By: James Rocchi

(With Baghead's limited release expanding this week, we at Cinematical are re-running our Sundance 2008 interview with Jay and Mark Duplass.)

In Baghead, the writing-directing team of Mark and Jay Duplass (The Puffy Chair) combine not two, but three separate traditions of American Indie Cinema: It revolves around two couples; it celebrates and mocks the world of indie film ... and it takes place in an isolated cabin in the woods where a masked stranger hovers outside in ominous silence. Cinematical spoke with the brothers at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival about delusions of adequacy, clumsy passes, awkward pauses and genre-melding on a minimal budget. Mark tries to sum it up: "Baghead is a movie about the funny, horrific, tragic, terrible life of being a desperate actor. ..."

This interview, like all of Cinematical's podcast offerings, is now available through iTunes; if you'd like, you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:

An epic tale of a famed warrior edged out the modern explorations of a Bavarian filmmaker. Sergei Bodrov's Mongol (Picturehouse) earned $21,400 per screen in its second week of release at five theaters, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. Does this prove that indie film lovers like their blockbuster-style movies, too? If nothing else, I think it shows that people like a wide variety of movies, no matter if they're heading to the arthouse or the multiplex.

Unlikely as it seems, Werner Herzog has made a G-rated film, suitable for the entire film. Encounters at the End of the World (ThinkFilm) moved Jeffrey M. Anderson to write: "Herzog's film is something closer to art; it has a direct line to its creator's soul. If you see a lot of documentaries and that tired, old PBS format with the talking heads, narrator and clips has started to wear thin, Herzog's open, honest film is as refreshing as an icy breeze." The film grossed $17,500 at one theater in Manhattan.

Opening at two theaters in Austin, rather than the tired old Manhattan and Hollywood, Baghead (Sony Pictures Classics) did very nicely, thank you, earning $4,450 per screen. Jette Kernion commented recently on the unusual release pattern. At Sundance, Eric D. Snider reviewed it ("a blast of fresh air"). James Rocchi interviewed filmmakers Jay and Mark Duplass. We even premiered the poster. All I'm saying is: Go Baghead!

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for the film Baghead (click on the image to enlarge), written and directed by two very good friends of this site, Jay and Mark Duplass. Baghead marks the brothers' second feature-length film and follow-up to the very funny (but very uncomfortable) 2005 flick The Puffy Chair. Starring Ross Partridge, Elise Muller, Steve Zissis and my personal fav Greta Gerwig, Baghead tells of four struggling actors who retreat to a cabin in the woods in an attempt to write a screenplay they can produce and star in themselves. Will they succeed or will their personal relationships crumble? Oh, and is there really a stranger with a bag over his head lurking in the shadows, tracking the group's every move?

Baghead premiered to all sorts of great buzz back at Sundance, where our own James Rocchi said it "has warmth and innovation, and the mischievous good sense to subtly make fun of the type of film that it is." As Mark Duplass told us when we interviewed the boys during Sundance, "Baghead is a movie about the funny, horrific, tragic, terrible life of being a desperate actor." Needless to say, we highly recommend it.

Baghead arrives in theaters on June 13, after making a stop at the Tribeca Film Festival later this month.

The last thing you want to see in your rear view mirror when it's past 2:00 in the morning and you're half a mile from where you're staying are flashing red lights. Yup, I got pulled over last night by a very polite police officer. After quizzing me about what I was doing on that lonely road and learning that I'd only had one beer five hours before (remember: don't drink and drive), he informed me that my license plate light was burned out. He returned my driver's license and proof of insurance along with the admonishment to get my broken light fixed. I sighed in relief and cautiously finished driving to my friend's place, about 20 miles north of where all the action is happening at South By Southwest.

Earlier in the day, I managed to dodge the rest of the Cinematical crew -- honestly, I think they were playing ding dong ditch with me -- and arrived in plenty of time for my first screening at the beautiful Paramount Theatre. Super High Me is very funny, if somewhat muddled, take on Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me; comedian Doug Benson decides that he will get high from smoking marijuana every day and documents it on camera. Benson led a very entertaining post-screening Q&A.

From there I walked about ten minutes to the Alamo Ritz, where a much smaller crowd sat through music doc The Upsetter, based on the life and music of Lee "Scratch" Perry. I'll have more to say about that one as soon as I get my review written up. After that I retrieved my car and drove a few miles south to the Alamo Lamar multiplex in time to see a "secret" screening of Baghead, which was described by Eric D. Snider as "a blast of fresh air" -- I totally agree. Filmmakers Mark and Jay Duplass were present along with members of the cast and crew for another entertaining, relaxed Q&A session. That put me in a good mood, which came in handy for my meeting with Friendly Mister Policeman.

