I know how I feel. How do YOU feel?

The Standard Spoiler Warning

If I mention a particular film, I just might go into explicit details of the plot. Read at your own risk.

I have often lamented the fact that Annie Hall’s vaunted influence seems to be a thing that exists in name only. If I had a dime for each voice that proclaimed the film once known as "Anhedonia" to be the first real modern romantic comedy . . . you get the point. The thing is, in addition to its deserved place in cinema’s hall of fame, Annie Hall has a special place in modern romantic comedy because the hero and heroine don’t end up together, and you know as much from the first 2 minutes of dialogue. Name another rom-com that tries THAT. I’ll wait.

(Adam waits as you frantically sift through endless memories of reasonably attractive pink-skinned actors running through airports/disrupting weddings to the “wrong” man/ultimately falling in a messy heap before the objects of their affection to declare undying love.)

Can’t do it? OK, I will. (500) Days of Summer.

At first glance, this is a funny little indie movie with some strange ideas of what tonal consistency is. I’d be lying if I said that every little nuance and flourish worked equally well to move the narrative forward, but, ultimately, this thing achieves a remarkable sense of emotional resonance.

I was surprised at how well this film captures the complexity of human relationships. It’s all too easy to do what just about every rom-com does and tell a story about two drastically different people who learn they can’t live without each other. (500) Days of Summer takes the opposite approach and runs with it, which I think is much more difficult. It’s about two very similar people who find that, try as they might, they just won’t be able to make things work.

Tom and Summer’s relationship defies easy classification, which is unusual for a modern film dealing with matters of the heart. (I very much wanted to just call the thing a rom-com, but I don’t think that using that label would be completely honest.) Usually, all we get are films with characters who are very clearly right for each other or not right for each other with very little grey area. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in a relationship that wasn’t technically a “relationship.” Would drive me nuts.

When the story begins, it’s very easy to demonize Summer by thinking that she’s treated Tom poorly without any reason. She gets very close to him very quickly, both physically and emotionally, and then, after a while, jumps right out of the frying pan and walks off. Not only that, but she seems to fully expect that he’ll be ok with all this and ready to be “just friends” just as quickly. It seems like she almost expects him to have an on/off switch for his feelings.

Summer reminds me of people I’ve known and interacted with, with varying levels of intimacy. She has an inclination toward being somewhat flighty and sometimes emotionally impenetrable from a readability standpoint. She’s got a strong penchant for doing things for their own sake and rejecting the need for them to fit within a larger framework of values and norms. That said, I felt like I understood where Summer was coming from when the credits rolled. She’d been honest up front with Tom that she wasn’t interested in a real relationship and didn’t want anything serious, although I still can’t help but feel that, to a degree, she used him and his feelings for her own purposes.

Near the end of the film, there’s a scene where they “bump” into each other in a park, and have a chance to really talk. Without this moment, I don’t think that the film would have worked nearly so well as it does. I really admire the way that the two of them completely level with each other. He holds her accountable for her actions toward him, and she is completely honest about the way that she didn’t love him like she wanted to/should have/felt like she ought to. The way that she takes his hand, squeezes it, and he doesn’t move it at all is great. He’s not allowing himself to be drawn back in any more than he has to be. Of course, her mere presence is enough to pull him toward nostalgia and thoughts of what might have been, but he’s trying really hard.

The thing that rang true for me was how she said that she had fallen for the man she married so completely in a way that she had never really felt for Tom. She said it in a way that made me think that she had spent a lot of time thinking about that. Maybe she even tried really hard to make herself feel that way because she thought that she “should.” I can identify with this. Who hasn’t spent time asking oneself over and over and over again if you’re feeling the way you ought to about someone? “Do I care enough? Do I care too much? Am I in love? Should I be?” Like Tom says in the film, movies, pop songs, and greeting cards make it really clear how “normal” people feel about things of the heart, when the actual truth is that things are incredibly different in the so-called real world.

This scene reminds me of what my college speech professor used to call “peak communication.” It involves two people communicating exactly what they’re feeling, without holding anything back. He said that it wasn’t possible to really do this, but I wonder. Without this moment of genuine human communication, (500) Days of Summer would feel like an incomplete indie sketch with a lot of homage-style winks to the camera thrown in for good measure. With it, it’s wonderfully tender and remarkably poignant. It’s not common for a modern film, much less a modern American film, to portray relationships so honestly. This film touched me, and I’m grateful for that. Those don’t come around every day.

