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Just so...so bad

A lot of fun.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Overall Garbage Warrior was a documentary focusing on the architect Michael Reynolds and his advancements in ecological and sustainable living. Michael Reynolds is a trained architect of the University of Cincinnati. Soon after completing his studies Reynolds realized architecture as it stood then was worthless in the sense that it was not about people of the planet and what they needed. He then decided architecture as he knew it did not address the issues we are faces with and don't guide us where we need to go. Mike has since displayed strong focus in the efforts of these issues that people and the planet may encounter. The architect is obsessed with his work and often dreams of his projects. Michael Reynolds devotes his life to revolutionizing the world of architecture with a focus on ecological and sustainable living. Ecological and sustainable livings are seen as issues that need to be addressed NOW rather than later. These include issues of the quality of life and survival, working to discover methods of living that allow people to take care of themselves. The documentary stresses limited resources and the planet running out of oil and fresh water while also revealing issues of ozone depletion and their relation to population growth, thus expressing the planet will soon be uninhabitable. Michael Reynolds works to fight the ideas of big cities and infrastructure. He creates infrastructure inside of the structure, putting matter of life into the people's hands with potential to enhance the planet. These visions shaped the fundamental ideas of Reynold's earth-ships. Earth-ships provide their own infrastructure: providing internal sewage, growing its own food, and is also self-insulated. These earth-ships are glorifies in the documentary as big steps in directions for humanity. Earth-ships are self-sustaining and essentially provide no bills- they provide their own food with animals, bugs, and trees, and introduce ideas of thermal mass or self-insulation, along with other environmental alternatives. These earth-ships are stressed to be experimental houses. It takes clients to express Reynolds' visions physically and they are often cases of trial and error. Many times these experiments fail and the crew is sued for mistakes in building. Obvious examples of these earth ships are provided in the documentary such as Reynolds' "Thumb House". This house uses bricks made of mostly beer cans tied together with wire. This innovation lead Reynolds to other environmental building materials, eventually just using cans and bottles with mud to create walls of homes. This house also helped in the forming of ideas, such as orienting windows to the south for solar gain. These homes became more about function and possibility then of beauty, representing trial and error, experiments, and learning. Although each theory hypothesized and later proved by Michael Reynolds is not explained throughout the documentary it is easy for the reader to gain insight on the immense amount of knowledge Reynolds bears on his topic. Michael Reynolds, as portrayed in the documentary, uses his sustainable houses to aid in situations of natural disaster. In the case of the documentary, the architect and his crew build earth- ships in India made out of recycled materials. These earth-ships are proved beneficial economically, providing advantaged to the victims of disaster with the lack of bills and the decrease in the general cost of living in a self-sustaining home. By building these earth- ships in places of need, Reynolds' is not only able to help the environment but also to enhance the economy in these places as well. It is important to save resources by reducing the usage or electricity and gas but also to save money by cutting the costs of living and the dreadful bills that are seen by Americans as every- day expenses as well. Michael Reynolds is not the only master-mind behind these earth- ships though; he is generally accompanied by his crew, generally a group of men with an almost paternal, parasitic relationship to Reynolds and the earth-ship. Seen as a giant family, all members of the crew including Reynolds work towards a common motive of creating a self-sustaining society. The crew is responsible for building their own sustainable community, each granted 10 acres of their own land. An example of these communities would be the "Greater World Community" where crew members live with their families and teach the ways of their ecological studies to those around them. The members also work in a collaborative effort to create a sense of family and bonding and generally all feed off of the hard work and successes of one another. These are trained architects working together through physical labor and innovative thinking to create a revolutionary society that is not dependent on limited resources. It is important to exemplify not only the beautiful effect of stain glass created when burning plastic bottles into walls, but also to notice the architectural and environmental break-through these communities present. This was an enjoyable documentary to watch. I found myself fascinated with the work of Michael Reynolds. The documentary glorifies Reynolds almost in a sense of a God or a genius, which is not quite the entire case. The architect provides an example of larger-than-life thinking; who knows if earth-ships are really the answer to our problems or a temporary collection of recycled materials? The ideas behind his advancements and the evidence it provides obviously support his ideas of an architectural revolution with an emphasis on sustainability without exact portrayals of the success or failure of these experiments. Personally as a student of urban architecture, I envisioned Reynolds' ideas of sustainability and earth ships but on a larger scale of an urban area; imagining these structures or earth-ships as skyscrapers or multi-level structures. The documentary mostly places earth-ships in a rural or dessert-like site which may be unrealistic if these are being seen as revolutionary. Imagine earth-ships and the role they could play in regulating pollution in industrialized areas; now that could be closer to revolutionary.

