Category Archives: indie films

Indie film directors, indie films, Quirky comedies

The Future -Written and Directed by Miranda July

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The Future is the second feature film directed by Miranda July, best known for Me and You and Everybody We Know (2005). While the latter was a popular and well received indie film, The Future is even more offbeat and challenging to mainstream viewers. Nevertheless, it’s well worth watching if you can appreciate movies that are non-linear and that cross boundaries when it comes to genre.

The Future is kind of hybrid drama, comedy and fantasy. You know it’s going to be something offbeat when it starts off being narrated by a cat. This cat, who is ill and may not live much longer, is scheduled to be adopted by Jason and Sophie, a couple in their thirties who are somewhere in between hipsters and slackers.

There’s not too much of a plot here. Fans of Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise (1984) may appreciate the scenes of apparently pointless dialog and inaction -though the style of this film is quite different overall. I actually admire movies like this one and Stranger Than Paradise, though, where the characters are allowed to exist in a state of existentialist aimlessness.

Both Jason and Sophie quit their jobs. Sophie drifts into an affair with an older man for no apparent reason. Jason meanwhile, begins volunteering for an environmentalist group that makes him go door to door selling trees. There’s a kind of randomness to it all. At the same time, like Me and You and Everyone We Know, there’s an underlying theme  of how important and yet tenuous connections between people are in today’s world.

To make things more complicated and bizarre, Jason apparently has the ability to stop time. This is where the fantasy or paranormal enters into the mix, and where some viewers might lose patience. For there’s no real attempt to weave this into the story in a logical manner.

If you watch this film on Netflix, as I did, I suggest you don’t even bother to read the customer reviews. Netflix viewers are notoriously mainstream and conservative, and have little patience for oddball indie movies. They will mercilessly savage any script that dares thumb its nose at cinematic conventions (not all the reviewers, to be fair, but a sizable percentage).

Overall, The Future succeeds at doing something that the better quirky offbeat films manage to do -get you to take a step back from ordinary life and society and realize that the normal and everyday aren’t necessarily all there is and that there may be other, more interesting alternatives.

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    Martha Marcy May Marlene

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    The title of this film refers to the identity crisis suffered by a young woman (Elizabeth Olsen) who has recently escaped from a cult. The film switches back and forth between the past and present, as Martha (her real name) comes to live with her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and Lucy’s new husband Ted (Hugh Dancy). Lucy and Martha have been somewhat estranged, for reasons never spelled out (much in this enigmatic film is left unstated), making their reunion especially awkward.

    Through flashbacks that intrude in an unsettling way into the present, we see that the rural “community” led by a bearded, guitar playing hippie-survivialist-philosopher named Patrick (John Hawkes) is a lot more sinister than it first appears. Martha is having trouble adjusting to the almost painfully normal bourgeois lifestyle of Lucy and Ted. She strips naked to go swimming, and even jumps into the couple’s bed in the middle of the night as they are having sex.

    Martha Marcy May Marlene is a difficult film to summarize, as it’s a combination psychological thriller, character study and social commentary. Actually, it only hints at the latter, and this is where it fails to deliver the intellectual punch that the early scenes promise.

    At first, the juxtapositioning of scenes involving the cult with those taking place in Lucy and Ted’s serene lake house seem to invite a comparison of the two diametrically opposing lifestyles. Martha criticizes the couple’s materialistic ways -the size of their home, their focus on money and career, etc. Yet the film never really goes anywhere with this comparison. Ted and Lucy never really show themselves as anything beyond a archetypically bland middle class couple.

    The cult, meanwhile, quickly degenerates into another kind of stereotype. It’s hardly shocking that Patrick, with his charming yet intimidating personality, brainwashes his recruits into an ascetic, conforming way of life and “initiates” all of the young women sexually -this is, after all, what cult leaders do. Yet, he turns out to be even worse than your run-of-the-mill cult leader, as he leads his flock into grotesque actions reminiscent of the Manson cult.

