Fall 2013 Indie Film Guide
Fall 2013 Indie Film Guide
Say goodbye to this summer's big-budget blockbusters. The independent movie scene has turned over some promising autumn gems. From 2013 festival favorites to directorial debuts to seasoned comedy vets, here are 10 indie films you've just got to see this season.
Photo Credit: John Jeffcoat10. Hell Baby
Beware! The mocking humor of Reno 911! meets the chilling horror of a dozen devil possession movies! RENO creators Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon follow up their crude ping-pong comedy BALLS OF FURY with demon seeds, a haunted house, chain-smoking priests and some really stupid fun. If you like po’ boys and pizza salad, here you go. Just watch out for the puke.
Photo Credit: Sundance Institute9. Don Jon
Joseph Gordon-Levitt seems like such a nice young man. Certainly not the porn-obsessed Jersey Shore clone of his breakout romantic comedy, a 2013 festival favorite that Gordon-Levitt wrote, directed and starred in. Formerly titled DON JON’S ADDICTION (whoops, spoiler!), JGL’s debut feature gives us Tony Danza, Scarlett Johansson and some previously untapped talent we didn’t know he had.
Photo Credit: Thomas Kloss8. I Used To Be Darker
Director Matthew Porterfield returns to his Baltimore home to follow up the well-received PUTTY HILL with this family drama full of music, heartbreak, and a non-professional cast playing out some unexpected moments. Check out the last 10 seconds of the trailer to see what we mean.
Photo Credit: Joyce Kim7. Touchy Feely
When we last saw Rosemarie DeWitt in a Lynn Shelton film, she was doing tequila shots (and plenty more) in a cabin with Mark Duplass (it’s MY SISTER’S SISTER). Now, she’s an emotionally confused massage therapist suddenly struck by an aversion to human touch. If Shelton’s portfolio is any indication, expect a fresh, unconventional look at relationships, with improvised dialogue of course. Ellen Page and Allison Janney co-star.
Photo Credit: John Jeffcoat6. A Teacher
Writer-director Hannah Fidell was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 new faces of independent film. And Fidell is on fire with this one, as she presses the hot-button topic of student-teacher sexual affairs by telling her story almost completely from the teacher’s increasingly complex point-of-view.
Photo Credit: A Teacher5. Kill Your Darlings
Although independent cinema has been littered with Beat poets over the past few years – Jack Kerouac has been portrayed on the big screen seven times since 2010, Allen Ginsberg, five – KILL YOUR DARLINGS feels unique in its evocation of true passion. A college-aged Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) is introduced to Kerouac (Jack Huston) and William Burroughs (Ben Foster) in 1944, and caught up in a scandalous murder that pushes the literary prodigies to the edge.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Benaroya Pictures4. Enough Said
Awards season has always been kind to Nicole Holofcener’s touching comedy-dramas and the actors in them – her films have a combined eight Independent Spirit nominations and three wins. But Holofcener’s latest take on romantic entanglements has an immediate, unintentional melancholy even before it screens: ENOUGH SAID is the first film to star the late James Gandolfini following his death. (Gandolfini also stars in the crime film ANIMAL RESCUE, scheduled for a 2014 release.)
Photo Credit: Fox Searchlight Pictures3. Paradise
Diablo Cody knows how to capture dialogue with a witty, sometimes painful, edge. Add some cultural bite and JUNO-style warmth, and you've got her latest film, PARADISE, which marks Cody’s first venture in the director’s chair. The plot promises an eyebrow raising performance from Julianne Hough, who plays a churchgoing woman reborn into sin after a near-death experience.
Photo Credit: Lamb Productions, Inc.2. Muscle Shoals
2013 has been a fantastic year for music documentaries: SOUND CITY, A BAND CALLED DEATH, 20 FEET FROM STARDOM. And MUSCLE SHOALS looks to round it out even further. This doc looks at the legendary Alabama area that’s rife with poverty, and also responsible for some incredible music and unlikely racial harmony. It's a spiritual journey through a couple generations of wholly American music, from Percy Sledge to Lynyrd Skynyrd to Alicia Keys.
Photo Credit: Muscle Shoals Archive1. Escape from Tomorrow
When we first heard of this surreal black-and-white drama, shot quietly and illegally throughout Disney World, it was tough to imagine it ever getting released. But Randy Moore’s thrilling exercise in seat-of-your-pants filmmaking makes its theatrical debut in October. Look for some serious degradation of the Mickey brand. Those big round ears might not be so comforting anymore.
Photo Credit: Mankurt Media LLC
