sundance

How to make indie films less cliched

We adore independent films here—duh—but surely there are ways to guarantee that they don’t fall into various traps that could make them become the very kind of clichéd fare they’re supposed to be a reaction against.

Before that even has a chance of happening, here are my ultra sane suggestions for keeping the indie spirit alive rather than letting it become as hackneyed as some of the see-it-coming-a-mile-away stuff Hollywood spits out on a regular basis.

GREENBERG

Is there anything more pathetic than a middle-aged man who lists among his most winning attributes a record deal his college band almost had, the ability to make a killer mix CD and wearying psuedo-wit and cynicism about the modern world? A cynicism so far-reatching, I might add, that almost nothing escapes its scope, not even the ailing family dog and definitely nothing post-1979 which includes all music, all technologies and all people who came into being after this year. The aforementioned ‘almost nothing’ means GREENBERG, of course, the only person to escape his critical eye.

Noah Baumbach and Ben Stiller do a whole lot with “doing nothing” in GREENBERG – in theaters March 26

In GREENBERG, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter/director Noah Baumbach (THE SQUID AND THE WHALE) brings us the funny, touching and poignant story of two souls adrift in Los Angeles, trying to forge a connection.