TiMER
In the future, we'll all be implanted with timers that counts down the days, hours and minutes until you find your soul-mate, as you can see in the above trailer. Sadly, main character Oona's (Emma Caulfield) timer is blank, so she really has no idea when she'll meet her other half, and is tired of men leaving her when they find "the one." I'm actually very excited about this sweet little film, especially since Desmond Harrington is in it along with Caulfield. Did you notice the other Buffy alum? (It's Halfrek, AKA Kali Rocha)? TiMER's world premiere will be at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26th.

What's In The Box?

Slashfilm pointed out this amazing test footage from What's In The Box? The footage (above) shows the scramblings of some poor soul as the world comes to an end, or is shifted to another dimension, or ... actually, I have no clue. The movie borrows from Half-Life and Lost (for the music). Watch closely for clues as to what this intense, end of the world movie really is. And then, please tell me.

Tokyo!

Tokyo! is in the same family as the indiesParis Je T'aime and New York I Love You which are celebrations of mythic urban landscapes and the people that inhabit these big cities. Michael Gondry, Leos Carax and Joon-ho Bong all directed three shorts to this movie, and each one is beautiful in its own right. In August of 2008, Tokyo! was released in Japan. This March, it's currently getting a limited release in U.S. theaters and we wanted to make sure you were aware, because it's a thing of beauty.

"Interior Design " by Michel Gondry

A young couple tries to set themselves up in Tokyo. The young man's ambition is clear - to become a film director. His girlfriend, far more indecisive, cannot escape the vague feeling that she's losing control of her life. Directionless, both are beginning to go under in this vast city until the young woman, utterly alone, becomes the object of a bizarre transformation.

"Merde" by Leos Carax

A mysterious creature spreads panic in the streets of Tokyo by means of his provocative and destructive behavior. This man, dubbed "The Creature of the Sewers" by the media, arouses both passion and repulsion...until the moment he is captured.

"Shaking Tokyo" by Bong Joon-Ho

For more than 10 years, he's been a hikikomori (shut-in). He lives shut up in his apartment, strictly limiting all contact with the outside world to an absolute minimum. When a pizza delivery girl faints in his home during an earthquake, the unthinkable happens - he falls in love. Shortly after, he learns that the girl has in turn become a hikikomori. Will he dare cross the threshold that separates his apartment from the rest of the world?

The line of for this year's Tribeca Film Festival has been announced, and it includes two films we're all excited about.

The first one is TiMER, starring Emma Caulfield (best known as the demon Anya) as Oona. In Oona's world, everyone wears an implant on their wrist that counts down until the day the wearer finds true love. But Oona's is blank, which means her soul mate doesn't have his/her device implanted. So instead of waiting for the timer to kick in, Oona falls for the young supermarket clerk John Patrick (Gossip Girl) whose timer is set for four months from now. The flick is both directed and penned by Jac Schaeffer.

The non-fiction film the Transcendent Man follows futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil, as he speculates on the future of artificial intelligence. Directed by Barry Ptolemy, the film follows Kurzweil as he discusses what he believes is the next phase of evolution, while diving into some tech-heavy examples. When will the robot-human merging happen? According to Kurzweil, in about 30 years. So you make the call: is he a crackpot, or a visionary?

Transcendent Man Trailer:

Check out the rest of the Tribeca festival line over at their site. The festival runs from April 22 until May 3.

Director Aristomenis Tsirbas' feature length movie was sparked from its original short (also called Terra). It begins on the planet Terra. A peaceful society of tadpole beings with large, innocent eyes and no legs inhabits a world where the atmosphere is made up of helium. The Terrians live together up high in a tree/mushroom village among flying whale-esque creatures that swim among the clouds.

Giddy, Mala, and Lt. James Stanton from Terra.

Among the mushroom homes lives the main character Mala (Evan Rachel Wood), a rambunctious young lady fighting with her father, Roven (Dennis Quaid), for the freedom to do what she wants. They get into a big argument over Mala's passion for gadgetry and he worries that her tinkering will offend the gods. Moments after the big blow out, large spaceships descend upon the Terra city capturing frightened Terrians in their green tractor beams. Some citizens scream and hide while others call it, "a miracle" and willingly hover in the ships' way hoping for capture. Mala's father is taken by one of the ships (and to think they just fought, how timely!). Eager to get her father back Mala follows one downed space craft and comes face-to-tadpole with the human Lt. James Stanton (Luke Wilson). Stanton has little air and quickly passes out, looking for answers Mala sneaks him back into her village.

Stanton was accompanied by his robot companion/helper named Giddy. This endearing little orange robot scurries on all fours with jet propeller feet and a communicator tail. Giddy is by far the best character in Terra. Voiced by comedian David Cross, Giddy is the mediator between both sides and is the only one offering logic. His robot eyes beam understanding into Mala's brain and low and behold she can speak English. After figuring out how to turn her helium atmosphere into an oxygen tent for Stanton, Mala agrees to fix Stanton's ship but in exchange he must bring her to her father.

During the whole getting-to-know-you scene, Stanton explains why all the dramatics about Terra. The human race used up all the resources up on Earth and then terraformed Venus and Mars. But it wasn't enough, a civil war started between the two planets and everything was destroyed. Now the refugees have to live on a run-down space ship called the Arc and travel the universe in search of a new planet. Too bad for the Terrians, because the humans are voting on whether or not they should colonize it — which would mean destruction for all life on Terra as they convert with their scary "transformer" spider machine the helium atmosphere into oxygen.

Meanwhile back on the Arc a power crazed General Hemmer (Brian Cox) declares martial law and decides it's in everyones best interest if the humans kill everyone on Terra and take it for themselves. Throwing the president in the brig, he begins preparing for the war at hand. Mala and Stanton make it back to Stanton's ship only to discover that the captured Terrians are being tortured. Cut to ridiculously overdramatic scene where Mala finds her weakend father only to have him take her human gun and turn it on his captors while locking Mala in another room. This of course leads to him blowing a hole in the wall and they all get sucked into space.

So Mala is now pissed and Stanton tries to explain to other humans that the Terrians are a peaceful people, but it falls on deaf ears. Mala almost dies...again, until Stanton orders Gibby to protect Mala and Gibby brings Mala back home. Back on her home planet the Terrians are mounting for war and reveal that they have high-end weapons after all, they were just kept secret. Next thing you know, both Mala and Stanton are loading up into their fighter ships and taking off for battle.

War is hell and a lot of computer animated characters die. In the midst of the battle the humans deposit the massive transformer on Terra's ground and begin to change the atmosphere of the planet. In a brave and completely out of left field move Stanton decides that genocide is wrong and drives his plane into the transformer Independence Day style, thus stopping the whole transformation process and saving the lives of Terrians everywhere. After Stanton's sacrifice it fast forwards to the future and you see that somehow humans and Terrians forgave each other and now humans live in their own little bio-dome on Terra with a giant statue of Stanton in the middle of their habitat.

The homes are beautiful, the flying whales are lovely, the characters are adorable, even the oddly shaped humans are likable but when the characters are thrust into all-out war it darkens the movie so much it's hard to believe the Terrians are willing to accept the humans living amongst them in the end. But it's a beautiful journey along the way. [Terra]