The Indie Scene In 2013!

The Katra Film Series in SoHo, New York Shows the Latest Indie Short Films To a Growing Underground Audience!

It's been a year since I started this blog and first discussed the changing face of cinema.  So where are we now in early 2013?  Has the industry changed?  Has the world ended yet?  Let's take a look at where the terrain for indie filmmakers is today.

There's a scene in the film BOWFINGER where Steve Martin's character, a hack amateur filmmaker, wins over a studio exec played by Robert Downey, Jr.  He reserves a table next to the unsuspecting studio head and essentially just bullshits his way into getting his script greenlit by using a lot of buzzwords and industry talk.  Here is that scene:

In the world of this film, Bobby Bowfinger is intended to be a loveable loser, an Ed Wood type we laugh at.  But if Bowfinger was working today in the current indie scene, he'd be thriving!  You don't have to reserve a table at a fancy Hollywood restaurant to hear some guy on his phone talking the Bowfinger-lingo.  Today, you'll find twenty-somethings doing the same thing at any Starbucks.  Nor is this regulated to only Los Angeles and New York.  Over the past few months I've heard more and more about APEX RISING, one of the largest indie film shoots in the history of Long Island.  You can read more about that shoot here.

Everyone is a producer now; every actor's got a webseries coming out that they also co-wrote.  Television pilots are now a new trend for the indie producer with the DSLR camera.  Approximately 15,000 indie films are made a year, with about 1% getting conventional distribution.  And if you're wondering exactly what "distribution" means, I can't really answer that because its definition is currently in flux.  The Bowfingers of the world have taken the concept of film distribution away from the studios and made it their own concept.  By 2015, I predict "distribution" will mean something else entirely.

So how is this different from a year ago?  First off, I have to admit I'm somewhat disappointed that the mainstream public has not fully felt the effect of the revolution.  There is a growing crowd for film festivals, but in Hollywoodland, the crowds still flock to see THE HUNGER GAMES, THE AVENGERS, and SKYFALL.  Hollywood is not going to become obsolete, at least not until a major breakthrough film comes out of the indie circuit.

Liz Miele's Webseries DAMAGED

Secondly, I notice that Hollywoodland and indieland are slowly joining forces.  More and more name talent is jumping onto smaller productions and lending their names to Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns.  Liz Miele's upcoming animated webseries, DAMAGED, which will utilize many celebrity voices, seems to be the perfect fusion of these two worlds.  Check out the Kickstarter page for this amazing project here, and the video below:

Thirdly, I feel that independent filmmakers are losing that independence and becoming catered to as a market.  Just earlier today I was invited to an indie networking event with a hefty admission fee that promised many contacts; furthermore there are whole series of fundraising seminars for indie filmmakers, screening series for indie filmmakers, and other events for indie filmmakers, all of which charge money in exchange for supposedly helping you gain money down the line.  Holy Shit, we are our own franchise!!!!

Not that I'm bashing networking events.  They have helped me in the past, and it's always good to meet new people.  But this leads me to my biggest point, the special word of the day:

Strategy.

It's not enough to shake hands and hand out business cards anymore.  It's not even really enough to say your movie has been screened; there are tons of venues in New York that will honestly screen anything.  What matters is doing these things CORRECTLY and in a way that generates momentum for the next step.  It's all about the game plan; filmmakers are doing the research and building the buzz in a way that creates their own audience and builds word of mouth before the film is even shown.  You can promote your film more in five minutes on Twitter and Instagram than you can in an entire night of schmoozing at a networking event.

Finally, this may sound cliched, but I honestly feel that the best way to succeed as a filmmaker is to just focus on being a filmmaker.  Yes, it's important to know how to promote, but if you actually HAVE talent and can reliably make consistently great content, then that will generate promotion in and of itself.  I've met a lot of great people and colleagues now that I didn't know four years ago, and it's come not from schmoozing but from just consistently working on my craft.  And also by being a post-whore on Facebook.

