indies

Movies for the Recent College Graduate

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Do you ever just sit around on a certain day and think “Wow, the real world really sucks sometimes.” You followed all of the steps: went to college, got good grades, put up with less than ideal situations (crappy roomate, anyone?) and graduated college with your bachelor’s degree. It’s a time of celebration yet everyone (including your parents and the waiter that serves you food) is asking what you’re going to do now. A quick dialogue always runs through whenever a college graduation happens.

Society: “Do what you want.”

Society: “No, not that.”

A bit unnerving. Fortunately, there are things like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and Redbox that can help you dive into a life of sweet media consumption (and procrastination). A lot of movies have fluff and give a stereotypical or unrealistic nature to them. No fear though, there are films out there that provide a good laugh and are insightful too. Look to the list below to see a list of films with characters practicing questionable antics, themes of growing up and the ever concerning question of “What now?”

Young Adult

This film is a fun take on the typical coming-of-age genre. It’s written by Diablo Cody (screenwriter for Juno). The film revolves around Mavis (Charlize Theron) who is a bitter, divorced 37-year-old ghost writer for a series of young adult novels. She’s had success all these years: being the popular girl in high school, moving to a great big city, being a successful writer. Things come crashing down when her book series is about to be cancelled due to low sales. She has one book left to finish but can’t find any inspiration to do it.

Considering she was the popular girl in high school, you know how this story might go. She gets a picture sent to her of from her old high school boyfriend who is married and now has a baby. To her, it’s a sign that they were meant to be together. She’s a little on edge and has nothing to lose so she drives out to her home town to relive some tender memories.

Young Adult is suprising in that it’s not the typical soapy, cliche inspirational film (if you want that, go look up The Breakfast Club or She’s All That). It displays a woman who had early success and is now crumbling. She had a successful book series and living in a great city but it still wasn’t enough for her. Her small-town former friends seem a lot happier with their simple lives.

Case in point? Success can be defined in a number of ways. Moving to a big city (like New York City) isn’t always the best thing. People change and move apart. The glam life of others isn’t always the answer. Appreciate the ordinary and find inspiration in the little things. Mavis is a combination of the over the top person you hate along with the bitter person inside yourself. Entertaining film with some interesting takeaways.

Ira and Abby

ira Ira is procrastinator extraordinaire. He’s been working on his PhD in Psychology for forever. Wait? A PhD in Psychology? He can’t even figure is own life out. He types away on his computer with mindless details. With a bitter view of people and the world, he doesn’t have much hope in the societal norms of getting a well paying job and starting a family.

Abby is a free spirit who loves everyone. She’s the type of girl who reminds you of that person you meet at orientation or camp who is overly happy and takes a bunch of pictures. Anyways…

Ira joins a gym that Abby works at. They hit it off, go through the typical relationship woes and start to question the society norms when it comes to relationships and life in general.

***

The films above can provide some much needed cinematic take on the topic of the real world and transitioning into a new stage of life. If not, Office Space is always available to watch…

Evolution of the Romantic Comedy

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“Boring”, “Overdone” and “haven’t I already seen this?” are some of the common comments that sit below a YouTube Trailer for an upcoming romantic comedy. People are getting tired of the predictable genre and are moving on from it to cinematic romance movies.

Romantic comedies used to be viewed in a positive way for most. They were easy to follow, had a predictable but nice ending and made you feel a mushy gushy warm feeling inside. For the most part, women would go in attendance to these types of films. Now it seems as though no one wants to see the dying genre anymore.

The 2012 film What to Expect When Your Expecting, even with a star studded cast, made only $41 million domestically against a budget of $40 million. The Jason Segel and Emily Blunt romantic couple comedy The Five Year Engagement grossed $27 million domestically against a budget of $30 million.

Studios seemed to try to take on a different approach this year with the guy-centric romantic comedies That Awkward Moment and Cavemen. That Awkward Moment seemed more like That Awkward Movie to most viewers due to its lack of a clear theme. The movie’s success seems to be attributed mainly due to the star power of its leading stars Zac Efron, Miles Teller and Michael B. Jordan rather than any compliments to the actual movie.

The cinematic romance and romantic dramedy have faired well recently. 2013 featured the films Enough Said, The Spectacular Now, Before Midnight, Drinking Buddies, and many others. Enough Said and Before Midnight  went on to gross more than $25 million each.

