I am a child of the 80s. Was raised on films like The Last Starfighter, Weird Science, Krull, and The Thing. Hitchhiker&#39;s Guide and the original Doctor Who were in my backyard, too. The ambience and spirit of those swashbuckling adventures inspired me, entertained me, made me laugh and made me think.<br/><br/>All that atmosphere and character is alive and well in The Stratum. The beauty of those films was their ability to hide a message of hope and courage amidst a sprawling story, and do it on a budget. Special effects were more practical and so the heavy lifting was done with dialogue and acting.<br/><br/>Crash Buist and Lauren Senechal deliver that, and more, with chemistry, ingenuity, and zeal. Stratum is one of those rare independent films that plucks on your heartstrings without telling you it will, and does it with a wink and a smile.<br/><br/>The dystopian future, the rogue hacker with a twinge of innocence, the plucky princess with a plan, and the duplicitous CEO; you&#39;ll find them here, but updated and real.<br/><br/>You can feel the joy that went into making the movie in every frame. And, at the end of the day, you might walk away inspired, to not only see the world a little differently, but maybe to try and change it, too.

In order to understand this film, you need to purge your brain of any ideas you have about &quot;Hollywood&quot;. This project has little or nothing to do with Hollywood.<br/><br/>It&#39;s more of a film student project... the brainchild of one &quot;Crash Buist&quot;, and if that&#39;s not a pen name, he needs to sue this parents for malpractice. He wrote it, he directed in it, he played the lead role.<br/><br/>The good news is, he can actually do all these things.<br/><br/>He can write a script with a good plot structure, and all least some good dialogue, although it&#39;s slightly flat in other places.<br/><br/>He can direct. The cinematography is not brilliant, but it&#39;s also not noticeably bad.<br/><br/>He can act. Again, not brilliant, but competent. You can tell, at every moment, what his character wants, and his motivations and actions are believable.<br/><br/>So what&#39;s the problem?<br/><br/>The problem&#39;s name is Lauren Senechal, who is billed as a co-writer, and plays the female lead.<br/><br/>Perhaps she can write... it&#39;s impossible to tell who&#39;s responsible for what in a script.<br/><br/>But she can&#39;t act.<br/><br/>I don&#39;t mean she gets things a little bit wrong. I don&#39;t mean she&#39;s a little flat. I mean that if they shot a scene in front of a cigar store, the wooden Indian would appear to be overacting.<br/><br/>Since this is literally the only film to her acting credit, I can only draw one of two conclusions: either she is some sort of technical specialist who persuaded others to allow her to try her hand at acting, or there is some sort of intimate relationship between her and Mr. Buist.<br/><br/>Casting the producer&#39;s girlfriend is a cliche for a reason. It never goes well. In her case, she ruins an otherwise promising project by appearing to be a stand-in who is reading lines so others can audition.<br/><br/>Acting, like singing, is something that everyone does occasionally in their daily lives, which leads certain people to think they can do it professionally without training.<br/><br/>Please stop. It is a skill. It is a real skill. It needs to be understood, then practiced, before you can do it competently.

This reminds me of a movie that might make it on SYFY at 2am on a Tuesday because they couldnt get anything else to fit the budget. Acting seemed forced. Writing was basic at best. The only reason it has a rating if 5 (for now) is because one of the stars of the film rated it a 10. (We see you Johnathan Medina) That&#39;s like saying you have the most beautiful baby when it looks like a goblin.<br/><br/>Avoid this flick, unless you:1. Have the time to utterly waste.<br/><br/>2. You need to put something in the the hospital room of a coma patient (and they&#39;ll probably wake up to change it)3. Run a CIA black site that needs to torture someone and you can&#39;t waterboard them.