Category Archives: Films

Best of lists

I’ve not done a ‘best of year’ list before but thought I’d have a stab this time – and do it across films, TV literary fiction and nonfiction. These are lists of my favourites/best viewed or read in the past … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Films | Leave a comment

Indiewood riding high in Oscar nominations

Whatever assorted rows and debates might accompany this year’s Oscar nominations, they demonstrate again the continued strength of the Indiewood and indie sectors as far as scoring well in these commercially valuable prestige stakes is concerned. The nominees can be … Continue reading

Posted in Companies, Films, Industry practice | Leave a comment

Hollywood Puzzle Films

This is just a shameless plug for a chapter I have in a new book just out, Hollywood Puzzle Films edited by Warren Buckland (a new AFI Film Reader from Routledge). My chapter is one of several on Inception, in which I explore … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Films | Leave a comment

Ibsen’s gun, Llewyn Davis and White House Down

An odd mixture of elements, it might seem, but something I wanted to comment on in passing in Inside Llewyn Davis evolved somewhat after a viewing last night of White House Down. Comparing such films might seem a little spurious, … Continue reading

Posted in Films | Leave a comment

The Loneliest Planet: maximising the effect of minimalism

Low-key narrative is one of the most frequent characteristics of indie film, a tendency that sometimes veers towards the minimalist end of the scale in the kind of production in which, by conventional standards, ‘very little happens’. A good example … Continue reading

Posted in Films | Leave a comment

Spring Breakers: exploitation/art cinema

Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers offers a fascinating combination of elements of exploitation and art cinema, two key ingredients often found in the mix that constitutes indie film but employed here in a blend that’s somewhat jarring and uncomfortable – but also … Continue reading

Posted in Filmmakers, Films | Leave a comment

The Sessions and indie ingredients

I liked The Sessions but when you step back at look at it, like so many indie films, it seems comprised of a number of components rather familiar to the territory. First, it offers us something marked as distinctly ‘uncomfortable’, in … Continue reading

Posted in Films, Industry practice | Leave a comment

Zero reference to The Colonial Present

Been meaning to post something about Zero Dark Thirty for some time and Oscar-eve seems as good an excuse as any. Even if it’s not an indie film, it has some characteristics of the ‘quality’ or Indiewood end of the spectrum, … Continue reading

Posted in Films, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Silver Linings Cop Out?

No great surprise that Silver Linings Playbook was the big winner at the Independent Spirit Awards, just ahead of the Oscars, taking best feature, best director and screenplay for David O. Russell and best actress for Jennifer Lawrence. I liked … Continue reading

Posted in Companies, Films | Leave a comment

Rachel Lister on indie narrative and the short story

Very interesting piece by Rachel Lister in the new issue of Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies on links between indie narrative and the short story. In ‘The Feature Film as Short Story: The “Little Disturbances” of Nicole Holofcener’, … Continue reading

Posted in Filmmakers, Films | Leave a comment