"Nothing will come from this if you win!” joked Seth Rogen as he opened his hosting gig at the 2012 Film Independent Spirit Awards. “Absolutely nothing. This won't help you get paid anymore -- if anything, it proves you'll work for nothing.” That may be painfully true for many of the indie film nominees honored today at the annual Spirit Awards, held in a tent on the beach in balmy Santa Monica. But what does it mean that the night’s big winner was the Harvey Weinstein-backed awards season juggernaut The Artist?
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Not to be terribly negative at the start of the new year – because any year that gifted us the Fassboner had to be a pretty good year, amirite? – but there were a handful of recurring trends in the movies of 2011 that could stand a rest as we charge ahead through 2012. First let’s list the good ones, the motifs in otherwise disparate films, from a wide range of filmmakers indie and studio-backed, new and established, that were actually kind of awesome to marinate in this past year. (Goslingmania comin' atcha!)
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After you watch the horrific repercussions of Twilight's sweet, placenta-chomping vampire romance this weekend, check out the indie drama Bellflower, one of the year's more vivid and gut-wrenching examinations of the more painful side of love. You think delivering a monster baby is stressful, Bella Swan? Just see what happens to poor Woodrow (writer-director Evan Glodell) in the aftermath of puppy love. At least he's got the kick-ass, flame-throwing, apocalypse-ready Medusa car to ride around in... which can be yours, Bellflower fans, for just a few (thousand -- OK, many thousands of) bucks!
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Among this year's crop of true indie success stories -- this summer's Another Earth and Attack the Block among them -- is Bellflower, a film described as "a love story with apocalyptic stakes." Sweet and inventive -- then brutal and utterly devastating -- the debut feature from writer-director-star Evan Glodell was borne of over three years of sacrifice and dedication, DIY in spirit and in practice (as Glodell's homemade flamethrowers, groundbreaking camera rigs, and the tricked out car dubbed Medusa attest). So how did this $17,000 micro-budgeted labor of love (and pain) wind up with a distribution deal and some of the buzziest word-of-mouth of the season?
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First time writer-director Evan Glodell spent years obsessing over his feature debut Bellflower, a raw tale of love, betrayal, and apocalyptic-level emotional tumult set among a group of near-nihilistic twenty-somethings in Southern California. (Part of that obsession? Custom-building the badass, fire-breathing Mother Medusa muscle car, which figures into the film.) After the jump, see a new exclusive image from Bellflower and find out how you can see it in Los Angeles before it opens on Aug. 5.
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Evan Glodell's nihilist love story/vengeance tale Bellflower is a dangerous piece of must-see American indie filmmaking for Mad Max fans and, in a way, the same crowd who can't wait to see Quentin Dupieux's killer tire flick Rubber. After premiering at Sundance, where Oscilliscope snapped it up for a summer 2011 release, Bellflower blazed a diesel-fueled trail through SXSW treating attendees to a glimpse of the heavily modified Buick Skylark that Glodell transformed into the flame-throwing beast known as the Mother Medusa.
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As a bunch of brassy strippers once taught us, you've gotta have a gimmick if you want to get ahead. The same goes for dancers as it does for indie films, three of which demonstrated that time-tested lesson Monday night at SXSW. Which brings us to our Movieline Pro Tips of the Day: Bringing fun/hands-on props to delight the crowd after your movie screens can help the goodwill linger. Loudly heckling your own movie for kicks while a dozen or so journalist types sit near you, aghast and annoyed? Not so much.
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SXSW is a fest that caters to alterna-sensibilities, so it's no surprise genre fare has done well thus far. Insidious scored high marks with the horror crowd, but The Kill List notched all-out raves from even mainstream press -- though the Conan O'Brien documentary Conan O'Brien Can't Stop contains enough rage and demon-exorcising to give both a run for their money. Meanwhile, Bellflower -- a Sundance entry in the Emerging Visions sidebar -- screens on Monday night, as does the Dance Dance Revolution thriller The FP. Yes, you read that right: a gang warfare film about Dance Dance Revolution. Don't you wish you were in Austin?
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