The Screengrab : mutual appreciation

Trailer Review: Baghead

Paul Clark — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later: the first mumblecore horror movie. Even as someone who has never really had much use for the mumblecore movement, this one has me intrigued, in large part because the two elements seem so incongruous. The casual loosey-goosey feel of movies like Hannah Takes the Stairs and Mutual Appreciation just doesn’t seem to jive with the stylistic and storytelling conventions of the fright genre, which if nothing else makes it a noble effort by The Duplass Brothers to make it work. But how successful will it be? A few weeks ago, Screengrab’s own Phil Nugent saw the film at Tribeca, where he praised the comic aspects of the film but had little to say about the horror, which leads me to believe it’s not as much of a factor in the film as this trailer would lead you to believe. Still, I’m willing to give this a shot, which is more than I can say with many movies of its ilk.

Writers' Strike Hits Indie Film

Peter Smith — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:00:00 GMT

Anthony Kaufman of the Village Voice reports that indie film production may well turn out to be the "unintended casualty" of the current Hollywood labor troubles. The ongoing writers' strike has heightened the likelihood that there will be a Screen Actors Guild strike as the June 30 expiration date on the current SAG contract draws near. The big studios, which stockpiled scripts in anticipation of the writers' strike, is now putting high-paying productions into overdrive in anticipation of actors walking out next summer. This means that lower-paying indie productions are strapped for talent because, as producer Mike S. Ryan puts it with regard to one actor whose agents won't return his calls, "they're trying to fill his dance card until June 30." Another producer, John Sloss, says that "There's an actor I know who is getting a threefold raise just because he's the only comedy guy left." Many of the indie filmmakers are sympathetic with the goals of the strikers but still have to wonder just how hard they'll end up taking the brunt of the blow if the current talent drought is followed by a lack of side jobs from the studios, which many an indie director relies on to make ends meet. "Mumblecore" guru Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation) says, "Worst-case scenario: I have to pull some kind of shitty day job." Insert joke here. . . — Phil Nugent

Die Mumblecore Die

Peter Smith — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 19:00:00 GMT

Well, it had to happen sometime. What with two weeks' worth of crushing hype mid-summer, the mumblecore kids were due for a backlash, but who knew Amy Taubin would be the one to do it? Taubin, after all, went on record in 2005 with a "Distributor Wanted" for Mutual Appreciation, exceeding all the hype two years ahead of time by calling Andrew Bujalski's work "Rohmer without subtitles." The tide turns, viciously, in a Film Comment jeremiad that goes viciously ad hominem in record time, from an opening shot bidding goodbye to "the indie movement that never was more than a flurry of festival hype and blogosphere branding." Studiously ignoring her own early championing (Matt Zoller Seitz correctly points out that Taubin seems to be suffering from "buyer's remorse"), Taubin taunts the movement for not making enough money at the IFC Center, accuses all involved of racism for not inviting So Yong Kim's In Between Days to the party "because the filmmaker is a Korean-American woman and her heroine is a Korean immigrant," and calls Joe Swanberg a "lout." These aren't criticisms of film; seemingly the spirit of political campaigning in the air has infected Taubin, whose article is as ridiculously mean-spirited as any negative ad.

Gradually, it emerges that Taubin doesn't seem to hate mumblecore (a vast umbrella of filmmakers more disparate than they initially seemed), just Swanberg. Now, there's plenty of reasons to get annoyed by the queasiness-inducing auteur; I've only seen Hannah Takes The Stairs, and frequently wished that Swanberg would learn what a camera does besides recording images. (Some framing would be nice, in other words.) But I'm also struck by his knack for turning potentially ruinously indulgent improv bull-sessions into something like emotional truth, and the fact that he's the weakest out of the four filmmakers I've sampled (which includes Bujalski, Aaron Katz and the Duplass brothers) speaks strongly of everyone. And only in Taubin's insular, privileged world (one, frankly, I'd like to be a part of) could mumblecore count as some kind of overwhelming "film movement," one which she inexplicably feels compelled to note has nothing on "the French New Wave or the postwar American avant-garde." Follow the growingly uncivil controversy at Greencine's comments section, which has swelled to thirty-six indignant missives, including a rightfully pissy riposte from SXSW honcho Matt Dentler. — Vadim Rizov

Correction: We originally reported that Joe Swanberg had himself posted comments on the Greencine page. He hadn't. Sorry, Joe.