably the dumbest conspiracy theory out there.
Anyone who still believes “sunlight is the best disinfectant” after watching Donald Trump’s 2016 victory and record setting 2020 turnout (despite losing) is beyond help.
hey they interviewed a marked man
No. Or, if yes, I don’t particularly care. Freaking out over simulated universes is all just tedious techbro wankery unconsciously designed to replace the religions they’ve dismissed as silly and irrational. “WHAT IF AN ALL-POWERFUL AI FROM THE FUTURE IS REACHING BACK IN TIME TO PUNISH THE PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T WORK TO BRING IT INTO EXISTENCE?!?! THINK ABOUT IT, YOU GUYS!”
I recently took DMT and I can understand now why people who do too many drugs believe that shit. It was like someone unplugged the simulation for a minute and I “woke up” as everything became realer than real, and as the effects wore off there were pixelated windows back into the real world that gradually filled my whole field of vision. Shit looked exactly like something a computer would do. It still gives me the shudders.
That’s DMT for ya. That shit is weird. Did you see the elves?
Sort of. My buddy who provided it turned into a kind of malevolent spirit that had tricked me into the DMT world. Like somehow the reality I left was never real, or by smoking the DMT it ceased to be real, and now because of him I was stuck there for all eternity. And he kept throwing me back into a sort of loop whenever I tried to fight it. If that’s what’s waiting outside the Matrix I understand why Cypher wanted to be plugged back in.
I’ve always felt that there’s a good chance the answer is yes. I also feel like it doesn’t matter whether we live in a simulation or not: Absent verifiable information, things that seem like reality should be treated as such.
Yep. My landlord sure doesn’t give a shit if everything’s an illusion–at least not on rent day.
I’d argue that “rent day” is part of a construct meant to perpetuate the idea that you “need” to pay “rent” to have a roof over your head by a “landlord.”
I guess non-religion is the new religion.
Jfc, this dumb idea just wont die. NO, WE DONT LIVE IN A FUCKIN’ SIMULATION. People smoke too much weed and watch too many bad movies.
New documentary dares to ask the question: Can we trust the B in Room 237?
She assassinated JFK, I’m making a documentary about it.
OMG!
This is the kind of bullshit that the WORST college roommate I ever had would indulge in. The kind of shit the rest of us might think up, for about a second, at the age of 12, then shake our heads at what a stupid idea it was. He was a fucking idiot who thought he was the smartest person in the room and he would go screaming apeshit at the sight of anyone watching TV. Many of you are too young to remember this but just a few decades ago pretentious assholes would actually yell at you for watching TV. Even if you tried explaining to them that you had a long day and were tired and just needed to vegg out for an hour. They would be furious.
I’m too young. I yell at people for using the internet.
If we are in a simulation, Humanity/2020 was the worst fucking game ever.
A simulation with a trump-sized bug would simply not launch.
What always annoys me with all these “omg the matrix never thought of that what if it’s true” is that such questions are SO OLD, and date from so long before computers. All the philosophy of perception, with Leibniz’ idea that we’re just monades watching a pre-recorded movie or George Berkeley claiming that while perception of matter existed, matter itself didn’t (nothing is there when no one looks). Actually, Leibniz all others also mulled over the “what if everything is a dream” question and its moral implications. Centuries ago.But yeah, OMFG matrix.
It’s a combination of freshman philosophy and freshman theology. “Roko’s basilisk” is just Pascal’s wager dressed up in techbro speak, etc.
What makes the “life is a simulation” argument different than the predecessors to the idea is that we actually have the ability to create simulations and have a greater understanding of them than just a sort of vague metaphysical idea. So while the idea is not wholly new, the advent of computers allows us to have a more tangible way to understand it. And it’s just for fun, you shouldn’t let someone thinking something inconsequential annoy you.