So there you have it.  One year ago, I started this blog and was writing about a cinematic revolution that was in the air.  One year later, the revolution is still finding its groove and indie filmmakers are still figuring out how to navigate it.  Our job is to work together as a community and develop our strategy together.  Stay tuned to G. Rod Buzz as we keep an eye on this movement.  Buzz buzz!  Who knows, the next great indie masterpiece could be right around the corner...

The Premiere of GREEN EYES

Saturday March 9th will see the premiere of the film GREEN EYES, written and directed by Jack Gattanella, at a venue very familiar to me, The Queens World Film Festival.

I share this information with you because finally seeing it will likely be one of the most surreal filmgoing experiences I'll ever have.  It will be the first time I'll ever watch a movie where:

-I've followed its production for almost two years

-Was present when certain scenes were shot

-I know about half of the cast and crew

-One scene was shot in my Woodside house

-Oh yeah, and I'm actually IN the movie, as an extra during a bar scene

Here is the trailer, starring a few familiar faces

There is a growing social circle of indie filmmakers I'm happy to be part of.  We're almost a NEW New Hollywood, and our cluster of interconnected films include FEED A, HEAVEN IS NOW, NIGHTWING: ESCALATION, and HAVANA IN BUSHWICK.  But the central nebula connecting all of these productions is GREEN EYES.

The film will play at 1:30pm at The Jackson Heights Cinema.  For all the info, click here.  I will be there, ticket in hand!

THE SNOW QUEEN and FROZEN

I'm taking a bit of a break from the usual movie-talk and thought I would focus on a certain book, one that's been filmed a few times.

I've always admired the work of Hans Christian Andersen, a writer of classic fairytales whose work often had a very dark and melancholy feel.  As his middle name suggests, he was quite religious, and it shows in his work, which adds something to it.  While his stories feature supernatural creatures: witches, trolls, mermaids, etc, he also makes regular references to God and the Bible.  This adds an extra layer to his stories: every struggle is between the Divine Good and Profane Evil, and the wicked seem all the more creepy.  For example, in THE LITTLE MERMAID, the titular character must get the prince to marry her as only by being married in God's church can she attain an immortal soul.  This surreal story element adds an epic scope to an otherwise small scale fairytale.

[His religiousness is a bit ironic though when you consider one his most famous short stories THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES.  That story is one of the most perfect unintentional metaphors for organized religion ever conceived].

One of my favorite novellas of all time is Andersen's masterpiece THE SNOW QUEEN, a haunting story published in 1845 with a creepy atmosphere.  It has been filmed several times and there's a new Disney adaptation, entitled FROZEN, in the works for later this year.  But no film has ever successfully conveyed this lovely piece of writing, which has one of the best opening lines to a story ever: "Now then, let us begin. When we are at the end of the story, we shall know more than we know now: but let us begin."

The novella starts off with a prologue that is pretty much irrelevant to the body of the story, and it's even cut out in some versions.  The story starts off with a wicked creature (depending on the translation, sometimes it is a sprite, other times a troll, but in the edition I had as a kid, it was actually identified as the Devil), creating a mirror that distorts everything and magnifies the evil and bad qualities in things.  His pupils of little devils love this creation and use it to distort everything, eventually taking it high into the Heavens, to distort the face of God himself.  However, they laugh so hard in their mischief that they drop the mirror and it falls to Earth, shattered into thousands of pieces, floating adrift, ready to enter the eyes and hearts of unsuspecting humans.  Of course this little story is reminiscent of a Biblical parable, a sort of Garden of Eden for magic creatures, a Book of Genesis for this new Bible Andersen has written for us, and its vivid imagery haunted me as a kid.

Then the main story starts.  We are told of two children named Kai and Gerda who "were not brother and sister; but they cared for each other as much as if they were."  One day, Kai's grandmother (strong matriarchal figures are a motif in Andersen's work) warns the children of the evil Snow Queen, a beautiful but cold and emotionless witch, white as marble, who lives in Lapland and is the queen of all snowflakes.  Soon enough, Kai, under the influence of shards of that evil mirror from the prologue entering his eyes and heart, is approach and seduced by the Snow Queen, who takes him up in her sleigh, and promises to make him her prince.  Yes, NARNIA fans, C.S. Lewis based his White Witch character on Andersen's Snow Queen!

