Indieville : Odds

Pennan vs. Forks, towns made touristy by movies.

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:55:00 GMT

Today, innumerable thousands of shrieking tweens (and older counterparts who really should know better) will descend on the nation's multiplexes, baying for "New Moon" blood. The phenomenon isn't limited to theaters: Forks, Washington -- where Stephanie Meyer set her novel without ever visiting -- has seen tourism jump way up, from 18,000 visitors in 2008 to more than 64,000 this year alone. Twihards come in hoards, over 100 a day, desperate for a scrap of town memorabilia, stealing...(read more)

Roadtrip/no roadtrip.

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:50:00 GMT

Nothing says 1969 like "Easy Rider," the bad-trip Altamont to the ebullient celebration of the next year's "Woodstock." While the hippies were partying down, Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson were discovering there was no place for them in America, either old or new. On the occasion of its 40th anniversary, Keith Phipps retraced the road trip taken by the gang. The week-long series is halfway done on Slate, and it's a good read, tracing what's the same...(read more)

In defense of John Woo's American period.

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Friday sees the release of an abridged version of John Woo's new film, "Red Cliff," a two-part, five-hour epic condensed for American audiences into what's still an admittedly pretty entertaining regular-length feature. As Glenn Kenny notes at The Auteurs while comparing the two versions, what's gone is a lot of character detail and poetic flourishes. What's left is one ridiculously over-the-top battle scene after another, which is definitely fun if you want to see, say...(read more)

Richard Linklater's "Dazed and Confused" sequel bites the dust.

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:00:00 GMT

"Dazed and Confused" is effectively beloved by everyone who's seen it -- including me -- so I got uber-excited about the prospect of Richard Linklater making a "spiritual sequel." And now it's dead on the ground. It was apparently called "That's What I'm Talking About," in honor -- we presume -- of the kind of stoned logic of the original, where that phrase was the highest form of praise you could offer. But Linklater couldn't raise the $14 million...(read more)

You should see "The Box."

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:00:00 GMT

In an interview right here on IFC.com last week, Richard Kelly ("Donnie Darko," "Southland Tales") claimed his new movie "The Box" -- which came out last Friday -- was intended to be more linear and commercial, paving the way for future studio work. The fact that Kelly actually believes this is tribute to the fact that he's living in another world, possibly one of the many alternate universes that always seem to pop up in his movies. The film I saw in a nearly deserted...(read more)

Uwe Boll's "Darfur" drama.

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:42:00 GMT

Like the part of Cannes you don't usually hear about, the American Film Market is the largely unglamorous event held every year in L.A. where film buyers and distributors from across the globe come to put the business back in show business, looking at the latest Sofia Coppola film in the same way they look as "The Whiffler," a comedy about a 'roided up whiffleball player -- that is, as products. Beginning tomorrow, films like Coppola's "Somewhere" will be debuting...(read more)

Roger Avary pioneers jail-tweeting.

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:36:00 GMT

Until recently, Roger Avary was a respected if controversial writer/director, best known for "Rules Of Attraction" (easily the best of the Bret Easton Ellis adaptations) and for breaking up with video store-days friend Quentin Tarantino over accusations he was shafted on credit for the "Pulp Fiction" screenplay (he only got a story credit). On the geek side, Avary worked on "Silent Hill," "Beowulf" and a proposed upcoming adaptation of the "Return to Castle...(read more)

Barbet Schroeder's Don Draper.

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:18:00 GMT

"Mad Man," the series with which every critic in the country seems to be smitten except me, lured no less than Barbet Schroeder in to direct last night's episode "The Grown-Ups," Schroeder's first venture into TV and the next-to-last installment of the season. (And one that -- whoops -- some found disappointing.) Schroeder's not the first unusual director to pop up in "Mad Men"'s three-season run, though, as an Oscar-nominee who filmed both General Idi...(read more)

Boston, home of the new American noir.

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Ben Affleck's directorial debut "Gone Baby Gone" is one of the best American movies of the decade, though somehow most people never found out (it stalled at $20 million domestically). Its greatest achievement is its sense of place -- shooting in Boston, Affleck spent a lot of time highlighting the terrifying alcoholic faces of the city's poorer residents. "By rule you have to use a certain number of SAG people," he explained. "But SAG extras have a certain look -...(read more)

Roger Corman strikes back.

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:18:00 GMT

Roger Corman's been laying low; since his last turn as a director with 1990's "Frankenstein Unbound," the legendary cheapie producer has pretty much kept to dabbling in direct-to-video fare like "Supergator." But now he's back, reteaming with alumnus Joe Dante for a three-episode web series for Netflix.com called "Splatter." Gimmicks, of course, are involved. Some might argue that casting Corey Feldman as the lead in anything is the only stunt you'd need...(read more)

Why "Batman & Robin" is "the most important comic-book movie ever made."

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:40:00 GMT

Ten years ago, when Akiva Goldsman was overwhelmingly associated with writing "Batman & Robin," the film that temporarily killed a seemingly infallible franchise, the idea that he'd be back on top in Hollywood because "his populist tastes, skill with story and that old comic-book collection make him a man for the moment in Hollywood" would've been unthinkable. But that's how Geoff Boucher describes the writer, producer and soon-to-be-director in a glowing profile...(read more)

The gloves come off on Heath Ledger.

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:15:00 GMT

It had to happen eventually. The reverential haze surrounding the late Heath Ledger was bound to dispel. And it's David Thomson, critic, film historian and actor-crazed obsessive who once wrote a whole book about Nicole Kidman in which he gasped over her "gingery pubic hair," who's stepped up to bat first. Thomson takes actors and their iconography very seriously indeed (in quasi-Penthouse style if they're female), and -- on the occasion of the British release of "The Imaginarium...(read more)

You always adapt the ones you love.

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:17:00 GMT

Is David Foster Wallace really as adaptation-proof as everyone's always said? The mediocre reviews for John Krasinski's "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" aren't exactly encouraging on that front. At the Guardian, Danny Leigh believes that the film's problems lie partially in the book Krasinski chose, a short story collection that's no place for novices to start, and the fact that turning it into a very literal adaptation (boiled down into condensed monologues) "risks...(read more)

Arguing "Afterschool."

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:15:00 GMT

A brief note: Antonio Campos' "Afterschool" -- a movie I saw and hated at last year's New York Film Festival -- is in its last week at New York's Cinema Village. If you're in the area and haven't seen it yet, I'll be arguing against it following tonight's 6:45pm screening. Bilge Ebiri (of New York, not to mention director of "New Guy," and so much more) will be taking the pro side. We're both doing this at the behest of director Antonio Campos....(read more)

Jackie Chan nostalgia.

IFC.com - Indie Eye — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:05:00 GMT

"Was Bruce Lee actually any good at martial arts?" wonders Robert Twigger at the Guardian. It's a fair question -- how can non-martial artists know how to evaluate the impressive-looking stuff in fight scenes? The answer turns out to be, of course, yes, yes, yes, and Twigger unearths some good anecdotes and facts about Lee, including the fact that Steve McQueen and James Coburn (!) were amongst his Hollywood pupils. It made me think about how much I miss old-school fight vehicles. Champions...(read more)