The crowds at Sundance may be thinning out, but the deals are continuing. In their second acquisition of the week, Sony Pictures Classics nabbed North American rights to Baghead, the new comedy from the filmmaking team of Mark and Jay Duplass. Variety says that the negotiations were not concluded until very early Friday morning; the purchase price is said to be somewhere in the mid to six figures.

Growing up in New Orleans, the Duplass Brothers made many "films" in their hometown before moving to Austin and attending college there. They worked as film editors before resuming their filmmaking career. Several award winning shorts led to their first and quite wonderful feature, The Puffy Chair, which premiered at Sundance in 2005. Mark Duplass played a key role in that role, and has also acted in other films, such as Joe Swanberg's sprightly Hannah Takes the Stairs.

Baghead brings together four ambitious and horny actors as they spend a weekend in the woods, hashing out ideas for a film script, teasing out mutual attractions, and dealing with a bare-chested man with a bag over his head (see accompanying picture). It's a "terrific, genre-bending" accomplishment, declared SXSW Producer Matt Dentler at his indieWIRE blog.

Earlier in the week, Sony Classics picked up rights to the drama Frozen River, so this looks a good complementary addition to their release slate. Perhaps it will play a few more festivals to build more word of mouth in advance of a theatrical release.

In Baghead, the writing-directing team of Mark and Jay Duplass (The Puffy Chair) combine not two, but three separate traditions of American Indie Cinema: It revolves around two couples; it celebrates and mocks the world of indie film ... and it takes place in an isolated cabin in the woods where a masked stranger hovers outside in ominous silence. Cinematical spoke with the brothers at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival about delusions of adequacy, clumsy passes, awkward pauses and genre-melding on a minimal budget. Mark tries to sum it up: "Baghead is a movie about the funny, horrific, tragic, terrible life of being a desperate actor."

This interview, like all of Cinematical's podcast offerings, is now available through iTunes; if you'd like, you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:

You might have heard the term "mumblecore" recently and are wondering where it came from and what it means. I'm still trying to figure that out myself. Here's what I know: In 2005, Andrew Bujalski (Mutual Appreciation) gave an interview to IndieWIRE in which he mentioned the term "mumblecore" as a name for a new indie-film movement. (The term allegedly came from Eric Masunga, the sound mixer on Bujalski's Funny Ha-Ha.) At SXSW this year, the term "mumblecore" was invoked everywhere -- the cast of Joe Swanberg's film Hannah Takes the Stairs included several mumblecore filmmakers, and SXSW Film Festival head Matt Dentler called the film "the blockbuster of this movement." Aaron Hillis actually created a groovy chart that linked many of the mumblecore gang together on different projects. But none of this is giving you a clear definition, is it?

As I see it (and you should feel free to correct me), "mumblecore" refers to a group of American filmmakers who tend to work on each other's movies, and whose films are performance-based and focus on the everyday problems, often about relationships, of middle-class twentysomethings. Some examples besides the above-mentioned films might include Susan Buice and Arin Crumley's 2005 feature Four-Eyed Monsters; The Puffy Chair, from brothers Jay and Mark Duplass; and Orphans, Ry Russo-Young's film that won a special jury award at SXSW this year (Buice and Russo-Young are in the minority as female filmmakers among the mumblecore guys).

So this week's Eat My Shorts includes a sampling of films from some of the Mumblecorps, as the group is also called, mostly from their earlier filmmaking days. Every short film on the following list ties in with one of the others -- the editor of one may be the director of another and the star of a third. These shorts tend to be funny rather than angst-y, but with some genuine emotion behind the laughs at times. Whether you're mumblecore or working on your own shorts, feel free to email me links to any shorts available to watch online: shorts AT cinematical DOT com.

Chicago filmmaker Joe Swanberg premiered his third feature in three years during SXSW this week, Hannah Takes the Stairs, and just about filled the Paramount theater, which seats 1,200. It's a long way from his Kissing on the Mouth screening at SXSW, which I saw at the tiny Dobie theater two years ago. Like his previous films, Kissing on the Mouth and LOL, the film follows contemporary twentysomethings through ordinary and plausible situations. It's a low-key and enjoyable film with a cast consisting mostly of other indie filmmakers and writers.

