A freelance media crime scene photographer (Josh
Lawson) is
drowning in the decay of what he sees in Detroit
that reality starts to blur for him.
His only friend is a police detective (Ron Perlman). His life seems to
turn around when he starts
a hot relationship with Virginia (the beautiful Emma Lung) who is 13 years
younger than him, but he takes a gun left at a crime scene which may have
consequences for him. Can he escape his
fntasies and have a future with the girl of his dreams or will the decay inside
him lead to his destruction?
CRAVE is a visually fascinating film with a great
cast. I think the cover and tag line are
misleading because CRAVE is about the chaos of one’s soul and the things he
sees at crime scenes has a detrimental impact on his reality. The production
design and cinematography are
great and I wonder what Charles de Lauzirika would do with a sci-fi movie
(since he also hangs out with Ridley Scott for the last several years making
extras for every Scott Free movie). If
you are looking for a traditional narrative and a good guy vs. bad guy
structure, you might want to look elsewhere.
However if you’re up for something different, CRAVE might be something
for you.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Audio commentary by Charles De Lauzirika and
actor Josh
Lawson
DIRECTOR’S VIDEO JOURNAL: CRAVE (over fifty
minutes)-
director Charles de Lauzirikia takes the viewers through the process of making
CRAVE from pre-production to production to final thoughts on the process in 12
video journals which reveal they picked Detroit as the best place to show the
decay of the main character’s mind (and it being cheaper than New York or Los
Angeles) to the various locations they used (and the production value they got
out of those areas) to the hooker being played by the director’s cousin to the
subway scenes being shot in Chicago (who were more production friendly to let
them shoot in them than Detroit was).
Seven deleted and extended scenes show extra
character
moments and some extra characters who saw the cut for pacing reasons, but I
wouldn’t mind some of those extended scenes seeing life again in a new cut of
CRAVE.
THE ART OF CRAVE shows storyboards from two scenes
before
Charles de Lauzrikia decided to approach the movie through more of a
documentary approach instead and the designs for various fictional products
created by Charles on his laptop (when he wasn’t happy with the initial
designs).
CRAVE AT FANTASIA has interviews with Charles
de Lauzirikia
and Josh Lawson, and the production designer of CRAVE (who has the most interesting
of the two interviews as you learn he was the production designer of BLADE
RUNNER and Charlie met him first while interviewing him for the BLADE RUNNER
extras for the BLADE RUNNER 25th anniversary blu-ray/ DVD set in
addition to learning a little about the production design of CRAVE).
Also the complete mini stage play for ONE NATION
UNDER GOD
and two trailers (the festival and theatrical/ VOD) are also included on the
blu-ray. This set is a combo pack that
also has CRAVE (in standard definition) on DVD with some of the extras from the
blu-ray.
FINAL ANALYSIS: CRAVE is a promising debut for
Charles de
Lauzirika. I would like to see what he
does with future movies beyond the great job he does with his fab making-of
documentaries for other movies like ALIEN, BLADE RUNNER, and the last two
TRANSFORMERS films. The video journals offer
a great insight into the challenges of making CRAVE.
This review is ©3-17-2014
David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. Send all comments
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