Was Summer the “one” for Tom? I think so, at least in the way that a certain number of people could probably qualify as being the soulmate of one person. All that stuff is primarily related to geography anyway. Was he only remembering the “good” stuff about her, as his little sister seemed to think? I don’t think so. Well, to a point, yes, he probably was, but I think that he really did love her completely despite her personal inconsistencies. But I understand where she’s coming from. I really do. The look that Tom gives her in the park when her head is down before she gets up to leave is just wonderful. It’s what a broken heart looks like, but that's not all. It's so much more than that.

I think you understand.

"Strudel, party of 1, your table is ready."

In the 2 years that the blog's been active, we've been very lucky to have the steady support of a core team of writers. But times change, people embark on new endeavors, and we've recently found ourselves with only one active team member/blogger. Me.

From the beginning, I saw this blog as a collaborative place where a group of people with different worldviews, tastes, and areas of expertise could come together to engage an audience with articles that were insightful, enjoyable, and, above all, could start a discussion. In the world we live in, it's not enough to just have a site where a person or group of people sit on a mountaintop and deliver maxims to the masses without allowing for the 2-lane highway of effective communication.

As such, when Megan & Christopher left to begin writing at Suspension of Disbelief, I knew that I didn't want to be the only person writing here at the blog. This is for 2 primary reasons. First, I didn't (and still don't) see myself as being prolific enough to be able to write a steady stream of articles that could not only attract new visitors, but also encourage people who stumbled across us to stick around. Second, my tastes, while eclectic, contain certain gaps that will simply have to be dealt with. I'm certainly not apologizing for what I like or don't like, but I want this blog to represent the diversity of preference that exists among cinephiles.

So, it's with great pleasure that I introduce a new member of our team. Kelly's been a friend of mine since the day we met as 2 parts of a guerilla marketing campaign gone (slightly) awry. She's not only a talented writer, but she also has a genuine passion for the movies that's just infectious.

I'm sure that she'll have more to say in the way of introductions, so I'll leave the rest of that to her. Just know that I'm glad to have her as a member of the team, and hope that you'll enjoy her take on the movies as much as I do.

-Adam

Totems & Trances

I've tried very hard to avoid putting any spoilers in my review. That said, if you want the freshest experience possible with the film, it's probably best to watch and then come back to read.

Christopher Nolan is one of the smartest men in show business. He’s got an incredible knack for taking a story that you’ve heard before and giving it that little extra something to propel it into territory you’ve never visited. He’s done it with murder mysteries, superheroes, and magic tricks, and with Inception he tries to tackle the single most complex entity on the planet: the human mind.

Does he succeed? That’s going to depend in large part upon your definition of success. Is it the accomplishment of a certain set of goals and objectives predetermined by the narrative, or the ability to take the expectations of a viewer and supersede them? I suppose that I think of success as a combination of both variables, with the overriding hope that the piece is going to hold together thematically, conceptually, and emotionally.

To answer my question about whether or not Inception succeeds: well, mostly.

Ironically, the story that had seemed to be incredibly complex is actually rather straightforward. Cobb (a strong Leonardo DiCaprio) works as an extractor of information by infiltrating people’s dreams. In the real world, he’s unable to return home to his family because of some trouble with the law, and voila! Saito (Ken Watanabe, solid although sometimes unintelligible) offers him a dream job (no pun intended). If Cobb can plant an idea in the mind of his business rival, Saito will make all of his problems disappear.

One thing that struck me about much of the film is how much of it involves talking heads. Now, we certainly get our share of action, but there’s a ton of time where characters talk to one another explaining exactly what will happen later, what might happen later, and what they didn’t say originally about what could have happened later. Not necessarily a flaw, but certainly a point of interest in a film that seemed to promise a world of visual wonder after visual wonder. In fact, the biggest “wow” moment was already revealed in the trailer when the city folds back on top of itself and becomes, essentially, its own horizon.

The performances are uniformly good, with particular notice going to Tom Hardy. I thought he was great in Star Trek: Nemesis, and he’s very good here as a charming and very effective “forger.” I hope that he gets a chance to shine in a lead role sometime soon. Marion Cotillard, one of my favorites, is solid here, if not ascending to the heights that she’s capable of. (note: is it a coincidence that Edith Piaf’s Non, je ne regrette rien has such a pivotal role in Inception, given Ms. Cotillard's recent history? I think not.) Sadly, Ellen Page might have bitten off a little bit more than she could chew. Verbal comedy, her strength, is on a positively spartan diet here, and the way that she interprets some pivotal dialogue is very nearly groan-inducing. It’s great for the car to handle well when you’re driving through the countryside, but when it’s a matter of life and death, you’ve really got to hope that the thing’s going to be able to take the quick turns.

