The Lost Indie Films of the 1990s
It wasn't all Clerks and Reservoir Dogs. In a time before video and the Internet, these were some underground films we remember loving and talking about. . . and now they're all but forgotten. We look back and find out what the filmmakers have been up to.
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By Jordan Hoffman September 15, 2010 |
Rhythm Thief (1994)
Premise: A down and out urban drifter survives by going to concerts, recording them (on cassette!) and selling the tapes on the street. Even when this was made in 1994 it was reflecting on a pre-gentrified East Village.
Scene I Most Remember: Dude is so poor, he lives off of jars of peanut butter. Hence, lots of arty shots of him scooping and eating peanut butter. Hip!
Where Are They Now: Director Matthew Harrison's follow-up to Rhythm Thief, Kicked In The Head, was supposed to make him a well-known director, but the picture didn't really connect. Harrison's company Film Crash continues to make commericals and no budget films, plus he's got some big league TV episodes (Sex and the City) under his belt.
Rhythm Thief was the first thing I saw Kevin Corrigan in, and he continues to be one of the greatest character actors working today.
Dream With The Fishes (1997)
Premise: A suicidal David Arquette teams up with a terminally-ill Brad Hunt for a darkly bizarre, cross-country bucket list adventure.
Scene I Most Remember: The gang takes acid and goes bowling. Naked.
Where Are They Now: Director Finn Taylor has an awesome name, but never got tongues wagging as much as he did with his debut. His most recent film, The Darwin Awards, had plenty of big names in it, but went straight to DVD.
Simple Men (1992)
Premise: A heartbroken gangster and his soul-searching brother leave New York for the wilds of eastern Long Island, looking for their father, and finding existential, color-saturated love instead.
Scene I Most Remember: Of course, the Godard-inspired dance to Sonic Youth's "Kool Thing," but also the "ooooh" factor of the first and last scene having the same dialogue, but in a completely different context.
Where Are They Now: I was not going to include any Hal Hartley on this list, but then realized that a) the dude has dropped off the face of the earth and b) no youngsters have seen this movie. (I checked Twitter.) Let me assure you this was the discussed arthouse flick of 1992, making a lot of ten best lists. It is one of the few in this article that is available on Netflix and Netflix Instant Watch. I highly recommend you check it out.
Straight Out of Brooklyn (1991)
Premise: A housing project kid with a bleak future sees robbing a drug dealer as his only escape.
Scene I Most Remember: A scene of domestic violence sends Mom to the hospital. It's devastating.
Where Are They Now: Director Matty Rich started SOOB at the age of 17. He shot the film on a shoestring and went on local radio to help raise the financing. It was released when he was 19 and was held by many as the non-sell out version of Spike Lee. (No Nike commercials here.) He made an underwhelming follow-up then disappeared until 2005 with the writing credit on the Ubisoft game 187 Ride or Die.
(Ed. Note: The film's protagonist, Dennis, was played by Larry Gilliard Jr., better known as 'D' from staff-favorite, The Wire.)
Search and Destroy (1995)
Premise: Shady film producers tangle with gangsters and the self-help industry.
Scene I Most Remember: A sequence in a racquetball court. It is some of the most artful use of negative space and shallow focus in cinema, or so I recall thinking in 1995.
Where Are They Now: This is an odd one, because the move had a who's who of indie favorites: John Turturro, Ethan Hawke, Griffin Dunne, Christopher Walken, Rosanna Arquette and Dennis Hopper. The director, David Salle, was a celebrated painter who was kinda slumming on this. It got overshadowed by similar pictures like Get Shorty and Mistress. He never made another film.