The rest of the story is Gerda's quest to find Kai and right away, you've probably noticed a role-reversal.  We have a girl rescuing a male-in-distress, and furthermore, pretty much every major character in this story is female.  Gerda, the Snow Queen, and the grandmother are the major players.  Along her quest, Gerda encounters various female companions including a Princess, the Lapland Woman, the Finland Woman, and probably the character in the story with the most personality, the Little Robber Girl.  Eventually Gerda reaches the Snow Queen's palace in the freezing snows of Lapland, having lost her shoes and traveled barefoot.  Outside she is confronted by an army of hideous snowflakes (or, depending on your translation, it may be Satanic demons), but she overcomes them by kneeling and saying the Lord's Prayer.  Again, I may not share Andersen's religion, but I find the way he weaves it into an otherwise supernatural story to be oddly effective [By the way, the topic of how I react to a work of art with contrasting religious beliefs will be the topic of an upcoming blog entry].

Now, unfortunately, we reach the biggest flaw in the story: it doesn't have much of a climax.  The Snow Queen happens to have left Kai all alone in her empty palace when Gerda arrives, so she simply runs up to him and hugs him, breaking the spell, and he spells the word ETERNITY, which frees him.  Bah!  Even as a kid I was very underwhelmed with that and always thought a confrontation with the Snow Queen needed to be there.  Well, the story seems to completely forget about her as the children leave the palace and begin the trek home.

In these final paragraphs, the story stops being literal but turns to heavy metaphor as the children appear to walk all the way home, arriving back at their hometown and the grandmother's house who reads to them from the Bible, and we realize this whole story was a damn metaphor about growing up.  You may have noticed how the entire story has made use of the passing seasons.  Kai is abducted in the winter, Gerda sets out for him in the spring, we are told it is already autumn by the time she meets the Princess, arriving in Lapland it is again winter, the children leave Lapland again in spring weather, and finally arrive home in the summer.

And that leads into the final passage of the story, which is one of my favorite pieces of writing ever!  Of course it changes a bit, depending on your translation, but I've copied it below.  If you've ever seen my film HAVANA IN BUSHWICK, you might have picked up on one reference to THE SNOW QUEEN.  Thematically, the two stories couldn't be more different, but for the film's closing voiceover narration, I borrowed a little bit Andersen's ending.  And so I conclude this blog with Andersen's original text:

"...as they entered, they remarked that they were now grown up. And Kai and Gerda looked in each other's eyes, and all at once they understood the old hymn. There sat the two grown-up persons; grown-up, and yet children; children at least in heart; and it was summer-time; summer, glorious summer!"

2013 Oscar Predictions

So in light of last night's Golden Globe Awards, here are my predictions for this year's Oscars, which is one of the strangest years in recent history, with no clear front runner.  Alright, here we go:

BEST ACTOR: Definitely Daniel Day-Lewis.  Hugh Jackman is the only other slightly serious contender.

BEST ACTRESS: This seems to be a two-way race between Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence, and I think Lawrence is the one with the edge.  She's more likeable and just had a great year with THE HUNGER GAMES as well, while Chastain is still slowly getting on people's radars.  Then again, nine-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis might cause an upset, just because it would make a good story.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: I'm guessing Christoph Waltz.  Robert De Niro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Tommy Lee Jones all have gotten good notices for their work, but none have the edge here.  And while I liked ARGO a lot, I do not think Alan Arkin deserves an Oscar for his role at all.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Anne Hathaway.  Not since Heath Ledger's death has there been such a surefire win!

BEST DIRECTOR: This is the strangest set of nominees ever with not just one snub but three!  I thought Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow were the two frontrunners, with Tom Hooper being a distant third.  Yet with none of these three nominated, I don't know what to think.  Well, Spielberg doesn't need another Oscar while Benh Zeitlin might win just because it would make a good story (and as a representative of my generation, I am supporting him).  So if I have to make one prediction, I'm gonna go with David O. Russell, but this is an open race.  Also, it's very sad that there are no women nominated here!