The real star of Inception is Christopher Nolan’s concept. The idea of people being able to enter dreams at will, to dream collectively, and to find endless amounts of time present in dreams within dreams is fascinating, to say the very least. The way that he deals with certain logistical problems is inventive, effective, and follows dream logic as “rationally” as possible. I’m very grateful for the fact that someone with Nolan’s clout is using the resources and talent available to him to make high-concept films that attempt to break new ground. In today’s cinematic landscape, filmmakers like him are sadly few and far between. We live in a world where it’s much safer to spin the same yarns over and over again with faces and minor details changed than it is to try to tell a truly original story that no one’s ever heard before. Sure, The Matrix and Minority Report come to mind as precursors, but Inception has an innovative spark of invention that sets it apart.

So why the hesitation? Why not proclaim it the cinema's newest masterpiece? Why not wax eloquent about how great Inception is?

Because, sadly, there are flaws. What’s incredibly unfortunate is that I cannot go into very much detail at all without discussing major plot points, and I wouldn’t dare spoil anything for someone who’s not seen the film. I will outline a few. While Nolan’s a brilliant conceptual thinker, I didn’t feel anywhere near the amount of emotion that the material should have been capable of generating. Some of the major plot motifs seemed simplistic and, while some of his directorial flourishes are nice touches, there are certain pivotal slow-motion shots that were unintentionally silly.

My single biggest problem with Inception is the ending. Unfortunately, I figured out a big part of it midway through the picture. With films, we may enjoy being one step ahead of where we feel we’re “supposed” to be, but what we really want is to be slapped sideways by something we never saw coming. While it ends (I suppose) the only way that it really can, I think Nolan painted himself into a bit of a corner. By ending it on the note that he did, he was forced to do something with the final shot of the film that I can’t help but think is a major cheat. I love the idea that it be the last image we see, but don't think that it works in execution.

I'm sure that a number of people are going to say, if they haven't already, that they can't wait to see Inception again (and again) to grasp the supposed riches within. I've felt similarly about many, many films in my life, but, strangely, in this case I'm not sure that a second viewing would really help me understand anything any better. We'll see. . .

Should you shell out some hard-earned cash for Inception? Yes, I’d say you should. Nolan’s risk-taking is something that you don’t see often enough, and it’s the single most audacious film you’re likely to see all summer. What’s unfortunate is that something that sets out to be this daring in its approach needs to be flat-out incredible to fulfill its potential, which Inception isn’t. Look, I enjoy a good game. I’m just not someone who loves being toyed with.

3.75 stars out of 5.

Toys United Against the Apocalypse

Through the hard work of a tireless creative team, Pixar has achieved a state among cinephiles almost impossible for a production company to reach: deification. The idea of their inability to make a bad film seems to be accepted far and wide, though it’s a position I certainly don’t hold. Their last two films, WALL-E and Up, while receiving massive accolades both professional and personal, didn’t rank very highly in my book. See, when Pixar gets it right, it’s scary how right it is. That said, when they miss the mark, even by a little, it’s so obvious as to stick out like a snail on Judgment Day. So, right at the point where they’re being praised for outdoing themselves, I’ve been lamenting a two-picture slide toward the merely ordinary. For my money, Pixar hadn’t put out a really good movie since Ratatouille in 2007, and I wasn’t anticipating Toy Story 3 breaking them out of that slump. Come on, didn’t you see Toy Story 2? What more of an ending did you really need? Why wait 11 years to make a third film? Why switch directors when John Lasseter clearly knows this territory better than anyone else? Then, as the release date rolled around, the usual stuff started happening. The rave reviews started coming in, people started gushing about how much they loved it, and I went the Monday after opening weekend to see for myself . . .

Friends, the dry streak is over. Toy Story 3 is rather wonderful. I felt this film more deeply than I have any other Pixar film I can think of.

The story’s fairly simple. Andy’s seventeen, going to college, and has to decide what to do with his long-forgotten toys, who’ve been patiently waiting for the day when they have the chance to be there for him again. Through happenstance, Woody, Buzz and the gang (minus a few principals. Come back, Wheezy!) end up at a day care center where things aren’t anything close to being what they seem. Now, they’ve got to figure out what to do, what their responsibility to Andy is, and how on earth they’re ever going to get out of the mess they’ve gotten into.

