Declare Your Independents — Vol. 33
GITS development assistant Wendy Cohen here, and welcome back to Declare Your Independents, our new series highlighting the latest developments in the world of independent film!
This week…
Twin Peaks Returns As Showtime Limited Series From David Lynch & Mark Frost
Is Whiplash the perfect under-the-radar Oscar dark horse?
Who Should Star in the New Ghostbusters?
The Best Documentaries of 2014 So Far
Scott and I encourage any of you who go to see an independent movie to post your reactions to the film in these posts. Good, bad, indifferent, whatever. If there’s a film you want to recommend, do it. Use your words to inspire readers to transport themselves into a local cinema.
INDIE SPOTLIGHT: MOVIES TO SEE IN THEATERS THIS WEEK
OPENING FRIDAY (10/10)
Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller) is an ambitious young jazz drummer, single-minded in his pursuit to rise to the top of his elite east coast music conservatory. Plagued by the failed writing career of his father, Andrew hungers day and night to become one of the greats. Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons ), an instructor equally known for his teaching talents as for his terrifying methods, leads the top jazz ensemble in the school. Fletcher discovers Andrew and transfers the aspiring drummer into his band, forever changing the young man’s life. Andrew’s passion to achieve perfection quickly spirals into obsession, as his ruthless teacher continues to push him to the brink of both his ability-and his sanity.
Watch TIFF’s interview with Damien Chazelle, director and writer of the 2012 Black List script, here.
Maggie (Melissa McCarthy), a single mother, moves into a new home in Brooklyn with her 12-year old son, Oliver. Forced to work long hours, she has no choice but to leave Oliver in the care of their new neighbor, Vincent (Bill Murray), a retired curmudgeon with a penchant for alcohol and gambling. An odd friendship soon blossoms between the improbable pair. Together with a pregnant stripper named Daka (Naomi Watts), Vincent brings Oliver along on all the stops that make up his daily routine — the race track, a strip club, and the local dive bar. Vincent helps Oliver grow to become a man, while Oliver begins to see in Vincent something that no one else is able to: a misunderstood man with a good heart.
Watch the Wall Street Journal’s interview with writer/director Theodore Melfi here.
In The Judge, Robert Downey Jr. stars as big city lawyer Hank Palmer, who returns to his childhood home where his estranged father, the town’s judge (Robert Duvall), is suspected of murder. He sets out to discover the truth and along the way reconnects with the family he walked away from years before.
Watch an interview with one of the film’s writers, Bill Dubuque, here.
Two-time Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner (The Bourne Legacy) leads an all-star cast in a dramatic thriller based on the remarkable true story of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb. Webb stumbles onto a story which leads to the shady origins of the men who started the crack epidemic on the nation’s streets…and further alleges that the CIA was aware of major dealers who were smuggling cocaine into the U.S., and using the profits to arm rebels fighting in Nicaragua. Despite warnings from drug kingpins and CIA operatives to stop his investigation, Webb keeps digging to uncover a conspiracy with explosive implications. His journey takes him from the prisons of California to the villages of Nicaragua to the highest corridors of power in Washington, D.C. — and draws the kind of attention that threatens not just his career, but his family and his life.
Watch an interview with the film’s writer, Peter Landesman, here.
In a future where Earth’s ecosystem verges on collapse, man-made robots roam the city to protect dwindling human life. When a robot overrides a key protocol put in place to protect human life, ROC Robotics insurance agent Jacq Vaucan (Antonio Banderas) is assigned to locate the source of the manipulation and eliminate the threat. What he discovers leads Vaucan, ROC Robotics and the police into a battle with profound consequences for the future of humanity.
Academy Award-winner Hilary Swank (Conviction, Million Dollar Baby) and rapidly rising star Emmy Rossum intertwine in You’re Not You, a surprisingly funny, defiantly unsentimental and starkly moving portrait of a high-stakes friendship between two women — one literally in need of a voice, the other discovering the full power of hers.
Unprecedented access to Muhammad Ali’s personal archive of audio journals as well as interviews and testimonials from his inner circle of family and friends are used to tell the legend’s life story.
Watch an interview with the film’s director, Clare Lewins, here.
In this gripping blend of documentary, true crime, and personal essay, a filmmaker confronts his past, dissecting the circumstances that led him to commit a bank robbery as a young man, and his journey since that act. How does a 16-year-old go from honors student to bank robber? In Evolution of a Criminal, filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe explores the financial straits that led him to a desperate act as teenager in Texas, and returns to the scene of the crime to interview family members, close friends, and mentors to reflect on the aftermath.
AWAKE: The Life of Yogananda is an unconventional biography about the Hindu Swami who brought yoga and meditation to the West in the 1920s. Paramahansa Yogananda authored the spiritual classic “Autobiography of a Yogi,” which has sold millions of copies worldwide and is a go-to book for seekers, philosophers and yoga enthusiasts today. By personalizing his own quest for enlightenment and sharing his struggles along the path, Yogananda made ancient Vedic teachings accessible to a modern audience, attracting many followers and inspiring the millions who practice yoga today.