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: This is the second time that Quentin Tarantino and Mark Boal are up against one another, and I think this is clearly a two-way race between DJANGO UNCHAINED and ZERO DARK THIRTY.  I'm going to predict the latter.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: I think this will go to ARGO; however, I could also see LINCOLN sneaking one in here, just because Tony Kushner is a Pulitzer-winning writer and so respected.  This one is also an open race.

BEST ANIMATED FILM: WRECK-IT RALPH.  BRAVE got a mixed reception and I think the golden age of Pixar is definitely over.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM: I suspect this might to THE SIMPSONS: THE LONGEST DAYCARE.  It's been a long-running franchise and many might feel it's due for an Oscar.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Most likely AMOUR, but A ROYAL AFFAIR is also a contender.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Why are there no women nominated here?  I'm really disappointed LES MISERABLES isn't nominated.  So I predict LIFE OF PI will win this; it's the most visual of the nominees.  Sadly, it seems Roger Deakins is never going to win this award.

BEST EDITING: ZERO DARK THIRTY might win this due to its grittiness.

BEST DOCUMENTARY: THE INVISIBLE WAR.  It's topical.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: LES MISERABLES will probably eat up all the technical awards.  ANNA KARENINA is also a contender, but not enough people saw it.  I'd also be happy with THE HOBBIT winning.

BEST COSTUMES: Here is where ANNA KARENINA might win, as this always goes to the period pieces.

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING: LES MISERABLES.  THE HOBBIT is also deserving, but others might feel it didn't really do anything new from the previous LORD OF THE RINGS films.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: LIFE OF PI won the Golden Globe here.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG: SKYFALL.  Not only is it the best James Bond song since Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better," but Adele is a musician with a lot of spotlight now.

BEST SOUND MIXING: ARGO or LES MISERABLES.

BEST SOUND EDITING: LIFE OF PI features the most original creation of sounds.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: THE AVENGERS might win as validation for it being the biggest box office hit of the year.

and finally, last but not least:

BEST PICTURE: So last night's Golden Globes would seem to indicate ARGO and LES MISERABLES as the two frontrunners, yet here neither of them have their respective directors nominated.  It could be SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, but I see it winning so little else that I don't know.  So, in a year with no clear frontrunner, I'm going to predict LINCOLN, an all-American film!

Top 10 Most Iconic TV Performances

I felt that television-based performances should be ranked differently from film.  Here the actor gets much more time, even years, to really build the character.  So, here they are:


10. Tie between Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner in STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION
9. Calista Flockhart in ALLY MCBEAL
8. Mariska Hargitay in LAW AND ORDER: SVU
7. David Cross in ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
6. Bea Arthur in MAUDE
5. Kyle MacLachlan in TWIN PEAKS
4. Jean Stapleton in ALL IN THE FAMILY
3. Derek Jacobi in I, CLAUDIUS
2. Leonard Nimoy in STAR TREK
1. Bryan Cranston in BREAKING BAD

Top 20 Most Iconic Film Performances

These are those wonderful cases where the actor and the part just match perfectly.  Try to imagine anyone else in that role and it just doesn't work.  Here is my list for feature films; a separate list for TV will soon follow...

20. Antonia San Juan in ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER (1999)
19. Shelley Winters in LOLITA (1962)
18. Sigourney Weaver in ALIENS (1986)
17. James Woods in ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA (1984)
16. Faye Dunaway in NETWORK (1976)
15. Jan Malmsjo in FANNY AND ALEXANDER (1982)
14. Gloria Swanson in SUNSET BLVD (1950)
13. Kathy Bates in MISERY (1990)
12. Christopher Lloyd in WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT (1988)
11. Valentina Cortese in DAY FOR NIGHT (1973)

