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 |
The Delicate Art of the Rifle (1996)
Premise: Likeable college doofus leaves drama practice, has a philosophical talk with a professor, then joins his roommate on a building roof as he starts shooting people.
Scene I Most Remember: Long, long, long walks through modern architecture. Gus Van Sant's Elephant, David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future and this make a nice trilogy.
Where Are They Now: There was lots of talk in 1996 about director D.W. Harper being the next big thing. Today he supervises post-production for DVD featurettes.
Suture (1993)
Premise: Kinda tough to describe, but it involves two half-brothers (one white, the other black) that everyone says "looks identical" who try to murder one another and assume their identities. It's like Frankenheimer's Seconds meets a Hitchcock thriller meets a hardcore early 1990s art gallery aesthetic.
Scene I Most Remember: Lots of gorgeous black and white photography.
Where Are They Now: Co-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel made the bland Tilda Swinton thriller The Deep End, followed by Bee Season - which is NOT a Jerry Seinfeld animation vehicle. They're still around, but not igniting bar conversations like they did with Suture.
Six Ways To Sunday (1997)
Premise: Twisted mob tale involving an overprotective mother and some icky sexual frustration.
Scene I Most Remember: Mom (Deborah Harry) and son (Norman Reedus) talking on extended phone line as symbol of umbilical cord.
Where Are They Now: Director Adam Bernstein made some of the hippest music videos (Beastie Boys, They Might Be Giants, "Baby Got Back") then ended in director's jail after the awful SNL film It's Pat. Six Ways was supposed to bust him free, but by '97 we'd already seen enough post-Tarantino ironic crime movies (e.g Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead, Killing Zoe and Suicide Kings) and David O. Russell's Spanking the Monkey.
Weep not for Bernstein, though. While he never made another feature, he keeps busy with li'l TV shows like Weeds, 30 Rock and Breaking Bad.
My New Gun (1992)
Premise: Yuppies buy a gun.
Scene I Most Remember: I don't remember this movie at all. What I remember was one of my best victories of single-hood. I picked a girl up on a bus (a bus!) then we chatted, took a walk, went to this movie, got a drink and, uh. . .fade out. Then she flew back to Portland and I never saw her again.
Where Are They Now: Director Stacey Cochrane made a Winona Rider vehicle called Boys in '96 which was a flop. In 2000 she made a James LeGros/Amber Valletta sports journalism drama called Drop Back Ten.
Dadetown (1995)
Premise: Working class community tries to live with its new latte-drinking dotcom neighbors.
Scene I Most Remember: The last 30 seconds of this searing, socio-political documentary turn out to be - NOT A DOCUMENTARY! This was before we'd all gotten so used to mock-docs, and it is amazing how far you are willing to go along with this story before the very, very end. The full theater I was in shouted like it was a Sam Raimi jump scare.
Where Are They Now: Director Russ Hexter died at age 27 before he could make a follow-up. And no one remembers this movie. It's a shame. Dadetown is so forgotten I couldn't even find a picture of it.
