ever since i started blogging my various movie adventures, ive been trying to group films into themes so i can discuss them together. upcoming, i have rohmer's comedies and proverbs to talk about and i plan on getting into early godard masterpieces. before the frenchness takes back over, i wanted to write about richard linklater's SLACKER and noah baumbach's KICKING AND SCREAMING
NOTE: the aforementioned kicking and screaming is a comedy-drama from 1995 about young people drifting aimlessly in their post college grad years, not the crime against soccer will ferrell movie.
NOTE TO WILL FERRELL: STOP MAKING SPORTS MOVIES!!!
these two films were pretty important in terms of the 'quirky indie dramedy without a plot' genre and like the mumblecore movement of today's indie films, the early stuff wasnt that great (IMHO). first off, i downright hated slacker. of course, i didnt really care for waking life either and only kept watching because of the amazing visuals. i guess that the stream of conciousness conversations are a bit too much for me. of course, i loved coffee and cigarettes (all the vignettes! esp the ones involving wasabi peas) so maybe i just need them to be interesting. i pretty much forgot every line of the film save for the scene about madonna's pap smear (that was awesome) and the opening scene where i didnt realize that it was 100 minutes of random conversations. for a supposedly intensely quotable film, i am devoid of snooty lines to drop into my daily life to sound elitist.
i liked kicking and screaming a little better as it was sort of about something. granted, the film took the narrative of random conversations but at least there was academic snootiness and some wit to go about. plus, it had eric stoltz right after his 'sleep with me' days which reminded me of the conversation he has with tarantino regarding top gun as a film about gay subculture---but i digress. again. i digress a lot dont i?
noah baumbach went on to make some good films though i never really found him as brilliant as others. margot at the wedding was ok and i sorta liked the squid and the whale. he is the even more thinking man's wes anderson (which makes sense given that they work together). of course, richard linklater is one of the most respected indie directors working today (though in my mind his image took a beating over the bad news bears remake).
come to think of it, im not entirely sure it was tarantino and stoltz that had that conversation after all...
ADDENDUM:
this week's STRONG BAD EMAIL discusses the differences between indie and independent film. it is SPOT ON and heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelarious
About M
- mpathy
- i love film. in fact, im obsessed. not in the cute little ive taken a film class and saw citizen kane way; but more of a im going to take a weekend and watch 16 movies kind of way. this is my movie log. currently, my goal is watch every movie on the theyshootpictures.com starting list of 7000+ films but also a bunch of other film lists, canons, and misc crappy new releases that find their way onto my netflix queue that i will watch. on this blog, im gonna write about it without using spellcheck or capitolization (you know, signs of 'the man' and his oppressive society!). im also a huge music fanatic and scientist (but we will not bring science here very often). in short, i get easily obsessed with things and cant stop moving. i also eat lots of yogurt.