10. Robert De Niro in TAXI DRIVER (1976)
9. Ellen Burstyn in REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000)
8. Harriet Andersson in THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY (1961)
7. Tim Curry in THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975)
6. Samuel L. Jackson in PULP FICTION (1994)
5. The Entire Cast of THE GODFATHER (1972)
4. Fairuza Balk in RETURN TO OZ (1985)
3. Javier Camara in TALK TO HER (2002)
2. Robert De Niro in RAGING BULL (1980)
1. Daniel Day-Lewis in THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007)

The 2012 Gabe Rodriguez Film Awards

So what were my choices for the best films of this year?  Well, I will tell you:

First off, films made by people I actually know, which makes me biased:

-FEED A (dir. Clarke Mayer)

This is the best "found footage" film I've ever seen, mostly because it uses the technique intelligently and not as a gimmick.  This horror film follows a SWAT team while investigating a house.  The star of the film is really the presentation: the level of detail and authenticity for the SWAT members, the bodies, the practical effects, and how it ends will leave you talking for a while.

-A NEON LIFE: BERLIN (dir. Jack Feldstein)

I've raved about Feldstein's work before.  This film, which is tecnically an episode in an ongoing web-series, goes in a different direction.  Rather than his usual stream-of-conscious narrative using free-flowing dialog and imagery, A NEON LIFE is more of a documentary series, in which he speaks directly to us about exciting social events, interviewing others, and then "neon-izing" the footage.  I had no real thoughts on the other episodes, but what made BERLIN stand out so much to me was how different it was, capturing the artistic vibe of a historic city that has had much trauma.  In fact, I don't think any city in the world can honestly say it has succesfully overcome so many divergent traumas as Berlin has.  This short film made me think about the reality of a place I've never been, while simultaneously depicting it in a fake, cartoonish way.  It was a real return to form for this artist who I've been following for nearly two years now.  Watch it here.

Okay, onto the best indie short films I saw:

-CAN'T DANCE (dir. Richard Uhlig)

A comedy about an old man and his dead wife's ghost.  Very well directed.  You can see the website here.

-ANDREW: STORY OF A CLOSET MONSTER (dir. Eliott Lobell)

A charming animated fable about a boy who becomes friends with the monster in his closet.  None of the two lead characters have a single word of dialog, yet it touches you.

-SOMETHING LEFT, SOMETHING TAKEN (dir. Ru Kuwahata, Max Porter)

This is one of the funniest animated films I've ever seen, and I can't imagine what the budget on it was.  Two kids take a ride from a stranger, who they begin to suspect is the Zodiac killer.  I especially love how the two main characters are caricatures of the two directors.  In fact, the sense of humor in general feels very PIXAR-ish.  Check out this masterpiece here.

Okay, now, onto the main course.  In my humble opinion, the ten biggest films of 2012:

10. SKYFALL (dir. Sam Mendes)

I'm not a James Bond fan, but this is the biggest film in their entire 50-year franchise and the first one to cross the one-billion dollar mark.  So I HAD to include it.

9. AMOUR (dir. Michael Haneke)

Winner of the Palme d'Or, Haneke returns to a style of long character silences in hollow interiors in this Austrian film.

8. THE MASTER (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

When I was making this list, I nearly forgot this film had come out this year.  I can understand why this divided many, but any film that sticks it to Scientology is fine with me.  Plus I just really love Anderson's work.

7. Tie between THE AVENGERS (dir. Joss Whedon)/THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (dir. Christopher Nolan)

These were the two top-grossers of the year and the two summer movies everyone was talking about, so I felt they should be ranked together.  I personally thought TDKR was hurt by several factors, the biggest of which was that it felt like an inorganic ending to a story that was not meant to be a trilogy.  But there is no denying that these two films not only represented the current Renaissance for comic book films, but also the best that both Marvel and DC have to offer.  A lot is resting on next year's MAN OF STEEL.