Garbage Warrior is a documentary about an "Eco-architect" based in New Mexico named Michael Reynolds. Director Oliver Hodge gets a chance to focus on the life and works of this unique architect who develops homes out of using recycled materials like old tires cars or soda cans. This is truly a great film and I recommend everyone to watch this documentary because it will teach of the current and pressing issue of environment. The main point of this film to educate people on how there is a possibility to be completely self-sufficient but hardly anyone is pushing for this cause. Michael Reynolds feels that since we are part of nature there is spiritual connection and we have a responsibility to make this connection flourish.Michael Reynolds started began his career in the 70's, he had a very different set of mind believing that what architecture was providing for the world was pointless. He became very interested in building affordable housing that used recycled materials and where completely self-sufficient, like create its own power, or filter their own water, and/or grow their own food. Houses like this are called earth ship homes, while they sound very radical they turn out to be very beautiful. There is one scene where he is explaining the plan for his latest house and he was describing how trees will be growing in the center of the house and that birds will be able to live in there. He wanted to totally merge nature with modern living. In the 70's though was the first oil crisis so that gave him the incentive to start creating prototypes to present to people and companies. The first projects he came up with were unusual but he had faith that one day they would get more traction and more people would follow in his footsteps. HE states in the film "I always thought if you are doing things right for people, they will find you" this mind set is the reason he was able to continue his work to this day. All of his ideas have been trial and error, he did address the fact that no all of his ideas have worked and since this such an experimental project that there is a lot of room to fail. But this idea of thinking outside the box is what I believe to be the theme of this film. Reynolds was doing all of this work outside of the law and since they are self-sufficient buildings they didn't need any of the public services. The law quickly caught up with him and he was restricted so badly by the authorities of New Mexico that he quit working. Reynolds faced many adversities in this process and they labeled his work and unsafe and unhygienic. He fought relentlessly against this regulations and he wanted to create a bill that allowed areas of land to be considered land where experimental can be developed. By creating this bill the regulations that stopped him in the past would be more flexible so he could continue to work. Hodge was able to follow Reynolds through long process of the New Mexico administration. Reynold's license as an architect was revoked yet he still fought very hard to show the state legislature that his work was beneficial to not only Tsao, New Mexico but the globe as a whole. After years of hard work and persistence he was able to get the bill passed and was able to continue his work not only in New Mexico but in Honduras, Bolivia, and France. There is portion of the film where Reynolds goes to the Andaman Islands after a tsunami hit to see if he and his crew could provide any help to the redevelop the islands. He was able to design a house that captures rain water and stores it in the cellar, while air is drawn in over the water to keep the air cool. This house was built out of tires and old bottles. The film is very unique because of how it is able to capture so many things within it. Yes, it follows Michael Reynolds and his team but it follows the continuous battle of society becoming more Eco-friendly. It is people like Michael Reynolds who are the ones who inspire because it is easy to see that he is willing to die for what he believes in. Time Out New York says "Perhaps one of the primary reasons for the film's success is that the director felt it important to not preach to the choir: 'I wanted this to go out to as wide an audience as possible to get the notion of sustainable living to an audience that wasn't necessarily involved in green issues.' He notes that the film, which has been released in numerous countries, has already helped Reynolds win new commissions, including a seven-story building in Norway proving that Garbage Warrior succeeds as more than just a movie." I feel that this article expresses how much this meant not only to Michael Reynolds but to director Oliver Hodge. It seems like that this is what Hodge and Reynolds were trying to achieve this whole time with this documentary, all they needed to do was get the word out and with more people knowing about the benefits then more houses that are self-sufficient will be created. Reynolds expresses many times that humans will not be able to live on this planet much longer, and if don't make any changes soon then will be too late. I really enjoyed this film because it shows the creativity some people in this world have, while it is very hard to believe that someone builds homes out bottles and tires I would recommend anyone and everyone to watch this film. While watching this film you will learn not only the hardships of making change in today's system but see some truly beautiful homes. Sources Cited 1. Time Out New York