Sometimes a story is so inspiring that it must be told. Such is the astonishing life of Wachtang “Botso” Korisheli — musician, sculptor, and beloved teacher to generations.Born in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, young Botso was affectionately held by Josef Stalin not long before Stalin’s brutal regime ordered the execution of Botso’s father, popular actor Platon Korisheli. Remarkably, Botso was allowed 20 minutes to see his father one last time. Here, inside a dark prison, Platon communicated to his son what was most important about living your life, words that still inspire him at the age of 91. This powerful moment helped Botso not only endure years of suffering at the hands of both the Soviet army and Nazis during World War II, but also gave him the determination to maintain an infectious passion for humanity, the arts, and life itself. Eventually arriving in America with nothing but hope, Botso furthered his musical training and became a beloved educator of children. He went on to touch generations of students, inspiring some of the world’s premier musical artists, including five-time Grammy Award winner Kent Nagano. Filmed partly in the Republic of Georgia, this feature-length documentary also captures the rich culture of an ancient country that has shaped Botso’s unique way of teaching.
A modern-day Grapes of Wrath, award-winning documentary The Overnighters is an intimate portrait of job-seekers desperately chasing the broken American Dream to the tiny oil boom town of Williston, North Dakota. With the town lacking the infrastructure to house the overflow of migrants, a local pastor starts the controversial “overnighters” program, allowing down-and-out workers a place to sleep at the church. His well-meaning project immediately runs into resistance with his community, forcing the clergyman to make a decision which leads to profound consequences that he never imagined.
Watch Sundance’s interview with the film’s director, Jesse Moss, here.
NOW IN THEATERS
Gone Girl, directed by David Fincher and based upon the global bestseller by Gillian Flynn — unearths the secrets at the heart of a modern marriage. On the occasion of his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) reports that his beautiful wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), has gone missing. Under pressure from the police and a growing media frenzy, Nick’s portrait of a blissful union begins to crumble. Soon his lies, deceits and strange behavior have everyone asking the same dark question: Did Nick Dunne kill his wife?
Watch an interview with Gillian Flynn, the film’s writer (and author of the book upon which the movie was based) here.
Men, Women & Children follows the story of a group of high school teenagers and their parents as they attempt to navigate the many ways the internet has changed their relationships, their communication, their self-image, and their love lives. The film attempts to stare down social issues such as video game culture, anorexia, infidelity, fame hunting, and the proliferation of illicit material on the internet. As each character and each relationship is tested, we are shown the variety of roads people choose — some tragic, some hopeful — as it becomes clear that no one is immune to this enormous social change that has come through our phones, our tablets, and our computers.
Watch an interview with Jason Reitman, the film’s director and co-writer, here.
They were known simply as “The Lost Boys.” Orphaned by the brutal Civil war in Sudan that began in 1983, these young victims traveled as many as a thousand miles on foot in search of safety. Fifteen years later, a humanitarian effort would bring 3600 lost boys and girls to America. In “The Good Lie,” Philippe Falardeau, (writer and director of the Oscar-nominated Foreign Language film “Monsieur Lazhar”) brings the story of their survival and triumph to life. Sudanese actors Arnold Oceng, Ger Duany, Emmanuel Jal, and newcomer Nyakuoth Weil, many of whom were also children of war, star alongside Academy Award-winner Reese Witherspoon and Corey Stoll.
Watch an interview with the film’s writer, Margaret Nagle, here.
Two adulterous lovers go from pillow talk to possible murder in this sexy, brain-teasing thriller. Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Grand Budapest Hotel) directs and stars as Julien, a middle-aged salesman embroiled in a steamy love affair with a married woman who, after a round of kinky sex, makes a startling suggestion. Suddenly Julien is caught up in a police investigation — but just what exactly happened? Based on a novel by celebrated crime writer Georges Simenon, this beguiling cinematic puzzle unfolds in an elliptical style that keeps the audience guessing every step of the way.
Watch an interview with the film’s director, Mathieu Amalric, here.
Pride is inspired by an extraordinary true story. It’s the summer of 1984, Margaret Thatcher is in power and the National Union of Mineworkers is on strike, prompting a London-based group of gay and lesbian activists to raise money to support the strikers’ families. Initially rebuffed by the Union, the group identifies a tiny mining village in Wales and sets off to make their donation in person. As the strike drags on, the two groups discover that standing together makes for the strongest union of all.
Watch an interview with the film’s director Matthew Warchus and screenwriter Stephen Beresford here.
Tracks tells the incredible true story of Robyn Davidson, a young woman who in 1977 undertook a perilous solo trek across 1,700 miles of stunning Australian outback. Abandoning city life, Robyn arrives in Alice Springs and declares her ambition to cross the desert to the Indian Ocean to the amusement of the locals. However after months of camping out and working on a camel farm people begin to take her seriously. A chance meeting with National Geographic photographer Rick Smoland provides her with the necessary financing for her expedition under the condition that he be allowed to photograph parts of her journey for the magazine. With only her dog and four unpredictable camels for company, she embarks on an inspiring and life changing journey of self-discovery.
Watch an interview with the film’s director, John Curran, here.
Many thanks to Wendy for today’s post. Remember to Declare Your Independents by going to a theater or use V.O.D. to watch an indie feature this weekend.