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Movie goers seem to divert from the clique plots and happy endings of rom-coms in favor of the realistic portrayals of romance in the films like Enough Said, Before Midnight and others. The films feature characteristics like natural lighting, complex conflicts, *real looking* people and natural dialogue (particularly in the case of Drinking Buddies which had largely improvised dialogue).

So in the times of decreasing box office returns, studios should look into romance films that people want: ones that show there isn’t always a happy ending to relationships…and that’s okay.

 

 

Suprising Success of God’s Not Dead (film)

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The low-budget indie christian film God’s Not Dead  turned heads (or computer mouses) when it finished its opening weekend with a suprising 9.2 million from just 780 theaters.

God's_Not_Dead

Synopsis

Josh Wheaton (played by Disney Channel’s Shane Harper), a freshman college student, enrolls in a philosophy class. The professor (Kevin Sorbo) makes all the students sign a “God is Dead” statement in order to pass the class. Josh is at ends, wanting to defend is belief in God but needing to pass the class to fill a degree requirement. The professor makes a deal with him. Josh does a series of debates with his stance that “God is Alive.” If he succeeds he passes the class, if he loses then he flunks.

The film follows themes of facing challenges, family tension, beliefs, success and much more.

Analysis

The movie industry has  been deemed with the unofficial title of “Year of the Bible in Hollywood.” Son of God came out in February, God’s Not Dead and Noah in March and Exodus in December. Many were shocked that a low-budget film that was seemingly unheard about did so well. Its strong marketing efforts may have been the reason for the strong opening weekend turnout.

Ash Greyson, CEO of social media consultant Ribbow Media, oversaw the social media marketing for the film. Greyson did research into the different niche markets of christian movie goers (young ones, older ones, ones that listen to pandora, ones that watch TV frequently).

“We’re not buying a demographic, we’re buying a committed audience. It’s all about peeling the onion,” Greyson said during an interview with The Wrap. 

Greyson looked into various platforms,seeing which ads grabbed the most attention. He didn’t want generic ads that were broad and people passed over. He placed potential movie goers into niche categories based on what actor from the films cast they liked the most.

A few certain factors came together that provided the film with a successful box office return.

  • The marketing campaign didn’t do broad advertisements, it catered to niche groups
  • The film followed everyday issues, a far distance from the big budget films around it (Need for Speed, Divergent)
  • In-depth research was done to see how varying levels of Christians responded to faith-biased films

Even though the film has been panned by critics and mixed my audience, it proves the power in niche marketing. Target people with ads they want to see, that relate to them.

UPDATE (3/31/2014): The film continues to succeed, making nearly 8.8 million in its second week. The second week gross is just a 4.5% decline from the first week.

  • First Week: 9.2 million from 780 theaters ($11,817 per screen average)
  • Second Week: 8.8 million from 1,178 theaters ($7,468 per screen average)

image via imdb.com

 

SXSW: Day 3 Recap

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Things were planned for the day of Sunday March 9th: Mindy Kaling’s panel, Brooklyn-Nine-Nine and the Fifty Shades of Creativity panel. Getting to the convention center around 8:10am, I thought I would get to the Mindy Kaling event early (and get a front row seat!). One problem: forgotten badge.

A 1.5 hour round trip bus excursion later and I had my badge. First up was the panel Running the Show: TV’s Newest Queen of Comedy. Mindy Kaling, Ike Barinholtz and Adam Pally from Fox’s The Mindy Project were in attendance. The discussions included the changing nature of the television landscape. Streaming services like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu changing the way people watch TV. It was discussed how cable and network shows differ, process of writing an episode and the increasing diversity of people in TV.

I toted a good ol’ point and shoot camera to all of my events for the day. I’ve gotten a few looks from people, suprised that I have an actual camera and not just an iPhone with a camera app. One of my professors even called me out on it the other day. This is how to conversation went:

“So I noticed you have an actual point and shoot camera. “-Professor

“Yeah…”-Me

“…”-Professor

My Apple-fan professor who likes content
My Apple-fan professor who likes content

As you can tell the conversation went very well! Anyways, the Mindy Kaling panel went great. Despite the funny looks I got with my camera, it took some great pictures with it’s 20x optical zoom.

