Tweet Originally posted at Splice Today Indie film tends toward realism. It’s not hard to understand why: on a low-budget, the special effects necessary for fantasy and science fiction are hard to achieve. Creative filmmakers aren’t afraid of a challenge, though. In recent years, and especially 2011, a handful of art house movies ventured into [...]
Posts Tagged ‘independent film’
Fan Production as Industrial Response in ‘Transformative Works & Cultures’
Posted by Aymar Jean Christian on November 15th, 2011
Tweet Some of you may remember the web series The Real Girl’s Guide to Everything Else, a satirical show about Rasha, a Lebanese lesbian forced to date men to finance her book project. The series got a lot of coverage last year, from NPR to Jezebel, and a host of lesbian-focused blogs and websites. Super-syndicated across [...]
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Tags: academic, comedy, gay, gender, independent film, race, research, web series 
No Comments »Mumblecore After the Rise of Web Video and Decline of Digital Realism
Posted by Aymar Jean Christian on September 17th, 2011
Tweet Academic publishing is slow. Everybody knows that. So it should come as no surprise that only now is my article on mumblecore, titled “Joe Swanberg, Intimacy and the Digital Aesthetic,” coming out in the latest issue of Cinema Journal. 2011 a strange time for an article on mumblecore, since it is now “over.” I wrote [...]
‘In Between Men’: The First Gay Male Web Series Hit?
Posted by Aymar Jean Christian on January 12th, 2011
Tweet Earlier this year I received an email from a press rep for a surprising series, In Between Men. What was so surprising? The show was holding a red carpet premiere at TriBeCa Cinemas in New York, had enlisted minor stars like Michelle Clunie (Queer as Folk) and Chase Coleman (Boardwalk Empire), and boasted a [...]
Posted in uncategorized Tags: gay, independent film, race, Video (Web/Mobile/Transmedia), web series 3 Comments »Lena Dunham Reinvents Post-Collegiate Angst
Posted by Aymar Jean Christian on January 11th, 2011
Tweet If you’ve never heard of Lena Dunham, you’re excused. Dunham’s first theatrically released feature, Tiny Furniture, is this year’s critical darling in DIY cinema (last year was Humpday, the year before Medicine for Melancholy). As with most DIY films, these films saw very limited releases and, if they’re blockbusters, gross in the low six-figures. [...]
2010: The Year The Bechdel Test Went Viral?
Posted by Aymar Jean Christian on December 24th, 2010
Tweet Confession: This year was the first I’d heard of the Alison Bechdel Test (or Bechdel Rule). As soon as I knew it, I admit: I was hooked. Suddenly I left every film calculating whether or not it passed, how quickly it passed, how well it passed, etc. It’s a fun game and industrial critique! [...]
Find Your Dad (or His Killer): ‘True Grit’ and ‘Winter’s Bone’
Posted by Aymar Jean Christian on December 24th, 2010
Tweet Full review at SpliceToday Thousands of movies are released each year, yet I’m always surprised when two of them are similar. Usually I shouldn’t be, but two neo-Westerns about a teenage girl looking for or avenging their fathers is a little too coincidental. Why? Mainly because most films, independent or blockbuster, give us so [...]
Robert Townsend Talks ‘Diary of a Single Mom,’ ‘Los Americans’ and Making a Difference Through the Web
Posted by Aymar Jean Christian on December 7th, 2010
Tweet For a full transcript of the interview, click here! For three years Robert Townsend has been working as one of the more prolific and successful web series directors around, trying to do good with a number of projects with socially progressive non-profit One Economy. With over 30 years in the industry, Townsend is an understated but [...]
‘Night Catches Us’: Life After the Revolution (Review)
Posted by Aymar Jean Christian on October 26th, 2010
Tweet Full review at Splice Today Some movies are just hard to make; their themes don’t fit well with the medium. Gangsters, action, ghosts, sci-fi: easy. Activism, oppression, political movements: hard. Too often, those themes fall prey to nostalgia, condescension and moralism, all of which can be useful but are only sometimes interesting. Night Catches [...]
Who Should Have Directed ‘For Colored Girls’?
Posted by Aymar Jean Christian on October 22nd, 2010
Tweet So the reviews are out! And they are bad vitriolic. What went wrong? (UPDATE!: In the end, despite early pans, reviews for For Colored Girls are just as mixed as with all of Tyler Perry’s films. For an answer why, see my previous post on why critics can’t seem to make up their mind [...]
Posted in uncategorized Tags: black, Film, gender, hollywood, independent film, oscars, race 12 Comments »