    From a sociological perspective, the film could even be seen as a critique of anything countercultural. Indeed, some conspiracy theorists imagine that Charles Manson was “created” to discredit the hippie movement. Not likely, but nevertheless, the way this film depicts a group of people who are attempting to live an alternative lifestyle, it makes even the most mundane middle class existence seem the epitome of sanity by comparison. Yet, I don’t think writer-director Sean Durkin was actually aiming for a Message with this film -which is, in a way, unfortunate, considering all of the interesting variables it introduces.

    If I was slightly disappointed by Martha Marcy May Marlene, it’s only because it promises to cover some truly original and profound territory, and then turns out to be little more than a thriller, albeit a subtle and very well acted one. Elizabeth Olsen is utterly convincing as a cult victim, with her affectless stare that’s occasionally interrupted by outbursts of rage. The other noteworthy performance is that of John Hawkes, who can’t be faulted if his role was written a little over-the-top. He was also outstanding in another impressive indie film, Winter’s Bone.

    Martha Marcy May Marlene has been described as an investigation into the slippery nature of identity. In that way, it’s more of an existentialist than sociological tale. The vagueness that’s sometimes annoying (so many details about the past -such as anything that happened to Martha pre-cult- are left out) can be seen as part of the film’s overall theme. It’s not giving anything away to say that the ending is frustratingly ambiguous.

    Overall, Martha Marcy May Marlene is an extremely impressive debut for both writer-director Sean Durkin and for Elizabeth Olsen.

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      indie films, Quirky comedies

      The Extra Man

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      The Extra Man (2010) is one of those ultra quirky indie comedies that tries a little too hard to be eccentric. Traditional comedies, for example, will typically pair up a bizarre character with a “straight man” who sees the eccentricities of the other character through the supposedly normal eyes of the rest of the world. There are no straight men, or women in The Extra Man -only varying types of weirdness. This film has two directors, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini.

      The very able cast consists of veteran Kevin Kline, Paul Dano as his young quasi-protege, Katie Holmes and John C. Reilly. Dano plays Louis Ives, a shy young man who fantasizes about living in a novel like the Great Gatsby. Only his classical demeanor is complicated by a secret desire to dress in women’s clothes -which gets him fired from his job as a teacher.

      Louis moves to Manhattan in the attempt to become a writer, and becomes the roommate of Henry Harrison (Kline), who is like two or three separate quirky characters rolled into one. Henry is a poverty stricken playwright who is an “extra man,” a kind of refined gigolo for rich, elderly women. He also recites the type of politically incorrect lines (he is against women going to college, and approves of the Muslim practice of keeping the sexes separated) you might expect from a would be Old World bohemian/aristocrat. Henry also collects Christmas balls and engages in a morning dance ritual that has him gyrating like someone having a seizure.

      Henry recruits Louis into this dubious profession, and it’s not clear what the younger man would find so appealing about this, as there’s no financial rewards involved (nothing sexual either -it’s all strictly chaste).

      Louis gets a job at an environmentalist magazine, where he develops an interest in Mary (Holmes), who is a stereotypical downtown, vegan, politically active type. In the world of The Extra Man, Mary is probably the most normal character, as her character is fairly believable and only comes across as parody in a very mild way. We can’t see much of a future between Mary and Louis, who represent very different types of naive idealism.

      Thrown into the mix is Louis and Henry’s downstairs neighbor, Gershon (Reilly), who inexplicably (except to add to the film’s quirkiness) has a squeaky voice, a beard that makes him look like a hobo and an apartment full of random collectibles. The Gershon character really epitomizes the problem with this film -both he and the film itself are like random collections of bizarre traits.

      The elements of this film don’t really form much of a coherent whole. Louis explores his sexual fantasies by visiting a dominatrix he finds in the Village Voice and, later, a club for transvestites. Meanwhile, he tags along with Henry as a kind of “extra extra” man while half heartedly pursuing Mary.

      I probably enjoyed The Extra Man more than the above description suggests. I laughed in quite a few places, and all of the performances were good. It’s just that the story wasn’t very cohesive, and a lot of the quirkiness seemed gratuitous.

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        Indie Film Director Profile -John Sayles

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        A recent interview with veteran indie film director John Sayles prompted us to take a closer look at his fascinating career. The interview, by the way, is about his forthcoming film Amigo, about the little known Philippine-American war.

