Indie Roundup: Bombs, Immigrants, 'Daily' Stops

Indie Roundup reviews the past week of news from the independent film community and provides a peek at what's coming soon.

Opening. Two films opened yesterday which couldn't have less in common: Agnès Varda's essay film The Beaches of Agnès and Nia Vardalos' I Hate Valentine's Day. Tomorrow comes Anne Fontaine's comedy The Girl From Monaco.

Deals. Xavier Dolan's family drama I Killed My Mother, Kenneth Branagh's The Magic Flute, and Asghar Farhadi's drama About Elly have all been acquired by Here Films, the company formerly known as Regent Releasing. All three are headed for theaters next year. [indieWIRE]

Online Viewing. The 4th of July weekend inevitably brings thoughts of America as a land of immigrants, and that's the topic of Home, which debuts on Amazon VOD this week, featuring interviews with Mike Myers, Alfred Molina, and Liam Neeson. Also somewhat topical: if Michael Jackson had an impact on race in pop music, what about African-American musicians playing rock 'n' roll exclusively? Raymond Gayle's Electric Purgatory examines the issue (at iTunes). If you're looking for love, you have something in common with two women in the comedy/drama Arranged (also at iTunes.)

Box Office. Kathryn Bigelow's lacerating bomb squad thriller The Hurt Locker earned a per-screen average ($36,338) that bested even the giant robots, albeit on only four screens. Woody Allen's Whatever Works expanded to 35 screens and grossed $10,280 per outing. The combination of star Michelle Pfeiffer and director Stephen Frears could stir up only a tepid $5,338 per-screen at 76 locations for Cheri, which is less than the average for Duncan Jones' Moon in its third week on 21 screens. [Box Office Mojo.]

After the jump: David Hudson's The Daily takes a permanent (?) vacation, portending the end of the world as we know it.

Indie Blogs That Matter. With thousands of sites dispensing opinions on everything cinematic, how do you find the "good" ones? For six years, David Hudson has been sifting through the Internet and collating his findings on a daily basis, first at GreenCine and then at IFC. On Tuesday, he announced that he's stopping: "I won't be returning to this particular spot, though you may see my byline appearing now and then elsewhere at IFC.com; the Daily, at least as we've known it and watched it evolve over the past six years, won't be returning, either."

Not to overstate things, but it felt like the world stopped spinning. David plans to return in a different capacity: "But that doesn't mean I'll stop doing what I do; I've been dreaming up a new format and, if all goes according to plan, it'll be rolling out slowly in two phases at an entity that'll be named when that entity's good and ready."

David has a rare gift. Read any of his entries, and it's not just a collection of random links: he tells a story. Whenever I've been asked to do something similar here at Cinematical as part of our festival coverage (Sundance in 60 Seconds, SXSW in 60 Seconds, etc.), I've always found the task daunting, not only because of the time involved to search for and read through all the other coverage out there, but because David has set such a high standard for "roundup" posts. Indeed, even as I compiled the Indie Roundup each week, I'm aware that I'm doing so in his shadow.

Beyond David's abilities as a writer and editor, The Daily provided an opportunity to learn about many, many sites that might otherwise go undiscovered. Yes, The Daily provided links and pull-quotes from larger, multi-writer online sites -- including Cinematical -- but gave equal consideration to passionate, informed, witty, thoughtful, and provocative blogs, facilitating a dialogue between the sites and helping to foster the indie film community online.

All of which points to the fragility of that very community. Something will spring up to replace The Daily, whether it's David's own future incarnation of what he's been doing, or a fledgling effort such as indieWIRE's cinemadaily, which launched yesterday. Until a replacement is established, it feels a little colder out there on the information superhighway.