SAGIndie

I’ve been in this industry for a while now. No, I wasn’t hanging out with D.W. Griffith (THAT certainly wouldn’t have gone well for me!), but I’ve loved movies all my life, and have been “in the biz” for a couple of decades, so I’d like to believe that I have some small amount of insight. Eh, scratch that – I think I’m freakin’ brilliant!

I remember what it was like when I was a newbie. Our cell phones weighed 3lbs, flipped down to answer, and had an extendable antenna. When you saw someone on the street with it, you knew they were either a big shot making big deals, or a Marine calling in air support. Ah, good times AND a good arm workout! But nowadays, filmmakers have it easy. Sure, it’s nearly impossible to get money for the budget – but there was only like 12 days when getting money was “easy” and I missed them. Technology has advanced such that, if you can get your hands on a camera, video or film, or if you can get your parents to buy you a RED, you can create your opus. Now I would be the last person to say to get your friends together and just shoot it, because we all know that getting PROFESSIONAL TALENT is what it’s all about. But let’s face it, not every great production is… say, ready (read: good enough) to warrant a professional cast.  So I’m taking that hat off. But you can make a film.

But what will be our next great indie film trend? We have done to death the Tarantino-esque gritty, profane homages to the 70’s. Besides, UNDERCOVER BROTHER said all there was to say on that. The slacker movie is, thankfully dead or dying – thanks James Franco. And now Judd Apatow has started to falter (it’s not lost on me that these are not “indie” films but big films whose subject matter should have been shot on your sister’s camera). 500 DAYS OF SUMMER is a romance (or death of) story cleverly told with a hipster soundtrack. Tomorrow, there will be 600 more “I love you/I hate you” films with songs by bands that only the WWWAAAAYYYY underground people will know.

What’s my point? Well, truth be told, I forgot that hours ago and am now just rambling to watch the letters appear on my screen. Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu. BUT, I will say this – we need you all.  We need you to get out there and figure this out.  Indie film isn’t dying, it’s MOLTING. It’s shedding the dead skin of those who have long since lost their indie stripes and underneath is the gleaming new skin of the next generation. Uh, in this analogy, you’re the new insect skin. Just want to be clear. We need you to keep INDIE so we can continue to outshine the big boys and their bloated productions.  We need you so we can keep pulling a paycheck – but that’s neither here nor there. So, get out there and work. Think of what makes you interesting (anything? Beuller? Beuller?) and make a movie about it. Do you see the world in a different way? Make a movie about it.

Not sure you’re that interesting? Make a short. Still not sure? Make a sandwich and figure out what you’re doing with your life. In any case, remember: Actors act, writers write, and filmmakers LIVE and hold a camera up to it at the same time. Hope you’re ambidextrous.

Nikki Finke has posted an insightful insider account of a very real possibility behind the embarrassing gross of Walden Media’s BANDSLAM. As I am very close with a handful of people who worked on the film, I have had to opportunity to see it twice in previews, and I can assure you, it’s smarter than your average cringe inducing, placating drivel that something like Disney churns out consistently. I have heard a lot about the advertising, about how it appeared to be another film compromised of the aforementioned descriptors.

Honestly, I haven’t even seen any advertising for Bandslam at all, but have heard enough about it to surmise that someone decided it was in the film’s best interest to go the lazy route and now we have a great film that never stood a chance; dressed it up in High School Musical clothes, when it should have been out in something closer to what SCHOOL OF ROCK was wearing.

Check out the Article HERE.

One of my favorite films from this past Sundance was a small, UK film, BRONSON. It stars TOM HARDY (RocknRolla, the yet to be released Inception) as a man who, after being sentenced to seven years for a minor burglary, ends up spending 30 years in solitary confinement. Based on an actual person and brilliantly executed by Nicolas Winding Refn, the film is funny, violent, and remarkably poignant.

It opens domestically on October 23. Watch the trailer HERE.

This past week I packed my bags for the North Woods of Michigan and Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival.  I had to select my tickets in advance so I went into the festival knowing I was seeing several documentaries including The Cove (winner of Sundance Audience Award,) Food Inc. (because so many people in LA are talking about it) and Burma VJ (I met the director at Sundance and absolutely adored him.)