I prefer my Canon SX260 zoom over some iPhone 5s
I prefer my Canon SX260 zoom over some iPhone 5s

Kaling was sitting at a lounge after the panel to do an interview. People hovered around closely. Many tweets from Twitter had similar message: “Breathing the same air as Kaling/In same room as Kaling” with a boatload of exclamation points afterwards.

Since I sat at the back of the crowd, when it was time for autographs, I got to be one of the first in line! I got to take a picture with one of my TV writing role models.

I asked if Matt Damon or Ben Affleck ever contacted about her play "Matt and Ben." She said no.
I asked if Matt Damon or Ben Affleck ever contacted about her play “Matt and Ben.” She said no.

I was content after this picture. I could die right at that second and be happy. You know what I mean? After the picture was taken I thought about going to a data journalism presentation by a Texas State alumna. For some reason I felt this urge to stay. I had no idea why but decided to go with it. I sat down outside of the lounge and started doing some work on my laptop.Actors Melissa Fumero and Stephanie Beatriz from Fox’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine would be there at 3pm so I stayed. I’m so glad I did.

“Can I plug in next to you?”

A woman stood next to me as I was sitting against the wall with my laptop plugged in.

“Sure” I agreed.

She plugged her phone in and turned and asked what was going on in the streaming lounge. I told her about the people from Fox’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine doing an interview there. She talked about how her husband liked the show. When asking where she was from, she said Chicago. I told her I maybe wanted to move to Chicago after my graduation in December 2014. She asked about what my college major was and what kind of work I wanted to do. This is where things got weird and cool at the same time.

I pulled up my about/portfolio website that I had been making for my Web Design and Publishing class. I showed her my Twitter bootstrap site covering mumblecore film.

“Oh, one of my friends does that” she said.

“Cool. Who is he?” I asked.

“Joe Swanberg.”

My body simultaneously went numb and filled with excitement at the same time. I had Joe Swanberg featured on my mumblecore website (located here). Only seeing two of his movies, Joe Swanberg was already one of my favorite directors. The woman was suprised that I knew who he was and even more suprised that I liked him as a director so much.

The next 10 minutes I got to talk with her about her high school days with Joe. The early films he did. The projects he has going on now. It was great. It was more than great. It was perfect. She was really happy that I coached her into taking a photo and getting an autograph from the Brooklyn Nine-Nine actresses.

“My husband’s going to love this!” she said.

By the end of the day I was pretty happy. Getting to meet Mindy Kaling, Stephanie Beatriz, Melissa Fumero, and a longtime friend of one of my favorite directors? Sunday, March 9, 2014 will go down in my personal history. South by Southwest is freaking awesome!

Brooklyn Nine Nine
Talking with Melissa Fumero and Stephanie Beatriz about Seth Meyers wanting to guest star on Brooklyn Nine-Nine

SXSW: Veronica Mars Gives a List of Firsts

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Veronica Mars debuted on the now defunct network UPN in 2004. Despite middling ratings, it had good critical praise and a dedicated following. Maybe if it had been in the days of high DVR viewership and Netflix it would have survived. In 2007, the CW cancelled it after three seasons.

Marshmallows, the nickname for Veronica Mars fans, did a series of intense things to revive the series. A plane was hired to fly over a city, marshmallows were sent in to CW studios, and an endless string of (strongly worded) letters were written to TV executives. It was still a no go. CW and Warner Brothers Studios were ready to move on and had no interest in reviving the series and producing a much anticipated movie.

Things changed when a Kickstarter campaign launched on March 13, 2013. It was the first time a network show attempted to return as a feature film via crowdfunding. Short story? It worked. Less than 24 hours into the run, the campaign had surpassed it’s $2 million goal. It went on to raise $5.7 million from over 91,000 backers by the end of the month long campaign.

The Veronica Mars film is shifting up things once again. It will become the first film to be released simultaneously in theaters and video on demand by a major Hollywood studio (Warner Brothers).

A long time ago we used to be friends…and we still are. (Theme song tweak).

Veronica Mars premieres at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas on Saturday, March 8th and will hit AMC theaters and VOD platforms (iTunes, Amazon Instant) on March 14th.