Hannah (Greta Gerwig) seems to be drifting through life. She has a boyfriend, Mike (Mark Duplass) whom she seems to like, but suddenly breaks up with him because "he's the funny one. I want to be the funny one." She works for a production company of some sort -- I never quite understood what was going on over there -- with a pair of guys, Paul (Andrew Bujalski) and Matt (Kent Osborne). Paul is trying to negotiate a deal to publish a book based on his blog, while Matt is slightly older and more mature than the other two. After breaking up with Mike, Hannah more or less floats over to Paul, upsetting the office dynamic with their schmoopiness and later with their relationship difficulties. She turns to her roommate Rocco (Ry Russell-Young) and to Matt for solace.

Despite hurricanes and floods and a city with a substantially smaller population, the New Orleans Film Festival is underway. Last year's festival was cancelled and financial woes made it uncertain whether the festival would be able to return. However, the 17th annual festival kicked off Thursday with a gala fundraiser, and begins a week of films starting tonight. Opening-night films include The Queen, Shut Up and Sing, and Brothers of the Head.

The lineup of marquee films might not look impressive to those of us outside of Louisiana, but it's important to remember that this might be one of the few, if not only, chances for New Orleanians to see some of these non-multiplex arthouse and documentary films. Among the list of films, I was pleased to see The Puffy Chair -- it's the first time that the film from New Orleans area-natives Jay and Mark Duplass will screen in the city. Their parents helped finance the film, so you know the whole family's happy to get to show it off to their hometown. And NOLA, a film scripted by a class of film-writing students from several New Orleans colleges and universities, is premiering at the festival.

The real gem at NOFF this year is a series called "Shooting Katrina" that includes narrative and documentary shorts as well as a few feature-length documentaries. The films range from interviews of post-Katrina flood survivors to a look at the devastated Lower Ninth Ward to stories about rebuilding. This is the one section of the festival I truly am sorry I'm missing, although judging from my reaction to When the Levees Broke, I'd have to bring a case of tissues. There are also a number of conference panels this weekend, all of which are free to the public. Tim League, founder of Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, will speak on a panel about distribution and exhibition. I grew up in the New Orleans area, and I wish I could see the festival's triumphant return in person, but three local film festivals in a month is all I can handle. If you're in driving distance of New Orleans, this would be a great weekend to stop by and catch some good films.

Brothers Jay and Mark Duplass (pictured above) have been making movies for a long time. After spending a ton of money and producing unsatisfying content, the Duplass boys were about to give up the dream and settle down into a nice corporate job. That is, until the night Mark decided they were not going to leave their apartment without making another film. For three dollars (cost of tape) and no screenplay, Jay used his parents' home video camera to capture Mark playing a character who can't seem to record a message for his answering machine. One 20-minute take later and the boys had completed their film. They called it, This is John. Little did they know, but this three-dollar short would define their careers.

All Josh (Mark Duplass) wanted to do was pick up the puffy chair he bought off e-bay and deliver it to his father for the old man's birthday. Throw in a volatile girlfriend (Kathryn Aselton), a bizarre brother (Rhett Wilkins) and a wacky road-trip and you have the premise for one of this summer's funniest films -- The Puffy Chair. Although The Puffy Chair has already been released in several markets, the film opens for the first time in New York City this Friday at the Angelika Film Center. The other night, I attended a screening of The Puffy Chair, hosted by those fabulous folks over at The L Magazine. Afterwards, I had a chance to sit down with the film's director, Jay Duplass, and pick his brain over a few pints of beer. While it was hard to ignore the awfully loud folks enjoying "Erotic Poetry Night" next door, Jay and I couldn't help but immerse ourselves in a conversation about his films, his career and his exciting future ...

Cinematical: Okay, so why The Puffy Chair? Where did the film come from?

Jay Duplass: If you knew our mom, you would know that a giant lay-z-boy would never be allowed in our household. We always dreamed about having lay-z-boys, but she never allowed it. My grandfather did have a sofa in the 80's and he had a phone built into it. So, he would call you just to tell you he was calling from the sofa. But the reality is [the film] was not about the chair, it was more about making a relationship movie. Needing a format and a venue in order to carry that relationship out. And that was, like, a road trip where [the main character] was delivering something to his father and we thought, the more absurd, the better. Ya know, it's really not about this chair, it's more about his relationship with this girl and them being at that point in their relationship where, ya know, it's sh*t or get off the pot time -- like we either need to get married or break up. We've come this far, we should know by now. And, I mean, for us -- my brother and I are co-creators -- and, ya know, we just think it's hilarious and tragic at the same time that you can be in a relationship and, one day, you're like, "This is it! This is the one. This is it!" And the next day you're like, "Who is this alien that is living with me? I need to get the f*ck out."