Do you ever feel like when someone starts making some analogies they cross a line and it no longer works for you? Because I’m about to dabble. I’m so taken with this philosophical line the Mark Wiener character says at the end of Palindromes (2004, Todd Solondz) about two kinds of people: the depressed type or the mindless happy type, that I think it accurately can express my favorite types of movies.
The depressed type, or what others have always described my entire life as “those dark weird movies” I like, are the ones that I take seriously—the important ones. In the last 10 years the only truly great movie I could think of was I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020, Charlie Kaufman). Ordinary types of characters with unusual or difficult conflicts or aesthetics?
But I also love what I’m gonna describe as the mindless happy types. Genre films. Entertaining films. They can still be dark, and weird, and amazing though too. So through this entirely separate filter, in answer to the question what truly great films have I seen in the last 10 years, in that case I’d say: Tenet (2020, Christopher Nolan) and The Suicide Squad (2021, James Gunn), along with everything by Joseph Kahn.
However, beyond knowing the kinds of movies I love, what’s left isn’t the types of movies I hate. Sure, the rest, most movies then, don’t do anything for me. But the middleground are the movies I go to watch because I enjoy watching movies. I wanna pitch the idea that usually movies made in the context of a corporate infrastructure, or business model can be fun, but afterwards leave me empty, sometimes even remorse-disappointed; but the beauty of what we call independent movies is that even if you don’t really get anything out of it, the experience can be uplifting, illuminating, rewarding, because whether you call it art, or the little guy, or authentic, I have always pursued that specific joy you get from independent movies. If the bug hit you like it hit me, there’s such a charming magic the first time you see something like Down by Law (1986, Jim Jarmusch), My Own Private Idaho (1991, Gus Van Sant), or Kids (1995, Larry Clark). Admittedly, the term independent, when referring to a movie or director, can get muddy. But you know it when you feel it.
When I forget about independent movies, something new always comes along. First it was Dogme 95. Then mumblecore. Most recently, Peter Vack, Betsey Brown, Eugene Kotlyarenko do it for me. It’s an exhilarating feeling watching indie cinema you can’t compare to anything else. But like punk and grunge, you gotta be careful, because mainstream interests wanna sell it to you, and sometimes it's crap counterfeit.
I’d never gone to watch a sporting event before. Last year I was invited to a baseball game. It was the Atlanta Braves vs somebody. Detroit I think. I forget who won. The thing I was really looking forward to though is how on tv when they go to all those commercials during the game I think that’s so obnoxious. I wondered what a live game would be like. But when I went, it had just as much loud, obnoxious advertisements that there really wasn’t any difference at all. I don’t like sports though. That’s just me.
Eephus (2024, Carson Lund) has the quality of an independent film that takes you somewhere boring to watch boring people do something boring, yet you want to be there. I mean that’s basically the point of any movie, if you think about it: to make you forget about what time it is, what’s going on outside the theater, your life, your job, your phone, and not wonder when the damn thing’s gonna be over. Usually the gimmick is to make something with a built in figurative “ticking clock,” to keep the audience invested. The sublime is when you get what the movie is and, like in Eephus, realize once the experience has begun, there’s no payoff, because it’s one of those rare movies that don’t operate like that. Or I mean, it doesn't bait you to wait for the payoff at the end. Maybe think like that dude said in Heat, "for me the action is the juice." Like Cassavettes, or Altman, or Jarmusch movies. Here’s where I hope I’m not overdoing the metaphors but: the baseball game in Eephus feels like an independent movie. The players aren’t there ‘cause they care about each other, or care about winning or losing, or money, or any other sort of gain from it. They’re there because like us, something in them realizes it only exists because they’re there for it to. That’s why no fans in the bleachers, or corporate advertising, or any capitalist mechanisms are present. When that food truck shows up, the one old dude in the stands says something about you don’t eat pizza at a ball game, you eat hot dogs. Eephus is fun. It really made me appreciate an understated beauty in tradition. And all of the players are very different in their approach. But they’re all a part of it in their own way. And when I use my criteria for appreciating movies (plot, character, dialogue, genre, and setting), I don’t find many movies that really manage to masterfully use setting. That field in Eephus packs so much atmosphere as soon as we get there. How many baseball fields have I been to in my life? And I don’t even play baseball. It brings a comforting familiarity with it. And what’s up with how even the players in the movie sometimes lose track of someone? Yet nothing stops the game. Eephus is proof of what an independent movie can do that a commercial movie can’t. And it’s well done in the sense it doesn’t ever feel sentimental, or go for the easy tropes of say, a sports movie. I suppose the proof you’ve experienced a great indie movie is that afterwards you have felt something, thought something, or laughed, had a good time, in a modest, simple way. But it’s okay. If you have ventured off the beaten path and come away without any of that, there’s a name for that too: an art film. Unless of course it really sucks, then there's a name for that too: a low-budget movie. 4/16/2025 Tara TheaterAtlanta, GA
