Independence Day.

Here I present my latest lashing of thoughts into letters, letters to words, and words to sentences. In the words of a great friend of mine "restaurant season" is upon us here in LA. Time to bring on all the gushing, the crocodile tearing, and the "fuck I didn't win!" expressioning. I will admit this year I am totally invested. Ever since that rat fuck piece of film school hackery "Crash" liberal guilted it's way into a best picture win I voluntarily tuned out except for rare breaches to see if my man Harry Dean would get some love for "Big Love". This season however I am pulling for a great friend to win a few for his behind the camera work. Not for his ego or the accolades but for the hope that any nomination or win will get him more leverage to continue his work behind rather than in front of the camera. Shit! I can feel the sidetracking begin time to get back to the main rub of the post, after perusing the various nominees for the Independent Spirit Awards I've come to the conclusion that I was under a dubious spell. I always assumed it was the award ceremony for the best and brightest of independent films. An award show I've always enjoyed. However some nominees in the various categories were perplexing. They didn't really scream indie film making to me. I chomped down on my cigarette holder in anger and started to pound away at the keyboard in fury. You can't call "Juno" an indie film it was made for 25 million bucks(at least that's what Wikipedia says)! "A Mighty Heart" was produced by Paramount Pictures or I'm sorry their small totally ignored splinter cell Paramount Vantage! "I'm Not There" was distributed by The Weinstein Company and produced by Killer films who have almost forty films to there credit, many of them high profile "independent" films. I'm not taking anything away from the artists and producers who made these fantastic films, but the powers or money behind a lot of them really don't scream independent to me. Then the name of this award giving entity jumped out at me. Independent SPIRIT Awards. These awards are for films made in the "spirit" of independent films. That realization sparked another. That there really is no proper definition of what is an independent film. A massive argument took hold of my brain. What should the definition of an independent film be? A film made outside of the studio system? Well if that's the definition then the recent Star Wars prequels fit that bill. Well those can't be considered independent movies they were made with too much money. But by that reasoning you can't count "Juno" as an indie film because they spent 25 million on the making of that film. That's a lot of money for a film that is essentially nothing more than people in various rooms talking to each other especially with the advent of digital film making. (On a side note what I mean about the "people in a room talking" line is that if you strip away the fantastic story, performances, and direction on a purely physical production level it's people in rooms talking to each other which in the world of film production is generally easy to shoot.) But in the defense of Juno's indie cred we all know one of the big five would never green light a film with a truly original female centric story. The mind continues it's whirling Disney's Alice In Wonderland Tea Cup ride. All the arguments regarding the definitions of what makes an indie film an indie film is really a snake eating it's tale because every side of the argument leads into the other. Unless you simply strip it all away and call an independent film a movie that is made for very little money, with relatively no stars in front of or behind the camera(that means you Van Sant), a production company made of relative newcomers, and no means or conections to big distribution and big publicity. I realized then that thankfully the Independent Spirit Awards have an award for just that kind of independence in the "John Cassavetes Award". An award given to a feature made for under 500,000 thousand. Well at least those nominees are true, at least in my mind that is, to what an independent film should be. Sadly my insanity was only quelled for a short time as questions started to rise out of the mists again. Who needs awards any way? But then what would happen to restaurant season? Where would all the industry types go on a Wednesday night in January? Would the star fucking stop fucking? Would the fucking stars stop starring? Would Damon and Affleck finally admit to the perjury of "Good Will Hunting"? Would Speilberg and Lucas finally admit to their pig fuck on intelligent film making? Would Paris stop Hiltoning? Would Von Trier stop art fucking? Would Gallo finally bathe? Would Akiva delete his Final Draft program? Would Fox come out of the closet? What about John? Would Halle give Bassett her Oscar back? Would liberal Hollywood stop believing that liberal lawmakers are really against the war? Would Ratner go back to his roots where he belongs? Would sequaling and remaking finally dry up and blow away? Would teenagers stop dictating content? Would the strike end? Would the unions end? Would the studios end? Just too many goddamn questions. Fuck it, I'm going back to not caring.

Mahalo,

T