Some of the usual themes are explored, but with different implications. The toys have always known that Andy’s going to outgrow them, but now that moment’s actually arrived. Woody’s always been the clear leader of the group and their focus has always been on what’s best for Andy, but now Buzz and the others have to think of their own best interests in a way they’ve never had to before.

There are great things to be found here. I think Pixar’s best moments come in their incredibly skillful use of the montage, and that’s in evidence here. There’s a sequence that tells the story of a pink plush bear that’s one of the film’s best. The animation, not surprisingly, is fantastic. It’s wondrous how, even if I’ve been at times unconvinced by some of their narrative choices, each film represents a step forward for CG animated film. The narrative is surprisingly dark, with some remarkably sinister images that I think could prove frightening for the average kid. If you’ve ever lamented the fact that a lot of animated films tend to play it safe and wished that they’d try to be more like a so-called “real” movie (as if there was such a thing), Toy Story 3 represents a definite step outward, though I’m not sure if I'd consider it to be a step “forward.” There are some incredibly stark images here that are among the bleakest ever created for an animated film. Additionally, Toy Story 3 is wonderfully funny. Where the last few Pixar films at times seemed to rely on sight gags that were clever but not laugh-out-loud funny, this one commits, and I laughed and laughed. Two words: Spanish mode.

But there’s more to it than all that. When Toy Story 3 finished, I felt that my soul had been touched, and I wasn’t expecting that.

I’ve been trying to figure out what caused me to bond so closely with the film. Is it because it’s got an incredible story? No, I don’t really think that’s it. The story of the toys’ adventures in the day care center is one of a dozen different scenarios that could have been used for Toy Story 3. No, it’s not that.

What I’ve come to understand is this. I don’t think these films are about children and their toys at all. I think they’re about the relationship between parents and children, with the toys being the stand-in for the parents. The toys/parents want the child to always stay the same, continuously rely on them for love/support, and to receive as much love back as they give out. However, the inherent problem with this idea is that children can’t do any of these things. It’s a fundamental part of life that a child must not only grow up but also grow out. Certainly, there are exceptions to this, but children can’t help but move away from a place of dependency toward a position of independence and self reliance. What Toy Story 3, and, indeed, the whole series, does so brilliantly is illustrate this change in a tangible way. When the toys are left out of sight and out of mind in the chest, we almost take it personally. “Dagnabit, Andy! I don’t care if you ARE 17. Get in here and play with these toys. They deserve better than this!” As I’ve grown older, I’ve been forced to think long and hard about my relationships with my parents, the nature of the passage of time, and the direction of my own life. Toy Story 3 started my internal dialogue afresh.

I would not dream of telling you how the film ends and the ultimate fate of the toys. Know only that I found myself choked up, grateful for what is very nearly a perfect conclusion to the story of some bits of plastic and nylon that loved a young boy who became a young man and loved each other too.

4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Happy Trails

Well folks, you may have noticed I've been a bit absent from the site lately, as has Christopher. The thing is, as much as we've loved writing for this blog we've found our time being sucked in other directions. We've been pushing our film, brainstorming new projects and generally trying to get more creativity started that might give us a film career instead of a film hobby plus a full time desk job.

So, we've decided we have to stop blogging here. I have so many other blogs I write on my own, and Christopher and I just started our own, and with all the balls we have in the air something had to go.

I am very sorry this is the thing that had to go, but I had to cut something and for me this was what I knew could keep going without me. Christopher made the same decision.

I've known Adam since before he wanted to be a writer and I wanted to be a director, so to get to be a part of this with him has been a pleasure. I can't wait to see who he gets to continue writing with him, and maybe someday I can pick up a keyboard again and guest on the blog, but for now this is my farewell.

I hope that any of you that have enjoyed the posts from Christopher or I will continue to follow our progress. I've listed our other links at the end of this post for you to explore if you see fit.

Thank you Adam, and dear readers for making this a great blogging experience for me. I hope I have left you with a little more love for that thing called cinema than you came in with.

Here's looking at you kids.

Megan's Blogs/Projects
• The Director's Narrative: Megan's story
  
• The Director Is In: Movie reviews by Megan
  
• Suspension of Disbelief: The site to find out what Megan & Chris are working on and what they think
  
• @endmovie: The twitter for our movie
  

Pocket Thoughts: Hobbits and Mad Hatters

• A few days ago, it was announced that Guillermo Del Toro had stepped down from his position as the director of the two Hobbit films. Apparently, the delays in obtaining a start date for the shoot was adding on too much time to his already considerable commitment. He’d promised 3 years, but the project was starting to look like it would take double that to complete. I really can’t say that I blame him for moving on because we’re not exactly talking in days or months, are we? I’m sure that he’s undoubtedly got the next several years worth of projects lined up, which isn’t surprising, given Del Toro’s creative capacity. An extra 3 years just isn’t something that he’s willing to give, nor should it be.
  
