We Live on a CrushedPlanet

So your last filmic masterpiece was rejected from a supposedly forward thinking film festival because it featured ‘gratuitous nipple close-ups’ that were ‘not essential to the storyline’… In fact, most of your work tends to be dismissed as bizarre, lowbrow, or just plain distasteful. Does this sound like you?

CrushedPlanet.com aims to help filmmakers stick it to the man by providing an alternative method of viewing, screening and distributing movies. Started in May by the Emmy-winning Gantz brothers, Joe and Harry – responsible for the notorious reality series Taxi Cab Confessions in the States – CrushedPlanet is all about giving independent filmmakers an unrestricted, uncensored voice on the global scene.

Some top hits on the CrushedPlanet network right now: video diaries of Mary Van Note, a young woman with the hairstyle of a librarian, who admits to pleasuring herself with her plastic Pee-wee Herman doll (War on Comedy channel); Lorcan Finnegan animations – he uses film, stop-motion, and hand-drawn techniques in his work (Turn Back Now channel); and Son of a Bitch!, a documentary from Jon Ezrine about his disturbing relationship with his mother (Tell-a-Vision channel).

Despite channel names like ‘BodyFluid’ and ‘Pig Funk’, CrushedPlanet is not simply for crude home movies; much of the work is innovative, engaging stuff. Pay-per-view prices are USD 99c for a short and $3.99 for a feature-length film. But signup costs nothing and you get two free film views. (Only catch is you have to be over 18.) Take a chance on CrushedPlanet next time you make a slightly off-centre film project.