Stingray Sam

Cory McAbee is an interesting figure, to be sure. The main talent behind the 1990s Alt-Rock cult band (cult band or never made its, tough call, this one) The Billy Nayer Show, he also directed one of the more overlooked American films of the last decade or two. The American Astronaut", released in 2001, is kinda like an American Guy Maddin film, trading the latter's Eurocentrism and decadence for a much more American sense of iconography and tone. It did alright, and you'll still hear people talking about it now and then, to a point, but it seems like the victim of an International Film Culture that just doesn't prize this kind of (willful) eccentricity.

So what did he do? Position the next film on the web. "Stingray Sam" did get taken around to some theatrical screenings, but its made up of a series of episodes, perfect for streaming on the web. The first two are free, the rest you have to buy, with a DVD option if you get real excited. It's all on his website, I guess.

I still feel really ambivalent about this kind of thing, this method of viewing and selling movies - I really dislike the Webisode concept, even if ninety percent of my disgust comes from the word Webisode. What he seems to have done right, and what we should all think about and try to emulate, is make an entirely "scalable" work; it can be chopped up into parts, screened on Youtube or the big screen, turned into a live performance or a soundtrack album, and the interior sense of the work as its own thing would not be ruined or diminished.