Hmm, I don't remember any of this week's noteworthy indie DVD releases playing at theaters in my area, so why don't we catch up together and decide what to rent? Listed (roughly) in order of critical favor:

Chop Shop (pictured). Second feature by Ramin Bahrani (Man Push Cart) is a coming of age story set in a New York junkyard. Cinematical review (entirely positive): Kim Voynar. DVD features: audio commentary with director and actors, rehearsal footage, and trailer.

The Tracey Fragments. Ellen Page stars in Bruce McDonald's harrowing drama. Cinematical reviews (both positive): Erik Davis; James Rocchi. DVD features: behind the scenes footage and interviews with McDonald and Page, entries from the "Tracey: Re-fragmented" contest, a selection of images by photographer Matt Sullivan, and trailer.

Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten. Julien Temple's doc on the influential Clash musician. Cinematical reviews (both frustrated): Kevin Kelly; Jeffrey M. Anderson. DVD features: audio commentary with Temple, 100 minutes of additional interview footage, and trailer.

American Zombie. Grace Lee's horror comedy depicts the ordinary, day to day challenges of life as one of the undead. Cinematical review (disappointed): Jette Kernion. DVD features: audio commentaries, behind the scenes footage, deleted scenes, and trailers.

Sleepwalking. Family drama about a young girl dealing with life after her mother abandons her; with Nick Stahl, AnnaSophia Robb, Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, and Dennis Hopper. Cinematical reviews (both negative): James Rocchi; Jeffrey M. Anderson. DVD features: "making of," and trailer.

Faced with the prospect of checking out several new releases or luxuriating in a new print of Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt, audiences overwhelmingly chose Godard's 1963 classic. Playing at a single location (Film Forum in New York City), Contempt earned $13,100 over the weekend, according to estimates compiled by Leonard Klady of Movie City News. Distributor Rialto Pictures has the film booked at Film Forum until March 27, and then perhaps will tour the print, though no details are provided on their site.

Indie holdovers also did better than the newest offerings. David Gordon Green's Snow Angels (Warner Independent) made $8,666 per screen at three theaters in its second week out, per Box Office Mojo, while Oscar winner The Counterfeiters (Sony Pictures Classics) pulled in $6,263 per-screen at 72 locations in its fourth week. Ira Sachs' Married Life (Sony Pictures Classics), Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park (IFC) and Jacques Rivette's The Duchess of Langeais (IFC) also performed well; the first two in their second week of release, and the latter in its fourth week.

Michael Haneke's remake of his own Funny Games (Warner Independent) did very little business, grabbing just $1,800 per screen at 289 engagements, which is disappointing since our own James Rocchi called it "a great film ... it's hard to say which Funny Games stirs up more -- your guts, or your brain." Meanwhile, Bill Maher's Sleepwalking (Overture) was right behind at $1,640 per screen at 30 locations. In the review by Cinematical's Jeffrey M. Anderson, he concluded: "Worst of all is that title, which is exactly the kind of title that filmmakers should stay away from if they want to avoid a fairly obvious one-word film review."

One of the things I hate most about wannabe indie movies is the fallacy of the two-day scruff. That's when a male character wakes up every day with exactly two days' growth of beard, even if the movie takes place over the course of two weeks and even if he lacks the means to shave. That's a small thing, I know, but it indicates that the director is grasping at straws trying to come up with a visual look for his story, perhaps a kind of cool, grungy look. The new Sleepwalking, directed by Bill Maher (not the Comedy Central guy) is filled with such things, like a spookily serene shot of a girl swimming underwater with weird sunglasses on, or swirls of powdered snow wisping across a lonely highway. These images may fill out a 2-1/2 minute trailer, but they're out of place in Maher's feature film.

Nick Stahl plays the "sleepwalking" James, a dead-eyed slacker who works a construction job and goes home to a dreary apartment. One day his sister Joleen (Charlize Theron) disappears and his 11 year-old Niece Tara (AnnaSophia Robb) turns up looking for help. Even though he can't drive, James attempts to maintain a schedule, driving her to school in the mornings, before turning up at his job. One day he's late, and the next he calls in sick to look for his sister. On the third day, they oversleep, just as social services turn up. James loses his job and Tara is shipped off to a home. But the first chance she gets, she coaxes her uncle to help her skip town. Their money carries them only as far as James and Joleen's father's farm, which looks permanently chilled and dried and wind-blown (only scraps of paint remain on the outside walls).

Sleepwalking stars Charlize Theron -- but she disappears from the screen for about two-thirds of the film. It's set in the American West -- but shot in Canada. It's about family, pain, loss, renewal -- all of which are discussed, and discussed more elegantly, in other films at Sundance this year. It even has what's become a fairly standard-issue Sundance finale, as a character hits the open road with a bright future ahead of them, aside from the murder rap in their rear view mirror. It's not that Sleepwalking is bad, per se; it's just that it's inert, a space-and-schedule filler that can now put the words "Sundance Premiere Selection" on the DVD box when it goes straight-to-video.

Joleen Reedy (Theron) has one of those lives where all the things that go wrong keep her harried and distracted enough to not notice how many of them are her fault. She's been thrown out of her house because the cops have seized her boyfriend's on-site marijuana gro-op, and she and her daughter Tara (AnnaSophia Robb) move in with her brother James (Nick Stahl). Joleen doesn't even try to get back on her feet -- or, rather, she figures the best way to get back on her feet involves leaving town in pursuit of another man; Tara's left with James, and his strained life implodes under the stress of trying to care for an 11-year-old girl.

To be honest, I'm a little surprised that today is the first day I have heard about the indie-drama Sleepwalking -- mainly because it stars two Oscar-nominated actors. Heck, one of them even won. You would have thought that the marketing department would have had a field day with that kind of award-winning pedigree. Trailer Addict is now hosting the first trailer for this dysfunctional family drama, which stars Charlize Theron, Nick Stahl, AnnaSophia Robb and Dennis Hopper.

Robb plays a young girl who has to come to terms with the fact that her mother (Theron) has abandoned her, and that she has been left with her uncle James (Stahl), who is not ready to deal with raising a kid on his own. Hopper plays the patriarch of this dysfunctional family and by the looks of the trailer, he is making full use of his skill with playing a 'villain.'

Sleepwalking was written by Zac Stanford, who is a relative newcomer, and this was his first feature film script. Bill Maher (no, not that one) directed the dysfunctional weepie, and is also relatively new to the directing game. (So far, Maher has spent most of his career as a visual effects artist on films like X-Men and Mars Attacks!) The movie was chosen to be a part of the Sundance slate (you can check out stills from the film from our Sundance coverage here), but there is no word about a release date. One look at the credits would lead me to believe that it probably won't take long before the property is snatched up by a studio.

[via Filmstalker]