  That said, I’m a bit apprehensive as to who’s going to take over the ship. GDT has agreed to take the next 6 months or so to finish the screenplays with Peter Jackson, Phillipa Boyens, and Fran Walsh, for which I’m grateful. That said, the future of the project seems to be doubt. From the start, I’ve always thought that Peter Jackson should be the one to do it, which isn’t exactly the most original thought, although it’s one that I still believe makes the most sense. He’s the single most experienced filmmaker in the world when it comes to how to make a movie in Middle-Earth. When he made it clear that he wasn’t interested in directing these films and GDT was announced as the primary creative wunderkind behind them, I was pleased. Sure, he wasn’t my first choice, but if Jackson wasn’t up for it, the guy who brought the terrifyingly wonderful world of Pan’s Labyrinth to life was the next best thing. Now, I can only hope that Peter Jackson decides to take the reigns himself. I’m not optimistic, but I’ll hope against hope that it happens until it’s set in stone that it’ll be someone else. If things aren’t resolved soon, I think we might be looking at the release dates being pushed back even further.
  
  

• Is it just me, or has Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland made the quietest billion dollars a film’s ever made? Think about it. When Titanic, any of the Lord of the Rings films, The Dark Knight, or Avatar were headed for 9 zeroes, it was blatantly obvious that they were on track for big money, right? Usually, these types of movies have multiple weekends at #1, people won’t shut up about them, and folks go back to the theater time and time again for repeat viewings. Now, Alice in Wonderland did spend 3 weeks in the top spot, but last week when someone said, “did you know that Alice in Wonderland hit a billion dollars?” it just seemed like it wasn’t possible. I liked the movie well enough, even though I thought that the fairly standard fantasy action movie of the last 20 minutes or so didn’t fit with the wonderfully atmospheric first two acts.
  
  I may not the guru of all things moviemoneymagic, but the fifth highest-grossing film of all time? Really? How did this happen?

And the sun went down on the French Riviera . . .

After 12 days, the Cannes Film Festival has come to a close. The grand consensus seems to be that this year’s lineup wasn’t terribly impressive, though I would no doubt find myself pondering the necessity of having two arms if I were offered a chance to have been able to go. I thought that I had a decent shot at predicting the awards, but, no surprise, the jury surprised me yet again. After last year’s pretty unsurprising victory by The White Ribbon, which seemingly ran away with the Palme d’Or, maybe I (unintentionally, of course) let a little pride sneak into the good old psyche. Let’s just say that my early handicap was pretty far off, and I’ve learned my lesson. And I thought the Academy was tough . . .

Helpful hint: keep in mind that the Festival almost never gives any one film more than one award.

Feature Films

Palme d'Or - Lung Boonmee Raluek Chat (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
A total surprise. I thought that either Another Year, The Housemaid, Des Hommes Et Des Dieux, or maybe even Copie Conforme would get it, so the jury’s choice is surprising. I’ve heard interesting things about the film, but nothing to suggest that it was a major contender for the Palme.

Grand Prix - Des Hommes Et Des Dieux (Of Gods And Men) directed by Xavier Beauvois
The response was very positive for the film, so winning what’s essentially Cannes’ “second prize” makes sense. I'd not heard of it until the festival began, and now it's on my must-see list.

Award for Best Director - Mathieu Amalric for Tournée (On Tour)
I heard that this film wasn’t particularly good, so Amalric’s victory in this category seems like a nod for the home team’s guy.

Award for Best Screenplay - Lee Chang-dong for Poetry
Poetry has had really strong buzz, and I’d heard its star, Yoon Jeong-hee, was a potential contender for best actress. As that didn’t happen, the jury’s decision to honor the film elsewhere is understandable.

Award for Best Actress - Juliette Binoche in Copie Conforme (Certified Copy) directed by Abbas Kiarostami
HOORAY! Binoche is one of my favorite actresses, and her victory is one that gives me great pleasure. Despite the less-than-stellar reviews for the film, the winner of the Prix d'interprétation féminine would inspire me to watch a film about just about anything. However, think about this : despite the acclaim for Binoche’s work shown here, do you think the Festival’s posterchild will get an Oscar nomination? Sadly, I have every reason to doubt that’ll happen.