With these films in mind, I packed my books for the accompanying plane ride, Julia Childs Memoir, “My Life in France” and Michael Pollen’s follow-up to the Omnivore’s Dilemma, “In Defense of Food.”  I also did some quick research to see what food stuffs were going on in Northern Michigan and was thrilled to find out there is a raging slow food and sustainable growing movement.

By the time I landed at Cherry Airport I was well into life at the Cordon Bleu with Julia. I would have given anything to find moules marinieres and a robust red wine to compliment this journey.  But instead having missed the opening night screening due to delayed flights, I walked over to the opening night party, an outdoor fest with at least a dozen food and wine sponsors sampling all their best fare, a blue grass band and about 200 patrons enjoying the warm Michigan night.  While I did not see Mr. Moore anywhere, I could definitely feel his hand in putting this all together.

The next morning was my first screening of the fest, The Cove. I knew it was going to be rough as I had read the reviews after Sundance.  Two hours later, I was devastated.  I can barely recount what I saw happening to dolphins and feel forever indebted to the supreme work the advocates against the abuses these beautiful creatures face.  I also don’t know if I can ever eat tuna, at least what I think is tuna.  Actually, just make that sushi or anything I don’t know comes from responsible sustainable wild fish farms again. In the past I have kept it in check, knowing about mercury levels and the over fishing of the worlds seas but this film drives it home and you just can’t turn a blind eye.

I was able to regroup, I spent a couple of chapters with Julia in the south of France, went to see “Everlasting Moments” a beautiful yet tragic Swedish film that premiered last year in Toronto, then walked over to dinner passing the outdoor projector they had set up next to the lake to screen Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We sat in The Cooks House garden, a perfect execution of a dream slow food inspired restaurant where the chef/owner who trained under Andre Rochat asked us if we were the table who had ordered the arugula as he picked it from the garden directly in front of us!

Little did I know I would go home that night to begin Michael Pollen’s book, “In Defense of Food” and realize how truly important that meal had been.  After breakfast and a couple chapters further along (as a solo traveler around the world, I tend to read at my meals) I loaded my suitcase in the rental car and headed to my final screenings of the festival, Food Inc. and Burma VJ.

Now, since one of my first internships helping to write the online outreach guide for MediathatMatters.org, I have been a true believer in films ability to act as a catalyst for social change.  After watching “Food Inc.” I don’t know how anyone could not drastically change almost every food choice they make.  Its nothing you haven’t heard whisperings of before, animals pumped with antibiotics and hormones that we intern consume and chickens that can’t walk because they are grown with extra large breasts as that is the meat consumer demand.  Somehow, we as a country and the world at large are making some tragic and deadly mistakes.

In a post film daze, I followed the crowd over to the local co-op that had sponsored the film.  Amazing that this little town in Northern Michigan has the best co-op I have ever seen (Brooklyn and Santa Monica included) where I found a completely locally and organically grown pesticide free vegetarian sandwich and eavesdropped on conversations around me of people deciding to plant their own gardens, commit to free range, grass fed, hormone free beef and give up soy products.

Michael Moore had done it again.  I’ve had the pleasure of clapping twice for more than half an hour for standing ovations at Cannes for the premieres of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko, the audience overwhelmed at the power of the images and stories he had just told.  And here I was at the café in Traverse City, MI, figuring out how I was going to plant my garden, go to my farmers market, support restaurants like The Cooks House who are making informed, smart and political choices in the food they serve and give up sushi.

In essence, the third and most important standing ovation for Mr. Moore and his commitment to providing his audiences with such important food for thought.

For the last month, our friends over at indieWIRE have been keeping close tabs on the the lineup for the 34th Toronto International Film Festival. With at least 199 films announced, they predict that the final lineup is very close to being complete — especially considering the fact that last year’s program had 249 feature films.

Some of the films we’re excited about: The Road, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Jennifer’s Body, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and A Serious Man.

Check out the article by Peter Knegt for more info on the films that have already been released.

It is a sad day. Legendary film icon, John Hughes, has died from a heart attack at the age of 59. This man is single-handedly responsible for some of the most memorable films of the 1980s and 1990s as a writer, director and producer. He was an idol of mine (as he was to many) and his comedic genius never quite seemed to get the recognition it deserved. He will be greatly missed.

What are your favorite John Hughes films? My top 5, in no particular order, are:

1. Planes, Trains & Automobiles (writer/director)
2. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (writer/director)
3. The Great Outdoors (writer)
4. The Breakfast Club (writer/director)
5. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (writer)