        His film debut was Return of the Secaucus Seven (1979), about a group of friends reminiscing about getting arrest at a 1960s protest years ago. This film was a precursor to The Big Chill and a few other movies about characters who might be labeled yuppies waxing nostalgic about their fading youth. While this description may sound uncharitable, it’s actually a quite compelling film. It’s a good example of a character/dialogue driven story done on a low budget.

        Sayles has directed a total of 16 films -Amigo will be #17, and we won’t describe each one. However, one of his quirkier ones (for a director who specializes in a type of quirkiness) is Brother From Another Planet (1984). Joe Morton plays the “Brother,” a black man from another planet who wanders around the earth, unable to communicate verbally with people, but still able to interact meaningfully with those whose paths he crosses.

        In The Secret of Roan Innish (1994), Sayles explores the rich world of Celtic mythology. The setting is the seaside Irish county of Donegal and the film explores the legend of the Selkie -a creature who is half human and half seal. This theme, incidentally, was explored more recently in a lesser known film called Ondine (2009), although in this case it’s not clear until the end whether the woman who’s suspected of being a selkie really is one, or if she’s a human with another type of secret.

        These are just a few highlights in the career of esteemed indie film director John Sayles.

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          1970s films, indie films

          Straight Time

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          Straight Time (1978) is a lesser known film from another decade that has quite a bit to offer contemporary fans of indie films. The last film I reviewed on this blog was John and Mary, which starred Dustin Hoffman along with Mia Farrow. So, in keeping with the theme of older Dustin Hoffman films, I decided to revisit Straight Time, directed by Ulu Grosbard.

          Straight Time is a sneaky movie -like it’s protagonist, Max Dembo (Hoffman), the movie doesn’t quite play it straight and let you know where it’s headed. In fact, it might be good advice to not even read this review until you’ve seen the movie (if you’ve never seen it before or don’t remember it). While I won’t reveal the ending, it’s hard to give a relevant description without revealing a little more than you should really know before seeing it.

          The film starts out with Dembo being released from prison after serving a sentence for burglary. He is unlucky enough to have the parole officer from hell, Earl Frank, expertly played by M. Emmet Walsh. Frank is an underhanded, racist redneck type who does everything he can to hinder Dembo’s rehabiliation. So at first we think this is what the film is about -a non-violent ex-con trying to go straight, and coming up against social injustice. The fact that Dembo is played by the normally mild-mannered Hoffman makes us all the more likely to see things this way. But that’s not quite what’s really happening here.

          There are clues from the start that Dembo has real problems conforming to authority in any form. His first confrontation with Frank comes when, instead of spending his first night of freedom in a halfway house as he was ordered to, he slips into a hotel. He unsuccessfully tries to reach Frank and tell him this, and the two are immediately at odds. Now we can sympathize with Dembo’s desire to be free of the system, and see that Frank is a stickler for the rules, but we can also see the futility of breaking the rules the first day you get out of prison.

          Things start to look up for Dembo when Frank relents and lets him stay in a hotel (albeit an awful looking one-room fleabag) and he manages to get a job in a factory. Not only that, but he manages to land a date with the young woman who works at the employment agency, Jenny (Theresa Russell).

          When Dembo hooks up with an old friend, Willy Darin (Gary Busey), things go downhill for him. Darin, a drug user, shoots up in Dembo’s hotel room and the next day, Frank discovers evidence of this on a visit. Dembo is thrown back into jail and tested for drug use. Although he’s only there for a night, we see that this experience has taken away any chance of rehabilitation. When Jenny visits him, he looks back at her with dead eyes that tell us that, no matter what else happens, his fate is already sealed.

          The rest of the film is a mainly depressing look at Dembo’s slide back into a life of armed robbery. He meets up with another old friend and fellow thief, Jerry Schue (Harry Dean Stanton, another great character actor), and the two begin a two man crime wave around Los Angeles. We also see more and more evidence of Dembo’s violent nature and inability to change.

