Screen Rush is the blog of film critic and journalist Eric Kohn, whose work regularly appears in indieWIRE, New York Press, Filmmaker, Moviemaker, Heeb Magazine and a half dozen other outlets. A true twenty-first century movie buff, his writing centers around the impact of new media on the moving image, the changing face of film criticism, and the tempestuous relationship between pop culture and independent artistry. This site includes links to his recently published work and allows for additional thoughts on cinema's modern state. E-mail Eric at erichkohn(at)gmail(dot)com.
In “Bass Ackwards”, one of the entries in Sundance Film Festival’s recently launched low budget NEXT section, an unkempt loner (Linas Phillips, also the writer-director)—having lost both his job and his girlfriend—drives through a series of lush American landscapes in a cramped Volkswagen bus, hoping to find a better life. Considering that vehicle’s now-famous association with “Little Miss Sunshine,” a major Sundance breakout in 2006, the metaphor here writes itself: “Bass Ackwards,” a comparatively small film not destined for the kind of massive bidding war among distributors caused by “Little Miss Sunshine,” looks like a Sundance movie in search of a home.
But, like its solemn protagonist, the movie has in fact already found several homes. After its Sundance premiere, the producers plan to release “Bass Ackwards” on multiple platforms, ranging from iTunes to video-on-demand. The approach is adventurous but also quite practical, because “Bass Ackwards” makes for a difficult sell. It unfolds as the sort of meandering adventure that some audiences may consider a chore while others herald it as quietly meditational. Although the “Bass Ackwards” team have likely made the right choice in evading the search for a conventional distributor, the movie faces plenty of uncertainty in the road ahead—as does much of Sundance’s new NEXT section, and any number of other Sundance hopefuls entering Park City unsold.
It goes without saying that the Oscars leave a lot of great movies out in the cold every year. But which ones? By making a few broad generalizations and examining some of the promising American indies from 2009 that haven’t made the big grab for the gold this season, I’ve boiled the whole thing down to a single formula that I call—wait for it—The Humpday Effect. From a post that went up today on Vanity Fair‘s Little Gold Men blog:
Oscar snubs tend to generate notice around this time of year due to their absence from the ubiquitous awards season frenzy. But these noticeable omissions, which currently include Anvil! The Story of Anvil (which failed to make the Academy’s documentary shortlist) and Sam Rockwell for his dual performances in Moon, at least have a fair amount of support in favor of their inclusions. By comparison, a number of well received indie movies barely ever had a chance of being nominated, no matter how many people would have liked to see it happen. These specialty titles lack both the money and big names that could help get them into the race. With virtually no traction in the industry, they sit on the sidelines by default.
Above: Some of last year’s top big screen atrocities.
In the last few years, I have grown increasingly attracted to the value of great movies created under a tremendous lack of resources. The so-called “democratization” of cinema has its drawbacks, including an unwieldy glut of product, but it also makes way for highly individualized productions. The idea of a movie exclusively representing a single creator’s point of view has been explored by avant garde filmmakers for decades. These days, however, personality frequently invades contemporary cinema of various sorts. When it works, the medium creates a sense of closeness with the creator that few other art forms can achieve.
Hence my inclusion of Sita Sings the Blues in my number one slot for my top ten list of films released in 2009, in addition to acknowledgments of Rejected and Grizzly Manmy favorite films of the decade list. These movies not only reflect singular perspectives; they are defined by them.
Thinking about this shift to a new age of personalized filmmaking, I am driven to express an anti-Hollywood screed. Nothing creates a greater blockade to individual effort than a large, industrial system (which makes it all the more gratifying when quality product manages to squeeze through the cracks). So when Dan Kois invited me, for the second year in a row, to contribute my least favorite films of 2009 to his annual poll at New York magazine’s Vulture blog, I decided to rail against the establishment.
Now, I’m not anti-Hollywood per se, but this was a rough year for quality studio releases. Away we go:
1. Year One. Because Harold Ramis is a genius and can do better than this.
2. Nine. MTV-style editing often gets cited as the most obnoxious aspect of modern blockbusters, but I’ll take that undeniable aesthetic tendency over this bland approach to the musical film, in which a horde of Oscar winners spout annoying melodies and mug for the camera.
3. The Ugly Truth. When Harry Met Sallywent rotten.
4. The Box. Richard Kelly captures the mood of old Twilight Zone episodes with none of the thrills, insights, or plausibility.