6. THE HUNGER GAMES (dir. Gary Ross)

This was the biggest surprise of the year for me and I think for a lot of people.  Many of us were thinking "Another book series that's popular with teens being turned into a big movie franchise; could this be another TWILIGHT?"  What most of us discovered is "Hey, this series is actually pretty cool."  THE HUNGER GAMES won me over with its fantastic premise and Jennifer Lawrence's leading lady presence.  I do admit to disliking the shaky handheld work, and I've never liked Gary Ross as a director.  Had David Fincher directed this film, it might even have been #1 for me.  In any case, CATCHING FIRE is one of the few films I'm looking forward to in 2013.

5. A ROYAL AFFAIR (dir. Nikolaj Arcel)

I love any kind of BARRY LYNDON costume drama.  This film from Denmark depicts the mental illness of Christian VII, and makes us all think about our own sanity.

4. ARGO (dir. Ben Affleck)

Although he directed two movies before, this seems to be Ben Affleck's official coming out as a director.  Every single review is praising him as the new top filmmaker.  This film manages to take a real-world event that is often forgotten today and not only dramatize it, but even throw in a little Hollywood satire on the side.  The entire cast is great in a film that really makes you think.  The only thing I didn't like was the retro '70's cinematography, which came off looking hokey.

3. THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (dir. Peter Jackson)

I already wrote a whole blog about this.  I find it sad how people spent the better part of a decade going "We want more LORD OF THE RINGS movies!  C'mon, make THE HOBBIT!  C'mon, what's with all these development problems!" and now, when it's finally out, the response seems to be "Eh, it didn't need to be made."  I personally really enjoyed this film, thought it felt like an organic continuation of the Holy Trilogy, and am looking forward to the sequels.  Yes, it's more lighthearted than the previous films, but that was the point!  As for the whole 48 fps scandal, let's just not go there.

2. ZERO DARK THIRTY (dir. Kathryn Bigelow)

I really love Bigelow as a director and the direction she is going in.  I love all movies about the military, and I feel that only now are we truly coming to terms with the war(s) of the past decade.  At first no one knew what this film was even about.  Once it became clear it was about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, public opinion became divided!  Mark my words, I predict this will win Best Picture.

and the winner is...

1. LES MISERABLES (dir. Tom Hooper)

Well, obviously the release of this movie was the second coming of Christ!  Okay, I've done a lot of raving about this movie, yet the general public opinion seems to be a bit of disappointment, so I feel a lot of pressure to do some justifying.  Well, here goes: Victor Hugo's novel, which happens to be my favorite book ever, is part narrative, part history lesson, part personal essay/editorial.  Through the device of not one but several stories, the work is a critique of modern society, and continues to feel modern 150 years later.  Hugo effortlessly shows poverty, exploitation, and degradation in all its forms.  The stage musical retains this, but obviously must streamline events into a cohesive narrative, and it also has some kickass songs.  Hooper's film melds these two approaches: presenting a heightened realism in a very gritty environment, while the script streamlines things even further, and those who don't like "sung-through" musicals or operas, won't go for it.  I know many complained that all the singing prevented them from latching on to the characters; all I can say is that this isn't your typical movie where characters and plotpoints are presented via literal narrative.  This is a new language of cinematic storytelling.  For me, absorbing this long film all in one sitting was an experience, and one that I feel must be had again and again; I suspect others will gain more appreciation on repeat viewings as well.

and the worst is...

1000. RED TAILS (dir. Anthony Hemingway)

Not since Michael Bay's PEARL HARBOR has there been such a horrible, insulting, stupid film that tries to preserve history through shallow characterization dumbed down to Hollywood tropes.  And at least PEARL HARBOR had the excuse that it was only dramatizing one historic event and not an entire war, but here the scope is much larger and the result is much more baffling.  At least PEARL HARBOR could fall back on "Well, we chose to focus on a love story for most of the movie;" this one couldn't even get the love story right.  You could argue that LES MIZ also recreates history, but at least that made some effort to depict any kind of complexity, be it personal, political, societal, etc.  Red Tails was just "Racism is bad.  Patriotism is good.  Germans are stupid."  Even though George Lucas didn't direct, this may be the worst film to ever have his name on it.  It has all the problems of the STAR WARS prequels but without the novelty and a lot more self-importance, showing how out of touch he is.

And that was 2012!