          Straight Time is not exactly an uplifting film, as it has a theme that’s akin to Greek tragedy, where a person’s destiny is determined by fate and his inborn character. While we want to root for Dembo and see him as a victim of society (as personified by the undeniably evil Frank), the film forces us to confront the fact of his own culpability in everything that happens.

          Max Dembo is a fascinating character not because he’s a hardcore sociopath, but because he’s an understated one. He almost appears too lazy to look at himself honestly and make the effort to change. We can imagine that, had everything worked out perfectly for him, and had he run into a sympathetic rather than a sadistic parole officer, he might have actually gone straight. However, life seldom works out perfectly. So the film suggests that social ills such as crime are not simply a result of the flawed characters of the criminals or the flaws of society, but a complex mix of the two.

          Straight Time is a vintage 1970s movie with a great cast. For complete details see the IMDb page for the film.

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            John and Mary (1969)

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            John and Mary is one of those period piece films that is all but forgotten today. I happened to find it on Netflix, and don’t recall ever having seen it before. That’s always fun -at least for me- finding an obscure film that has well known actors that was made decades ago. In this case, the well known actors are Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow, who play an ultra modern (for their time) pair of single people who meet in a New York City bar, spend the night together and contemplate where, if anywhere, it’s all going to go.

            John and Mary is by no means a great film. Looking over reviews from when it came out, it wasn’t especially well received, and for justifiable reasons. The film, directed by Peter Yates, is from a novel, and every so often we hear the characters’ thoughts and it sounds like words taken from a novel. Much of the rest of the time it feels more like a play, as much of it is set in John’s apartment and there’s a lot of back-and-forth and somewhat repetitive interaction as the two new lovers are alternately affectionate and combative with each other. There are also attempts at humor, but the mix of drama and comedy is a little uneven. Even though it only runs about 90 minutes it feels long.

            If you like low key, character driven, and especially dialogue driven films, as I do, John and Mary will appeal to you. Unfortunately, it’s not the greatest example of this type of film. Yet, any student of independent films, anyone who lived through the 60’s or has an interest in that period may want to see it, if only for its historical interest.

            The trailer that accompanied the Netflix version of the film was amusing -the slogan “Not your mother’s love story” must have been repeated a half dozen times, showing how eager they were to shock the public with this tale of contemporary urban amorality. Ultimately, however, the film’s desire to be ultra hip and blase are its undoing, as the characters don’t really have much depth, almost as though the filmmakers knew even then that this was more a commentary on a generation than about real people.

            This video has some scenes from the film:

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              For Lovers Only -No Budget Indie Film Success

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              This is an inspiration for anyone on a shoestring budget thinking of making an indie film -a recent film called For Lovers Only, made on a DSLR camera on virtually no budget has reached the iTunes Top 100 movies and already grossed $200K!

              No Budget Indie Film Has Grossed $200K in iTunes Sales

              Here's a story that everyone will love, except Hollywood. An Indie film, made with absolutely no money and a DSLR camera, has grossed over $200000 and climbed into iTunes Top 100 Movies.

              Publish Date: 07/21/2011 23:31

              http://gizmodo.com/5823692/no-budget-indie-film-has-grossed-200k-in-itunes-sales

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                New Faces of Indie Film

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                Filmmaker Magazine identifies some of the most recent notable contributions to independent film, including documentaries, animation and even video games…

                Meet the 25 New Faces of Indie Film (Videos) | The Wrap Movies

                Filmmaker Magazine's annual list of up-and-comers draws from animation, documentaries, commercials and video games.

                Publish Date: 07/20/2011 19:19

                http://www.thewrap.com/column-post/25-new-f

                Watch Indie Films Online @MyFilmIs.com

                For another source of new, as well as classic indie films, check out myfilmis.com – this is a fairly new resource worth checking out –

                www.myfilmis.com new indie films online MyFilmIs.com is a fresh, new and innovative independent films distribution network… So, for all your indie favorites, brand new independent films, even those cool, classic cult indie films too, then visit MyF…

                aces-indie-film-sci-fi-kids-stuff-videos-29270

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                  Another Year

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                  Another Year (2010) is Mike Leigh’s critically acclaimed drama of an English couple and their circle of acquaintances. This is an extremely well acted film with a theme that’s both simple and complicated at the same time -the nature of happiness and the possible reasons why some people achieve it and others don’t.

