Your indie film is shit

I've read about that, looks damned good fun and yep, 100% self-financed & produced outside of the system.
It's been picked up for distribution on the proviso that nothing is changed.

But independently financed and totally outside of studio meddling. Quite important when one of your characters is a pre-pubescent girl that slaughters people wholesale.

Only if you call 'Starring Nicolas Cage' fully independent.

"Kick-Ass" is fully independent isn't it?

"L for Love"

You know what, adventurous is fine, I can even go for weird occasionally but there is a line and Antichrist obliterates it. Normally I'd just ignore that type of film but what really antagonises me is when someone like Von Trier deliberately goes out of their way to be provocative. I view that sort of shit in the same dim light I view Hostel with it's "Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!" attitude to trying to shock the audience. That comparison likely isn't favourable but the creative process is the same "Here's the story, now let's tie in as much freaky stuff as possible". In my opinion, good directors use subtlety, only the artless use a sledgehammer.

Ok, I've been back and digested the article. Very good, well-written piece, Goaty. I agree with all of your points. Not a lot more to add, apart from when you transpose it to the music industry it just makes even more sense - especially when you look at how Trent Reznor operates: no compromises.

Nice to see we can poke you with sticks until you get all riled up and excellence pours out. You're like that guy with the Korean wife in Dodgeball.

Dancer in the Dark, fuck, what a movie that was. I remember watching it with my wife, on her birthday. We came to the conclusion that, perhaps, it wasn't a birthday movie, but hell it was a movie, one that sticks in my memory long after seeing it.

Inland Empire, for the first, what hour? is pretty linear, I could follow it, andd then what the fuck happened? Again, it stuck with me - think of it every time I hear Beck's Black Tambourine.

As for the whole subject of 'indie' it's sad it's become little more than a neat media label to describe anything they can't market as 'an action packet rollercoaster ride of a movie', 'rom-com of the year' or 'a laugh riot'. (Thanks Paul Ross)

Edited at 22:41 on 20/09/09

Why I love Lynch? I don't know. They just resonate with me, as is the case with art. Some love Rothko where I just see swathes of purple and don't get it. I'm not saying 500 days is a bad
movie, I'm saying it is NOT indie - merely packaged as such to appeal to the sorts of people like that assclowm in *that* picture. The films may be enjoyable, but they sure as shit ain't indie. Right, bedtime after listening to Weezer and finishing my latest Chuck Pahlanuik book and twittering about it. Yeah right...

The thing with Lynch - you may not like his stuff and I agree 100% he's a love or hate director, but his films are stubbornly anti-Hollywood. His films can't be made by anybody else, a unique voice regardless. And *that* is what indie cinema is about to me. I've singled out Away We Go purely because of a picture and what it triggered in me - a film that could be made by anybody starring anybody and released in 1000's of screens. Whereas Antichrist isn't and shouldn't be watched by everybody, because it's not a standard 90mins of lessons learned and obstacles overcome.

I'd like to thank Goatboy for giving me the chance to put Willem Dafoe's butthole on the homepage.

But if you did that on a canvas with paint it could be applauded as "art".

But... why? Is there any artistry in what he does? If I put a cow's head on and shat in my hand and started wanking blood in the middle of the town centre, would you applaud me for that?

I love Lynch. Don't have a *fucking clue* what he's going on about half the time, but love his work regardless.

I'd say the link below is also a fairly good approximation of the state of independent vs indie filmmaking.
http://www.cinematical.com/2009/08/25/strong-bad-explains-independent-film/

Now's as good a time as ever to bring up my counter-point against David Lynch's 'weirdness'.

Before it was a film, Mulholland Drive was to be a TV series - it was only mid-way through shooting that Lynch was informed it was to become a feature film.

The scene with the ogre out the back of the cafe? Originally, that was part of a scene in an episode of the TV series that made contextual sense. But when the TV series was canned, rather than waste the footage, Lynch stuck it in the movie anyway, where it made absolutely zero sense. And people still loved it.

Nnngh. Just bollocks, absolute bollocks. Just because he has a reputation for being an oddball doesn't mean he can get away with putting anything weird in his movies and shrug and say "You don't understand".

I'll ignore the fact that this rant seems to have been sparked by a picture of a man wearing a fashionable jacket, to say congrats - I half agree with these sentiments.

Though I would say that several of the films and filmmakers you mention aren't deserving of criticism. I have problems with Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Tarantino et al but the world would be a less interesting place without them.

I also take umbrage with your love of David Lynch. Do not get. Do not want to get. Once you strip back the weird-for-the-sake-of-weird twists and visual weirdness, there's nothing to his films other than ideas all mashed into one incoherent mess.

I don't care if you're trying to make me 'feel' something'; if your film is a fucking mess and I can't sit through it, you suck at being a director.

Antichrist I have no desire to see whatsoever. Sounds like a list of everything that turns me off about film. I couldn't survive on a diet of 'quirky' like some people do, but sometimes there are gems of real feeling and emotion in these so-called indie films you've lambasted. I still maintain 500 Days Of Summer is one of the warmest, most genuine movies I've seen this year.

Tried to see Away We Go last night, didn't make it in the end. I still reckon you should force yourself to see it and decide afterwards whether your pre-conceived notions were right or wrong.

It IS a shitty jacket, though.