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A guide to Roland Emmerich's early work.
Fri, Nov 6 2009 5:05 AM

I've had so much fun writing about "2012," I'm almost sad it'll actually be coming out next Friday. Almost. In a fairly amazing recent interview with Roland Emmerich, the schlock auteur explains he could get away with casting John Cusack because "I make movies where the movie itself is the star" and says it's totally cool that... Read More...

by IFC.com - Indie Eye

Filed under: Watchy, Roland Emmerich, 2012, The Noah's Ark Principle, Stargate, Moon 44, Ghost Chase, Joey, Universal Soldier

Are you ready for 20,000 spoonfuls of terror?
Thu, Oct 29 2009 12:49 PM

In the pre-YouTube era, it was generally assumed that a short film was a director's calling card, a stepping stone to prove that talent and resourcefulness lay within and that great things could be obtained with a real budget. These days more people seem to be interested in watching YouTube videos than committing to a feature anyway -- hence the success of... Read More...

by IFC.com - Indie Eye

Filed under: Watchy, YouTube, short films, The Horribly Slow Murderer With the Extremely Inefficient Weapon, Richard Gale, trailers

Crowdsourcing "Star Wars."
Tue, Oct 27 2009 10:07 AM

Truffaut used to say that a movie should have four ideas a minute. Well, François, say hello to "Star Wars: Uncut", a full-length user-generated remake of "A New Hope" chopped up into 15-second segments -- four per minute. The result is a staggering 2,161 separate amateur directors overall, a major sugar-buzz of crowdsourcing, "Raiders... Read More...

by IFC.com - Indie Eye

Filed under: Watchy, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation, François Truffaut

Welcome to Hugowood, where revolution rules.
Mon, Oct 26 2009 9:54 AM

Hugo Chávez is having a movie moment. The Venezuela president is the subject of a fawning Oliver Stone documentary. He's had visits from Sean Penn, Danny Glover and Kevin Spacey. (And, of course, Tim Robbins, if it even needs to be said.) And, as I pointed out last month, his anti-golf politics have a lot in common with Alex Cox's "Repo Man"... Read More...

by IFC.com - Indie Eye

Filed under: Watchy, Oliver Stone, Alex Cox, Sean Penn, Mussolini, Pulgasari, Secuestro Express, Libertador Morales, Kim Jong Il, Hugo Chávez

Celebrating the musical apocalypse.
Wed, Oct 21 2009 4:12 PM

Though it feels like it's been advertised since 2005, "2012" doesn't come out until November 13: John Cusack, buildings get destroyed, humanity struggles against itself, the nuclear family survives, etc, etc. And now we have a music video to go with all that rote destruction: Adam Lambert's "Time For Miracles." As a song, "Time... Read More...

by IFC.com - Indie Eye

Filed under: Watchy, Roland Emmerich, John Cusack, 2012, Aerosmith, Armaggedon, War of the Worlds, Adam Lambert

Kanye West's inner "Wild Thing."
Mon, Oct 19 2009 12:55 PM

It's not a great time to be either Kanye West or one of his fans. After his umpteenth public freak-out, interrupting Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Awards, his tour with Lady Gaga was canceled, and rumors are flying that West is hiding out somewhere, doing his best to purge himself of the demons that make him act like a jackass in public. Spike Jonze to the... Read More...

by IFC.com - Indie Eye

Filed under: Watchy, Spike Jonze, Where the Wild Things Are, Being John Malkovich, We Were Once a Fairytale, Kanye West, Adaptation

Potato, potato, potato.
Tue, Oct 6 2009 5:18 PM

As a commenter elegantly added after Scott Tobias's review of "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" at the AV Club, "Thanks a lot, jerk. I would have appreciated a spoiler alert before describing the potato scene." Really, few other films are as spoiler-proof as Chantal Akerman's 1975 housewife saga, the complete plot... Read More...

by IFC.com - Indie Eye

Filed under: Watchy, Criterion, cooking, Delphine Seyrig, Chantal Akerman, Jeanne Dielman 23 Quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles

Play Lloyd Dobler off, Keyboard Cat.
Tue, Oct 6 2009 12:00 PM

As part of the giant marketing campaign behind the latest Roland Emmerich apocalypse porn extravaganza "2012," Sony Pictures released a five-minute clip of the film showcasing just a few of the no doubt many ways mass destruction will be wreaked within its full run-time. And no sooner was that accomplished than some pseudonymous smartass used the footage... Read More...