5. Jennifer’s Body. I’m no Juno hater. That Diablo girl’s got legs, but this sloppy horror pastiche has no ground to stand on.
6. Post Grad. If I could turn mumblecore — a gross-sounding word that describes things it shouldn’t — into an epithet to describe bland depictions of alienated youth, this would be the paragon of the genre.
7. X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It’s not possible for the greatest action hero of comic book lore to have a boring backstory, right? Wrong.
8. 12 Rounds. This cliché-ridden thriller fires blanks.
9. Away We Go. If Sam Mendes directs the next Bond movie with the sort of tepid forward motion plaguing this nonstarter, it would be an avant-garde oddity for the ages.
10. G.I. Joe. The corrosion of standards in the face of indifference. Keep that in mind, Team Avatar.
What makes a post-apocalyptic story tick? In most cases, it’s the perseverance of hope engulfed in irrevocable catastrophe. Consider the track record: Three “Mad Max” movies take place in a dreary wasteland. Each features Mel Gibson as a bloodthirsty wanderer with revenge on his mind and a scowl on his face. The character engages in epic battles and always wins out, but the world around him never changes. Things went to shit long ago and he can’t fix that; he can only remedy the specifics of his personal situation. This pattern has a realistic streak: When the world as we know comes to an end, it’s an every-man-for-himself situation.
Now take a look at “Waterworld” and the quest for dry land. I’m hardly down on this movie to the extent that popular consciousness has derided it for years, but there’s something to be said for the cheesiness of its finale. Set up a world that has to start from scratch and then suddenly - poof! - a little bit of the old world comes to the rescue. Audiences know better than that. Envisioning a change to the way things work, they want to see how things work anew. At least, that’s how this audience member feels.
Which brings me to “The Book of Eli.” A slick, occasionally badass post-apocalyptic story in which Denzel Washington plays a hardened wanderer looking to safeguard the last King James Bible on Earth, the movie spends a solid half hour steeped in a fantastically crafted downbeat aura. The Hughes brothers, whose breakout film “Menace II Society” displayed their preference for dark stories about alienated characters, maintain an admirably detailed setting: Their world is steeped in evocative sepia tones that underscore their haunting vision of the future gone awry. Washington, as Eli, wields a sword with samurai-like precision as he continues on his path at all costs. His trajectory, however, becomes jeopardized when the corrupt ruler of a ghost town (Gary Oldman) decides he needs to get his hands on Eli’s precious religious tome.
Gary Oldman in The Book of Eli; courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Gary Oldman in “The Book of Eli”; courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
But why, exactly? “The Book of Eli” lacks a clear-cut explanation for the value of the Bible in a dead world, so unless you’re a religious sort and subscribe to one particular ideological persuasion, the character motivation rings a tad hollow.
I love David and Nathan Zellner’s 2008 Sundance feature Goliath—and they’ve done a lot of other cool things, too. Check out the first episode of their insanely trippy online series F I D D L E S-T-I-X-X above.
These guys don’t make movies in accordance with natural laws. They’re less concerned with conventional rules of storytelling than with figuring out how to defy them. Their first feature, Goliath, brilliantly expands on the lunatic tendencies set forth in their shorts, and yet it’s not pure farce. The movie has a fully developed character, sincere emotional value, and feels like it exists in the real world. The Zellners combine a YouTube-like preference for irreverent sketch comedy with an authentic understanding of human behavior, which makes them ideal representations of twenty-first century indie filmmaking. Here’s my take on Goliath, which hit DVD this week, for GreenCine Daily:
David and Nathan Zellner’s Goliath is a passionate ode to old ties and new beginnings, steeped in metaphor, strangely evocative, yet hilariously deranged. The Austin-based sibling filmmakers seemingly know the tropes of mainstream comedy and work against them. A plot synopsis tells you almost nothing: Though essentially the story of one man’s ties to his cat, the movie operates on a singularly bizarre narrative plain based around the ramifications of becoming a social pariah. It moves along in fragments of scenes, sudden outbursts and extended pauses. A climactic sequence involves as much emotional finality as it does absurdity and mayhem. In the final minutes, it’s like a Looney Tunes cartoon came to life, invaded suburbia and absorbed its discontents. In other words, Goliath is purely unique cinema.
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