I can see how some might initially dismiss Hesher as a quirky indie drama that struggles to find a consistent tone. One minute you’re watching an emotional family dinner, only to be followed by pounding guitar riffs emphasizing comedic beats.  Some might also complain about a lack of character motivation and backstory. But whatever is lacking in this film is more than made up with compelling characters and strong performances from the entire cast.

Devin Brochu plays T.J. Forney, a quiet kid living with his father (Rainn Wilson) and grandmother (Piper Laurie) after recently losing his mother in a car accident. Through a series of unfortunate situations, he runs into Hesher, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, a loner metal-head with greasy hair and homemade tattoos covering his body. Hesher decides that he is going to live in T.J.’s grandma’s house, where he quickly gets himself involved with the family struggling with their pain.

Almost just as randomly T.J. meets Nicole, played by the incredible Natalie Portman (also a producer on this film), when she saves him from a bully.  Despite their age difference, they become close friends who always seem to be at the right places to help each other out of bad situations.

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With all the hype and press surrounding big budget studio films, we need to keep in mind the smaller films that don’t have the marketing budget but also need coverage too. This time around that smaller film is director Jon Hewitt’s X.

The film, which tells the story of Holly Rowe, a callgirl on her last night on the job who’s just looking to finish up and get out of the business. Naturally, things don’t go as she planned when she encounters Shay Ryan, a teenage runaway, broke and alone, who just has to get through her first night as a hooker.

Fate throws them together on a job that goes horribly wrong and they’re trapped on an out-of-control roller coaster ride, through the twilight zone of sex-for-sale. Funny, I don’t remember seeing that ride at Disneyland last time I was there. Oh well.

The film stars the terrific Viva Bianca of Spartacus: Blood and Sand and Hanna Mangan-Lawrence, who was in the director’s previous film, Acolytes. IFC has sent us a trailer for the film and we are, of course, going to share it with you right here.

Take a look after the jump. X debuts in select theaters today and then on demand from IFC Midnight, via Comcast, Cox, Cablevision, Time Warner, and Bright House starting April 13th.

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In the interest of full disclosure, I had the good fortune to meet Becoming Santa’s star, Jack, on the shuttle ferrying us from the horrendous labyrinthine beast of the Austin Convention Center to the heavenly outpost that is the Alamo Drafthouse. Yes, I know I’m mixing mythologies there, so bite me.

Anyway, I met and chatted with Jack before knowing whom he was or even that he had a documentary in the festival, and for those fifteen minutes we conversed, he was just as charming and articulate fellow as he comes across in Jeff Myers’ sweet little documentary.

So I met and liked the guy and ended up watching and liking his film, too. But the two likes are separate from each other; rest assured I’d tear it apart like an eel on a horse head if it were bad (as I well some other films whose directors I likewise met).

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The unique thing about PAX and PAX East as compared to all other conventions is the strong presence of independent gaming on the show floor. This year, three exceptional indie titles are being featured in the Boston Indie Showcase, and I took to the floor to check out what these games were all about.

Available for iPad, iOS, Mac, and PC, Smuggle Truck was the first indie game I tried out for myself at this year’s PAX. With very simple controls, you drive a truck full of refugees through side-scrolling barren wastelands, dark caves, and terrifying forests, all in the hopes of reaching the border without losing all your passengers. The path is wrought with obstacles as well as hills and valleys that test your skills against physics.

Smuggle Truck has caused a certain amount of controversy, but don’t let that steer you away, because this game is a ton of fun. And in talking with the game’s creators, the game is less about pointing fun at illegal immigrants and instead does an incredible job of critiquing the absurdity and difficulty of entering the country and legally becoming a citizen.

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The true meaning of that quote is fully realized in this haunting anti-love story. Blue Valentine is a stark, quiet film that packs an emotional punch you won’t soon forget. Featuring terrific performances by Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, the film examines the demise of a once promising relationship.

As the movie starts out, it is obvious that Cindy (Williams) and Dean (Gosling) have seen happier days.  Cindy seems to be quietly simmering with hatred when she interacts with Dean.  She’s utterly defeated, and when Dean tries to use his boyish charm to engage her, she won’t succumb.

Cindy mentally checked out of the marriage long, long ago. By the time Dean actually realizes that, we see him make some feeble attempts to salvage what they once had.

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We all know unconventional superhero stories are all the rage right now, between Kick-Ass, Green Hornet, and the popular BBC series Misfits. Now one indie filmmaker is taking that trend to the web with a super low-budget short about your not-so-average super powered crime fighters in Lazy Teenage Superheroes.

Filmmaker Michael Ashton, who shot, wrote, cut, and did VFX for the short, brings humor, pop culture references, and the voice of this generation all together in a classic comic team-up setting. Here’s the synopsis.

Tyler is your average awkward teenager just trying to get by like the rest of us. Until one day, he moves in with three unusual roommates – Mitchell, Calvin, and Richard all have extraordinary, super human abilities. Although Tyler still has one thing they don’t have: ambition. Lazy Teenage Superheroes follows Ty as he tries to get his new “super” friends to put down the video games, get off the couch, and use their powers to help save the world, instead of themselves.

There are some low budget elements that you have to look past in order to get some some amazing visual effects and storytelling. With any luck, this will turn the heads of a few Hollywood bigwigs and allow them to realize that productions like these are what fans of the genre are looking for, not things like The Cape or a sequel to Ghost Rider.