by IFC.com - Indie Eye

Filed under: Watchy, Keyboard Cat, Roland Emmerich, Oliver Platt, Amanda Peet, The Swarm, Woody Harrelson, John Cusack, Tom McCarthy, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, Chiwetel Ejiofor

Mumblecore mocks itself.
Mon, Oct 5 2009 11:15 AM

I guess one sign that you've really made it is when you can poke fun at yourself and it's not just an inside joke for your friends. With "Birthday Suit," a new three-minute short on "Funny or Die," mumblecore figurehead/sometime colleague Joe Swanberg achieves the latter, if only barely -- hanging at a 48% approval rating, "Birthday... Read More...

by IFC.com - Indie Eye

Filed under: Watchy, Joe Swanberg, mumblecore, Andrew Bujalski, Alexander the Last, Robert Zemeckis, Vinessa Shaw, Sex And The City, Jason Lewis

Those 30-Second Bunnies better watch their backs.
Tue, Sep 29 2009 6:05 PM

There's a lot of garbage on College Humor (today's featured content: "Jake & Amir: Tampon"), but there's also England's Will Tribble, who's been churning out some way funny 60-second live-action parodies of famous movies that deserve your love. Tribble and his merry band of British film students are dedicated to summarizing film... Read More...

by IFC.com - Indie Eye

Filed under: Watchy, Forrest Gump, 28 Days Later, parodies, Kill Bill, Will Tribble, 30-Second Bunnies Theatre, College Humor

Indie Rock: A Love Story.
Sun, Sep 27 2009 9:20 AM

There are people out there who leap on any chance to fling the epithet "hipster" as the ultimate insult. As a wise editor of mine once pointed out, all the adjective really means is "people in my scene who I don't like and don't want to identify with." But when a movie pops up with its title in all lower case, its lead roles cast from... Read More...

by IFC.com - Indie Eye

Filed under: Watchy, Garden State, Sleater-Kinney, The Shins, some days are better than others, Carrie Brownstein, James Mercer

Narcocinema: Mexico's drugsploitation genre.
Mon, Sep 21 2009 8:50 AM

I'd never heard of narcocinema until I took a gander through Vice's substantive new film issue. Well, consider me schooled. Narcocinema is just what it sounds like: violent drug war movies shot in a manner that could be kindly dubbed "functional," frequently based on narcocorridos (drug songs). Only 18% of the Mexican population can afford to... Read More...

by IFC.com - Indie Eye

Filed under: Watchy, Vice, Abroad, Mario Almada, Narcocinema, Jorge Reynoso, 21 Grams, Y tu mamá también

When indie studio heads direct.
Wed, Sep 2 2009 1:00 PM

On the press tour that will not end, Quentin Tarantino took a break from dishing about his favorite films and talking up "Inglourious Basterds" to shed some light on the lone film directed by his bosses, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, on last night's episode of Craig Ferguson. Following an amusing anecdote about strong-arming an Italian film festival... Read More...

by IFC.com - Indie Eye

Filed under: Quentin Tarantino, Harvey Weinstein, Odds, Watchy, Ted Hope, Bob Weinstein, The Weinstein Company, October Films, Jeff Lipsky, Flannel Pajamas, studio heads, Playing for Keeps

Film critics gone wild.
Tue, Sep 1 2009 1:00 PM

Actually, that's a misleading headline if there ever was one, considering that A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips look more buttoned up than ever in this promo for the new season of "At the Movies." But after a year in the wilderness, I share the excitement of Karina Longworth and Anne Thompson in seeing the film critics from the New York Times and... Read More...

by IFC.com - Indie Eye

Filed under: Critic watch, Watchy, Ben Lyons, Ben Mankiewicz, At the Movies, Michael Phillips, A.O. Scott

The fine art of YouTube curation and hypemanship.
Mon, Aug 31 2009 1:48 PM

Killian Fox's Observer article about the current state of up-and-coming UK filmmakers is called "Digital: a short cut to the cinema," which makes it sound like a decade-old article just now predicting the rise of digital movies, but don't be fooled. It's a bleak little piece in which Fox profiles four up-and-coming British filmmakers working... Read More...

by IFC.com - Indie Eye

Filed under: Watchy, YouTube, Zam Salim, After Life, Laid Off