OzLand (2015)

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

A Beautiful film that evokes my favorite type of narratives. Micheal Williams delivers in this unique film. Great cinematography. I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic fiction and this one of the more unique entries into the genre. The two leads really nail it to. I strongly recommend it.

I'm actually quite a fan of post-apocalyptic movies and TV shows, and really enjoy some of latest offerings.However you really need some kind of background narrative. How did we end up here? What was the disaster? Nuclear holocaust? Environmental degradation? Disease? These answers are never only hinted at and not properly explored.The need is to reinvent a kind of post-apocalypse version of 'Gone with the Wind' despite any other logical considerations. They seemed to go to a great deal of trouble to give us a sort of 20-30 year old dilapidation, then there were recent track marks on dirt tracks, road lines painted within the last 5 years, aircraft con-trails and haircuts done with electric hair-clippers. I was also left wondering, why no old cars? No horse and cart or at least bicycles instead of all the walking? In the end I felt the whole movie was just all a homage to GWtW, but the post-Apocalypse was just a poorly written with poor continuity for a backdrop.Could have been much more, probably wasn't supposed to be, but should have been.

This should have been made into a short film. It's an interesting theory; two people alone in the world find a book, and one follows it blindly, while the other one believes in survival. The acting is not very good. Maybe they didn't have a lot to work with. I'm not sure what was going on with Leif. Is he supposed to be a boy, or is he a full grown naive man? Is this what people would be like when they've never interacted with others? Unless you have two hours to kill and nothing better to watch, save yourself the agony.Side note, this in NOT an Australian film. Oz refers to the Land of Oz, as in The Wizard of Oz. If you're reviewing this, and you think it's an Australian film, then you're about as smart as Leif....

The idea of this movie is in a way an interesting one since it basically puts this book "The Wizard of OZ" as a religion believed in so passionately by Lief that he believes that Ozland (a children's story) is an actual place and defends this belief throughout the movie; even when his friend and companion keeps trying to be the voice of reason to this kid .who isn't a kid in age but his mentality is that of a child.It's a very good idea; I mean even believable in theory. Take a post apocalyptic setting and with no trace of other Humans except for our two main characters. I mean it's not hard to see that the idea of something like a book like that could be such a huge influence for certain people who just need a break from the very harsh reality that is their life. Survival is the only things that these two exist for; one day after the other, surviving. Not much silver lining going on and both of the characters have some way of coping; both use their imagination as an escape. However, one goes a bit further and starts to have some moments where every chapter he goes through there are things that he believes to be some sort of similarity between the book and his life. I'm sure this can also in some ways be viewed differently depending on if you are a "glass half full" or "half empty" type of person. For the dreamers that view this movie; the directors intent is to have them lean in favor for Lief's ideas. For those of us that see the more realistic viewpoint we will see things through Emril's viewpoint. (think that's how you spell his name)Now in theory this is a very great concept and the story itself isn't horrible although towards the ending it gets a bit predictable. The problems here however, are the actors abilities along with the story taking much too long to get to worthy events that capture the viewers attention. I can look past the slower pacing and even the actors being sub-par (that is being generous). However the pretentious nature of the directing and script is what kills this movie. The director/writer is trying SO hard to show how talented they are that they make drastically over-simplistic settings appear to be over- exaggerated. I have never seen a movie like this where it's set in the future, you get extremely rustic settings (think 1890 farmland) and then somehow trying to sell that visually you are making this to be a visual beauty when every setting is the same. The pacing is god awful, I don't find that many people will finish this movie unless they are just movie critics watching it to tell everyone else to stay away from it.This is why it's not recommended for 1 person to do so much with the filming of a movie. This is like if Birdman's Michael Keaton character was REAL and actually made a movie trying to show off his skills to everyone else. The pretentious-ness is so dripping off of every frame. The acting itself, well; it's bad, it's SO bad that it almost makes this movies director/writer/producer look GOOD, that's how bad this movie is and I almost think that they were cast specifically to NOT take away from this person trying to be a triple threat behind the camera. Idea is good, solid original idea which is what caught my attentionEverything else however is either sub par or well below par or over done /over produced, under-directed actors but over directed settings. I wrote this because whatever that review is on the page that has like 9/10 stars and PRAISES this movie, it has got to be someone on the cast of that film or the writer/director/producer themselves trying to talk up the movie. Stay away from this movie, even if the idea sounds neat; it's not worth the nearly 2 hour run time, the horrible acting and directing and i didn't talk about the ending but WOW dripping with bull crap like the guy couldn't find a way to end the damn movie (nearly 2 hrs of nothing) and then just said OK and gave the most cheesy ugly anti-everything climatic ending in the history of film!