children of invention Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Let's start this week's Indie Roundup by noting Eugene Novikov's fine article on seven indies that deserve a little love in the next few months. Beyond his picks, my indie summer begins with Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control. Jarmusch is an idiosyncratic director who continues to riff on some of the same themes that have occupied his subtle, haunting, and beautiful films since the 1980s. His latest, photographed by Christopher Doyle, follows a mysterious loner (Isaach De Bankolé) who journeys across Spain. It opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday before expanding in the following weeks.

Deals. Zheng Wei's drama Fish Eyes, which is screening this week at the Tribeca Film Festival, has been picked up by Benten/Watchmaker Films. Shot on a tiny budget with non-professional actors, and set during the period between the Sichuan earthquake and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the film revolves around a father, his son, and a mysterious woman who enters their lives. Fish Eyes is the debut of director Zheng, and also represents the debut plunge into theatrical waters for Benten. The company acquired all North American, UK, and European rights for the film.

Box Office. Playing on one screen, Nursery University resided at the top of the indie charts last weekend, according to Box Office Mojo, grossing $11,307. Directed by Marc H. Simon and Matthew Makar, the documentary aims to provide "a good-humored look at the oddly competitive environment of nursery school admissions," where the annual tuition is upwards of $20,000. James Toback's doc Tyson opened on seven screens and enjoyed decent returns (7,731 per-screen average), with Paolo Sorrentino's biopic Il Divo close behind ($6,934 each at two screens).

After the jump: LAAPFF!

James Faust loves movies. That's a good thing, especially since he's the Director of Programming for the AFI Dallas International Film Festival, which wrapped its third edition last week. Some film programmers will brook no negative comments about their selections, but James was quite willing to listen when I questioned his sanity for picking Oskar Roehler's Lulu & Jimi, an out-of-control, absurdist melodrama that veers from one mad scenario to the next.

He readily admitted that he and a friend were the only two people laughing when the film played at Sundance, but he defended some of the same things that I had derided. James is a pleasant, humble man, but he's not about to back down just because you don't agree with him. That same spirit is evident in some of the films in the program. Jeffrey Levy-Hinte's terrific Soul Power, in which music history comes alive, consists of footage shot in 1974 as final preparations were being made for a music festival in Zaire, intended to accompany the "Rumble in the Jungle" boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. James Brown, B.B. King, Bill Withers, and other notable musicians appear; it made me nostalgic for the days when Ali spoke his mind.

Judging from the crowds lining up in advance, AFI Dallas sells far more individual tickets than passes, which means that completely different audiences show up from one film to the next (as opposed to, say, SXSW, where you start to recognize fellow pass holders in line). So a late evening screening of Daniel Burman's Empty Nest drew a Spanish-speaking crowd that reacted more strongly than I did. Still, I liked the picture that Burman created of a long-married couple (Oscar Martínez and Cecilia Roth) dealing with life, and each other, after their children leave home.