The early to mid-2000s have brought us a new genre, the environmental start-over film. Whether it's plastic, trash, food, plastic bags, this waste genre is one that has been crying out for exploration. In keeping with the overall cultural trend, the films are mostly documentaries. They do well raising our consciousness level, even if only temporarily. This film does not quite pull it off in my opinion, but it does have something to contribute. At the beginning of Garbage Warrior we are presented with images of building in progress and, along with the narration, we are meant to see the structures as really impressive. But his houses are not things of beauty from the outside (they are better on the inside). It would have been better to have approached them from a more humble perspective. Meaning, show a leaky sewer system at first, and then build from there - these are impressive houses because they are self-sufficient - lower our expectations and then build them up. Presenting those rather misshapen structures as objects of impressive architecture left me skeptical right from the get-go, and that's not the way you want to start a film. I do come to the end and of it, and realize that the achievement of beauty is actually a lesser point, one perhaps that Reynolds might one day concede. Nevertheless, had his ego permitted, some architect with some taste as well as skill could have come to his aid and helped him produce nice-looking houses from the outside. This would have gone a long way towards furthering his overall goals of sustainable living, especially in the eyes of key decision-makers.Second point: he says that cities are dead - that people are going into the cities to mine the materials. I had to ask myself, having lived in a city for 20 years and that is now adding 1,000 new residents every month, just what he was talking about.I live in the city, and I don't have a car. I ride a bicycle. I live in much less space than those houses, that is for sure. Still, I realize that even American cities are very wasteful when it comes to energy efficiency, and until we take seriously not just per capita output, but also total output of carbon and pollution, we won't really have an honest discussion. What I'm trying to point out is how dishonest and a bit off the charts his notion is of cities being 'dead,' or energy inefficient.What about the prime importance of community? Oh, and what about fossil fuels? It is undeniable that the inhabitants of those earthships have an extreme reliance on the car. What about all the plastic they use and I'm not talking about in the building (drinking out of plastic cups during the b'ball game - plastic containers of liquid soap)? He says his house has lasted 20 years. So what? Big whoop. You're an architect and you're bragging that a house you built has lasted 20 years? Shouldn't it? And so, they become a subdivision. Is that truly sustainable? Starting a new community on land where previously there were no humans? Can we see the sewage system, please??? Can we see how it all works? Heating and cooling? Prove it. We need proof.I'd like to hear more about all the failures. I'm not sure he is a man who inspires a lot of trust.Run in with the authorities - yes the situation around him is worse after he had to "conform." It's only at that point that I began to have a even a small amount of of sympathy for him. And the tsunami and going to Asia? Much more sympathy.Also, I admire his lobbying efforts - more sympathy for him there. What a number this film does! But to be really really radical, retrofit an already existing community. Why do people think building is energy efficient? Retrofit old buildings. The more tastefully and beautifully, the better. Please - let's not leave style, aesthetics, and proportionality out of the picture.From time to time, I see this type of passionate environmental idealist in the city. The problem is, so often these kinds of people get corrupted when they don't get their way and become small-scale dictators. I see it time and again, and what's worse is that they are very ineffective. Michael Reynolds was able to reach and go further and have a degree of success probably because of being in the West and perhaps because of his own integrity (hard to say) - that Baptist background was good for something afterall. There were two concepts that he brought up that were intriguing. The idea of going outside the law to get the information. And the idea of his own personal evolution. I hear what he says and appreciate it. But still, there is a very very very fine line between renegade and ineffective, hypocritical hippie.

Mike Reynolds is the "garbage warrior", an architect who has been designing homes from refuse and natural objects (largely dirt) for roughly forty years. This documentary opens up his world to viewers who otherwise would not consider such living possible, and certainly wouldn't be aware of the potential comfort levels available.I was shown this documentary by a friend who, to say the least, is fascinated by Earthships. She has met Reynolds, been in an Earthship and swears that some day she will live in one -- something I find to be quite plausible. My enthusiasm doesn't come close to hers, which made for an odd viewing experience (her excitement can be overwhelming), but it's a good film that should be seen by more people.Reynolds' ideas of "radically sustainable living" and "Earthship Biotecture" need to be ported out to other communities and get recognition for their amazing achievements. The houses are not perfect -- some leak, some have little or no temperature control -- but they are experimental, and Reynolds and his crew are still learning. Objections aside, the good that can come of these homes is outstanding -- complete "off the grid" power, self-producing food, and a waste system that cleans and filters "black" and "gray" water.I'm somewhat skeptical of how well these ideas would work on a mass scale. However, even if they didn't, it seems fairly safe to say that certain aspects could be adapted into rural or urban settings... and any effort to get energy independence and sewage filtration into the mainstream is welcome. World governments are taking important steps towards renewable energy, but after seeing this film, you may start to think the answers have been here for decades and we're just dragging our feet.My only real complaint with the documentary is that it is by no means objective. Reynolds is cast as the hero and as something of a savior. Now, this is not to say that he's not a hero, because he is. But without hearing from his detractors (aside from some clueless politicians) this film comes off more like an infomercial, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It could simply be that nothing bad can be said, though.My petty objections aside, Reynolds is an unsung hero and his work really does need to get noticed by more. Even those who are environmentalists may not familiar with his work, which is a shame. The man is almost dead... let's get him some attention before that "almost" is gone.