SXSW First Look: Alexander the Last

I wish IFC On Demand would work with DirecTV. Why should cable get all these day-and-date exclusives while the rest of us have to wait months and months?

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Not knowing much about it beyond reading a positive review in The New York Times, and knowing it was shot in my hometown (Chicago), I ordered "Hannah Takes the Stairs" onDemand, and about twenty minutes in I realized that I hated these people, I hated Joe Swanberg, I hated improvised dialogue, I hated the absolutely uninspired camera work, I hated that these people were in Chicago, I hated the arrogance that made them think that writing, acting, and cinematography need not be interesting or even good in order to make a film, I hated that IFC bought the film, I hated their lazy and cynical attitude in making the film and crediting everyone with the screenplay, I hated that Swanberg was being compared to Cassavetes, and I hated that I'd payed seven dollars for something I detested and would force myself to muscle through since I'd payed for it. You wanna know what'll happen in a Joe Swanberg film? Inane, inarticulate, boring people talk about inane, boring things inarticulately for a while, shot in on a consumer mini DV camera with no regard for composition or lighting, un-miced, and then eventually someone will get naked, after which there will be another inane boring conversation. That Swanberg has been able to hoodwink a company, IFC, into funding and releasing these steaming piles of self-impressed shit, and genuinely talented people like Noah Baumbach and Jane Adams, people who make real movies, with real ideas and craft even when the budgets are low, people who care about Cinema, is disgusting and reflects poorly on those people. They are killing low-budget DV film making by callously appealing to hipster douche bag nihilists who sputter aimlessly from ironic joke to ironic joke while wasting away their privileged existences. It's not art, it's not entertainment, it's exploitation in every sense of the word and we'd all be better to facilitate its disappearance by ignoring it.

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Nick:
Not knowing much about your comment, and knowing it was about Joe Swanberg, I started reading it, and about twenty words in I realized that I hated you and your inability to realize the world of movies is as big and gigantic so people like you, people like me and people like my next door neighbor would find ANY SORT of movie you, me or he would like.

You don't like Swanberg, fine.
Don't see his movies. Don't trash him just because you're a lonely loser sitting at your computer without being able to even FINISH that screenplay of yours which won't get anywhere near a theatre.
Cry in the dark, because you're up for a lonely life.

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