                  The film doesn’t really attempt to answer this question, but is content at portraying people in varying degrees of happiness or unhappiness. Actually, this isn’t quite true -it shows the extreme contrast between happy and unhappy people, without much middle ground. The fortunate couple who are at the center of the story are Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen), who are content in their careers, home and with each other. It seems that most of their friends and family, however, are much less fortunate.

                  Another Year starts off with a stark picture of unhappiness that is almost a parody, as Gerri, a therapist, talks to a woman with a dead stare and monotone voice who seems practically comatose in her apathy. We meet other characters who are in almost the same state -Gerri’s co-worker and friend Mary (Lesley Manville), who is lonely, inclined to drinking too much and often on the brink of tears. Tom also has a friend who’s adrift, Ken (Peter Wight), and if we suspect that Ken and Mary might make a good match, this is quickly dispensed with as Mary snubs the overweight and awkward Ken (she has a crush on Tom and Gerri’s son, a futile pursuit that makes her seem quite pathetic).

                  As if this weren’t enough, we are also introduced to Tom’s brother, whose wife has just died, and who appears frozen in a state of grief that, it is suggested, is not going to lessen with time. Another Year is a bit heavy-handed with its theme, but the very strong performances mostly prevent it from seeming over-the-top in its portrayal of depression, loneliness and grief. This is a case where the director, and clearly not the actors, are responsible for any tendency to overdo it. For example, there’s a drawn out scene in a key place in the film where the camera lingers on Mary’s forlorn face for an extended period, as if we needed convincing that she is unhappy and that her situation is probably hopeless.

                  Another Year is a distinctly English type of film, and conforms to the stereotype of this being a land of pessimists. The fact that the couple who are at the center things are in fact happy only serves as a contrast to how miserable everyone else is -there’s almost a suggestion that they are lucky for some unknowable reason. Another Year is well done and thought provoking, but hardly uplifting in its worldview.

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                    Stone -a Film With Psychological and Spiritual Depth

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                    Stone is a surprisingly complex and thought-provoking film from director John Curran. To describe the plot of this film -a probably sociopathic prison inmate (Edward Norton) schemes with his wife (Milla Jovovich) to manipulate his parole officer (Robert DeNiro) to win early release – makes it sound like a possibly interesting, but predictable crime drama. Yet the longer it goes on, the more nuanced and complicated things get.

                    Robert DeNiro, of course, specializes in playing unhinged, or about-to-go-unhinged characters, and this is no exception. As Jack Mabry, an unhappily married parole officer about to retire, he listens to provocative religious talk radio on his way to work and has a cynicism, borne of long experience, towards his inmate “clients.” Norton, meanwhile, gives a great performance as Stone, a streetwise career criminal doing a long sentence for arson. When he pressures his beautiful wife Lucetta to contact his parole officer outside, it seems like a fairly straightforward set-up -Lucetta will try to seduce Mabry so they’ll have something on him, and Stone will go free.

                    Yet mid-way through the film, Stone apparently has a spiritual awakening after reading a prison book that instructs him to repeat a certain mantra. Is this real, or part of his scheme? Much of the film involves conversations between Stone and Mabry. At first, Stone behaves like you might expect a violent convict, barely able to suppress his anger at Mabry having power over him. Yet after his “experience,” his personality is transforms, which only makes Mabry dislike and distrust him all the more.

                    Meanwhile, Lucetta’s motives are not as clear cut as we first assume. A natural seductress, she doesn’t have much trouble getting to the repressed Stone, but we are soon left wondering whose side, if anyone’s, she’s really on. As for Mabry, it is revealed early on that he has a violent and unstable streak in him, and we’re not sure when he might become unravelled.

                    There’s a certain ambiguity to Stone that will not please many viewers. Yet I was impressed with the psychological subtlety of it, and how it maintained its integrity by not devolving into a standard Hollywood climax. Highly recommended if you like character based stories that have some psychological, and even spiritual depth.

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