Award for Best Actor (tie) - Javier Bardem in Biutiful directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu
Elio Germano in La Nostra Vita (Our Life) directed by Daniele Luchetti
Bardem’s been considered a contender for this one since the film premiered. As for the tie with Germano, I’m surprised. I didn’t hear anything about La Nostra Vita, and don’t know much of anything about it. That’ll have to change, and soon.

Jury Prize - Un Homme Qui Crie (A Screaming Man) directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
The first film from Chad to be included as a part of the Official Selection, and the first to win an award. I’ve heard good things.

Short Films

Palme d'Or/Short Film - Chienne D'histoire (Barking Island) directed by Serge Avédikian

Jury Prize/Short Film - Micky Bader (Bathing Micky) directed by Frida Kempff

The State of Things as I See it

Brick (2005)
Originally uploaded by ∆P

I don’t post much of my personal journey on this blog, I have another blog for that, but I’ve realized that some of my personal experience has to do with film so I can post a bit here.

I consider myself a part-time filmmaker – one that wants to become a full-time director. Last June I completed my first feature film, entirely self-financed and made using cinematic tricks & volunteer labor from the most talented group of people I have the fortune of knowing and having worked with. My film school education carried me up to that point, the point where I had the final cut in the can & celebrated with a bottle of wine that I had completed an 85 minute film. END was no longer just words on a page, it was images, edits, sound design, color timing and fantastic performances.

Ever since then my film has been a learning experience for me. While I knew the independent film market had been rapidly changing for years, experiencing that first hand is a totally different matter.

If you’ve watched the Independent Spirit Awards in the past few years you’ve probably come to realize that you recognize most of the audience. There was a time however, when most people, even most geeks, didn’t know what the Spirit Awards were. I remember when my brother met Kevin Smith & congratulated him on his Spirit Award and Smith was shocked someone knew he won it. Now, the awards are televised and considered one of the many events of the awards season. I feel that this is indicative of the change in independent film itself.

To be an indy film used to mean that you had no stars, you as a filmmaker were a completely blank slate to the filmmaking community and very few people had ever heard of you or your film. In most cases an audience member reading about your film that getting into Telluride or Sundance had a better chance of getting hit by a car than ever being able to see your film in their local theatre. This doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

Just as the indy music scene became the indy music genre, independent film seems to have become less of a movement created by the impenetrable walls of the Hollywood system and more about the kinds of stories you tell regardless of how recognizable the names involved with the films are, or the amount of money you spent to tell it.

In my opinion this is both a blessing and a curse. The fact that daring movies can be made in a subset of the system, by voices that are different is an amazing thing. Without this we could not have directors like Jason Reitman, Rian Johnson, or Richard Kelly. It means that films like The Hurt Locker, Donnie Darko, Brick, Frozen River and Wendy & Lucy make it to a screen near you or DVD instead of only the archives of film festivals.

Yet, this influx of an indy genre instead of films also means filmmakers like me have a tougher time getting noticed. I’ve written a lot on this subject before, so I am not going to rant again, but I spent most of the past decade idolizing directors like Kevin Smith, Bryan Singer, Robert Rodriguez & Christopher Nolan – they are all directors that got their notice on the festival circuit using films that had little in terms of budget and no one that was recognizable. While there are always exceptions to the rule, I’m not sure this is possible any more.

If you are a festival programmer who has to choose between two films – a big indy and a micro indy what would you choose? Let’s say Film A had a budget of $2 million, was shot on film, and managed to get Ed Harris, Virginia Madsen, or even Christian Bale to star, and Film B had a budget of $500 grand (if they are lucky), shot on video or Super 16, and cast 6 actors that you kind of recognize because they’ve done background work for the past ten 10 years – which film would you choose to get attendees to buy tickets?

I’m really not complaining; I’m just trying to state the facts. What was already a tight, tough market, has become tougher and part of that is our own fault. With the advent of affordable filmmaking technology it’s no longer as grand a feat to pump out and cut together a story, and once big stars started jumping on the band wagon and brought the films out of obscurity it’s become the norm to have known names behind and in your work – so indy film has fallen into the old Hollywood trap – it is once again about connections and who you know to get your movie made and seen.

I still love independent film, and my desire to become a working director has not faded. However, what my filmmaking experience thus far has taught me is that on my second time out I will need to up my game. Perhaps the second time around I can attract the financing or names I need to get my film seen – and I’m going to hope that someday someone is writing a blog that includes my name as a person whose first films inspired them too.