You can check out the short after the jump, which is rapidly approaching the 500,000 views mark on YouTube in just over a week. You can also hit up Ashton’s official site for more details on the production.

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Kevin Smith can’t seem to get a break. Sure, things were great back when Clerks blew up and his deal with Mirimax helped him form a career. But between his issues with Dogma and the church, getting an audience for Clerks 2, the problems with getting Zack and Miri Make A Porno and the trouble with Cop Out,  the guy can’t seem to get a break lately in Hollywood.

Yesterday, Smith brought his newest project, the horror film Red State, to Sundance and had planned on a public auction for the film’s distribution immediately after the screening. He later decided that he was going to distribute the film itself to prove that the indie film world still held strong.

So, for a whopping $20, Smith bought the film from himself, and is now planning on taking the flick on the road with a very grassroots plan to get awareness and make back the film’s $4 million budget. From THR:

The film will go out via Smith’s SModcast with no marketing spend, though he said that he will talk to “any smart exhibitor” about potentially showing the movie.

“We are going to make our money back by going out on the road and going city by city,” said Smith. The tour will begin March 5 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City and make a stop at Midland Theater in Kansas City one week later.

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Catfish is an odd name for a film and even odder for one about three men’s journey to get to the bottom of a mystery surrounding an 8-year-old painter, her beautiful mother, and even-more-beautiful sister. The men are Nev Schulman, his brother Ariel, and their friend, Henry Joost.

The three live together in New York where Nev makes his living as a photographer. One day a package arrives for Nev from Ishpeming, Michigan. In it is a painting of one of his photos, done by the 8-year-old Abby Pierce. Several other paintings follow while Nev and Abby strike up an acquaintance on Facebook.

Soon after he becomes friends with Abby’s mother Angela and her half-sister Megan. Nev eventually speaks to Angela and the oddly-deep-voiced Megan on the phone, but every time he calls, Abby always seems to be out.

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Obviously the title leaves much to be desired, but in every other possible way, Anton Chekhov’s The Duel is everything a costume drama should be—filled with stellar acting by winsome British and Irish stars, beautiful costumes and set dressing, gorgeous cinematography and breathtaking scenery—all blue skies, peach-roofed villas and deep, mesmeric, ink blue sea.

Even better, all of these pleasures complement a gripping story propelled by carefully placed moral weights and counterweights. The whole is brilliantly orchestrated by a director who absolutely understands both Chekhov’s subtle wit and deep humanistic sympathies.

And just who is this director? Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I found out it was the same man responsible for the 2001 contemporary Israeli drama Late Marriage, but on consideration it shouldn’t be surprising. Although it was only Kosashvili’s second feature, Late Marriage was remarkable for its deft, uncompromising storytelling, rich depiction of character and relationships, and masterful control of tone—always somewhere between comic and horrifying—qualities it shares with Anton Chekhov’s The Duel, and indeed all of Chekhov.

Furthermore, what seems an unlikely choice of material, given the contemporary Israeli settings of his earlier films, makes a lot of sense when one learns that the Israel-dwelling Kosashvili was actually born in Georgia, on the coast of the Black Sea, exactly the location of this longest of Chekohov’s stories (although the production was actually shot on the Croatian coast).

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Since the dawn of the Internet, everybody with a handheld camera and an imagination has been throwing together testaments to their favorite piece of fiction in what we love to call “fan films.” Since then, the term has gotten a bit of a bad rap, which conjures up this gritty, poorly shot piece with worse acting and editing than your uncle’s home videos. However, this newest piece is an example of how, in some cases, those rules have completely gone out the window.

From the people who brought us Inglourious Plummers, a Tarantino-esque spoof of both Inglorious Basterds and The Super Mario Bros., comes this brand new trailer for God Of War. The best part is that it’s nothing like the God of War you’re used to. This trailer is done in the same vein of a Sam Mendes or Wes Anderson film. Purely indie, even down to the use of the song Home by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros.

We can’t figure out what it is we love about this trailer. Whether it’s the fact that our hero rocks an Adidas track jacket and tennis rackets (his “Blades of Chaos”) or the fact that the song makes the whole thing. Either way, it’s pretty awesome, and definitely worth a watch for both fans of movies and video games.

Check out the trailer after the jump and of course this begs the question when we’ll get to see another trailer. Perhaps Gears of War done as a romantic comedy?

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I’ve been a fan of director Gareth Edward’s film Monsters since I first saw the film during SXSW many months ago. I gave it a positive review and was particularly impressed with Edwards’ ability to craft a story, have interesting characters and have cool monsters all in the same film.

In the months following the film’s debut at SXSW it has picked up a distributor, played at several more festivals and should be coming to you soon enough. To help move that along and get you interested, Magnolia Pictures has released the first trailer for the film out into the wilds of the Internet.

In it you get to see a glimpse of what Edwards’ film has to offer and regardless of the comparisons to something like Cloverfield, Monsters deserves to stand on its own eight feet, er, tentacles. Watch the trailer and then watch the movie when you can. You won’t regret taking the chance.

Check out the trailer after the jump. And keep checking back here for all your Monsters info as I will be keeping track of this one and whatever Edwards does next.

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