Indie Goodness

I bought Pieces of April on a whim a couple weeks ago. I saw it standing in a huge rack of ten-dollar DVDs and remotely remembered seeing it reviewed, positively, by Ebert and Roeper, so I grabbed it. And it was a good decision. This is a wonderful example of indie moviemaking. Katie Holmes stars, with Oliver Platt, Patricia Clarkson, Derek Luke, and Alice Drummond. It's filmed entirely in hand-held DV, and it's brilliant. What's more, this DVD has the best commentary track I've ever heard, consisting solely of writer/director Peter Hedges.

Also, I borrowed my dad's copy of One Hour Photo. This movie was so fucking creepy that I had to pause it to watch some random TV several times just to break the tension. It was written and directed by Mark Romanek, who created the genious Nine Inch Nails videos for Closer and The Perfect Drug. The big draw for One Hour Photo is, of course, Robin Williams, in the role of a tightly-wound, button-downed, seriously eerie photo-mat clerk stalking Connie Nielsen's family. Eriq LaSalle also shows up with a confidently vanilla, but important part. I really liked this movie, so I stayed away from most of the DVD's special features, to keep Williams in check, but the Sundance Channel "Anatomy of a Scene" was quite interesting.