Katernica
A hopelessly pretentious amateur production apparently about an actress wanting to stage a cursed one-act play—I got that by looking it up online, because I sure couldn't tell from watching…
Latest "WAY too indie" files
Katernica
Earth Over Earth
Good swing and a complete miss. Starts out for at least half of it seeming like that rare decent indie flick, as a couple on a technology-and-sex-fast in the woods…
Pesadilla
I guess this is supposed to be some sort of indie neo-noir, because it starts with a robbery, and has people planning other robberies, and has people waving guns around…
Diane (2023)
Absolutely awful pic (indie division). Shot alright, but the plot is incomprehensible... a couple moves into a new building where, after about an hour, it turns out, the building manager…
And Here No Devil Can Hurt You
This seems like a student film... decent at some things about filmmaking (occasionally striking visual images and framing), and totally seemingly oblivious to the need for others (decent writing, any…
Delicate Arch
Four hipsters take a camping trip in the desert to try to make "YellowBrickRoad" and aren't good enough filmmakers to pull it off. They make up for lack of an…
Spell
An insufferable hipster artist flees to Iceland after the death of his fiancee, where a one night stand with a woman who makes him get a sigil tattooed on his…
Shortwave
Ponderously dull sci-fi movie of the sort indie filmmakers sometimes seem inclined to make, the kind where an opening credit lets you know it's "A Film By" and not a…
A Room Full Of Nothing
A single-note idea where a pair of frustrated hipsters who I bet live in Austin wish they were alone in the world, so they wake up alone, and spend the…
Country of Hotels
Cheapo movie that tries to conceal being bad behind being weird, about a weird hotel where weird people check in and they and the weird staff harangue each other and…
The Blue Rose
A visually beautiful film made by someone who obviously studied at the feet of Blue Velvet-era David Lynch in terms of cinematography, and succeeds well on that level, but is…
The Hyperborean
A self-consciously "weird" movie (never a good thing in my book) movie which suffers primarily from self-consciously "quirky" characters obviously invented by a Wes Anderson fan: a family with a…
Booger
In between interminable references to "The Pina Colada Song" for some reason, a Brooklyn hipster gets bit by a cat (named "Booger"), and behaves like she is turning onto a…
Hallucinations (2021)
Originally posted on IMDB. Note to aspiring filmmakers: there are two things you are not. The first is David Lynch. The second, and this needs to be said far less…
Alone With You
An indie, hipster version of "1408". Woman trapped alone in her Brooklyn apartment has a bunch of surreal, random "scary" things happen to her, and it's all supposed to mean…
Death On Scenic Drive
Serious swing and a miss here. Beautiful cinematography, and a nice analog synth soundtrack—overall reminischent of "Beyond The Black Rainbow" in those ways, including with lots of saturated lighting ond…
Flesh City
Execrable, pretentious wanna-be "avante garde" film from a Berlin filmmaker who obviously thinks "avant garde" means lots of video effects, jumpy edits, stuttering video, and half the movie being just…
Zoe In Exile
A young woman has a disjointed bunch of random, weird, episodic encounters with weird people who do random things because it's artsy, I guess. Seems loosely to be a cheaply-produced…
Faye (2021)
A writer, trying to cope with the death of her husband, rents a remote house, where she talks to herself for 90 minutes and slowly loses her marbles. This is…
The Alchemist’s Cookbook
A man holed up in a trailer in the woods, apparently trying to do some sort of alchemy that looks remarkably similar to cooking up meth, talks to himself for…
Anna: Scream Queen Killer
Scream Queen Killer: A"scream queen"actress auditioning for a role by doing about 15 minutes of 30 secone takes on various situations, because, I guess, if you only saw her"act like there's an invisible presence in the room for 30 seconds...act like you're turning into a vampire for 30 seconds"for 12 or 13 minutes, the point wouldn't have been made. Fellas, there's editing now. You should use it.
Melvin Goes To Dinner
First-time director Bob Odenkirk loads this calculatedly "relatable" movie with shaky, out-of-focus handheld camerawork; "artistic" effects like illustrating a character telling an anecdote with a flashback consisting only of still…