The Hollywood Reporter has an interesting piece up on the disappearing space in print publications for reviews of independent films. The loss of print film critics in numerous outlets, coupled with the increasing number of independent films being released each year, is making it more of a challenge for indie films to get reviews of their films in print pubs. Online critics have taken up some of the slack -- we here at Cinematical still review as many indies as we can, in addition to the more mainstream fare, but there's still a perception out there among some that an online review carries less weight than a review printed on paper.

The article has some interesting dueling quotes; THINKfilm's Mark Urman notes, "We're not at a point where Internet writers have the credibility of established media with proven records and editors." Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeff Wells begs to differ, saying in part, "... there are maybe eight or 10 online critics who genuinely matter and are, in the parlance of the trade, 'conversation starters.' Due respect, but insisting that review quotes are still about print critics is generational hubris."

Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale, a semi-autobiographical film about a Brooklyn family's experience with divorce, was the sleeper indie hit of 2005, and after its success Baumbach shot to prominence as a director to watch. His highly anticipated follow-up effort, Margot at the Wedding, returns to similar themes of family love and loathing; it stars Nicole Kidman as Margot, a high-strung writer who, along with her son Claude (Zane Pais), goes on a pilgrimage of sorts to her childhood home, where her estranged sister (Baumbach's wife Jennifer Jason Leigh) is marrying an unemployed painter (Jack Black) she just met. Baumbach -- who, it must be noted, bears an uncanny resemblance to Adrien Brody -- sat down with us in Toronto to talk about New York, family dynamics and just what's up with all those masturbation scenes.

Cinematical: After Squid and the Whale, a lot of people looked at you as a Brooklyn artist, the way they might look at someone like Jonathan Lethem. Did you have any temptation to make another movie set in Brooklyn, or did you deliberately move away from that?

Noah Baumbach: It wasn't deliberate or not deliberate -- I started writing this movie and it became what it was. It wasn't a response to anything in particular. I feel a real connection to Brooklyn, certainly, because I spent 20 years of my life there, but I don't think of myself as a Brooklyn artist any more than I think of myself as a male artist. I will say that when people would respond to Squid with a kind of Brooklyn-centric reaction I was pleased with that, because obviously Brooklyn means a lot to me.

Welcome to The (Mostly) Indie Film Calendar. Each week, we'll give you a round-up of what's going on in indie film (and sometimes just cool film news and screenings) in cities near you. If you know of cool stuff happening that's related to film -- a local fest, a series of classic restored films, lectures, workshops, open calls for casting of an indie film -- send your tips to me at kim(at)cinematical(dot)com and we'll add them to the calendar.

Here are this week's happenings in film from New York to LA and points in between, right after the jump ...

Welcome to The (Mostly) Indie Film Calendar. Each week, we'll give you a round-up of what's going on in indie film (and sometimes just cool film news and screenings) in cities near you. If you know of cool stuff happening that's related to film -- a local fest, a series of classic restored films, lectures, workshops, open calls for casting of an indie film -- send your tips to me at kim(at)cinematical(dot)com and we'll add them to the calendar.

Here are this week's happenings in film from New York to LA and points in between ...

New York City: This weekend brings New Yorks the Independent Features Film Festival at Tribeca Cinemas. The fest, whose 21 selections were chosen by viewers who watched the films over the internet, runs July 27-29, starting with tonight's red carpet premiere of audience pick alleyball.

At Film Forum, you can still check out Live-In Maid (showing through July 31). Starting today, there's also a fest going on at Film Forum: the NYC Noir Fest, a spectacular five week, 46-film exploration of the dark side. You can check out the full schedule right here -- I have to note that it includes one of my fave bad movies ever, Cat People, which I used to revel in watching every time it showed on the late-night movies on the local UHF channel when I was a kid (UHF? Yeah, that was pre-cable, thanks for noticing and making me feel old). You can also catch films like Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver, Panic in Needle Park, Rope, and Rear Window, if Cat People isn't your thing. As a part of the fest, Film Forum also has a series called "The Silent City: New York in the Movies, 1898-1928."

As if a fest full of noir wasn't enough to make your cinepheliac heart go all a-flutter, Film Forum also has screenings of the very excellent No End in Sight this weekend, with director Charles Ferguson on hand for Q&As following the 8PM screenings. I saw No End in Sight at Sundance, and attended a pretty impressive panel discussion of the film as well. The film rocks -- don't miss it. You can get more insight into the film as well with James Rocchi's interview with Ferguson, which we just posted today.

Over at the Walter Reade Theater, we have yet another film fest: Scanners: The New York Video Festival. You can see the full fest program right here.

Los Angeles: If you didn't make the trip down south to San Diego to hang out with all things geekerific at Comic-Con, never fear, there are plenty of things to do in that other southern Cal city. As usual, American Cinematheque's got you indie film fans covered. Mods and Rockers is still going on there, and on Sunday you can get all classic with a screening of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Coming up August 2 (and running through August 27), it's the Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror Fest, just in time to get you past those post-Comic Con blues.


Seattle: Seattleites can get their film fest jones satisfied at NW Film Forum: starting this weekend, NWFF brings you "From the Tsars to the Stars: A Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema." Tonight through August 2, you can catch a screening of fest fave The Trials of Darryl Hunt, which won best doc at the 2006 Seattle International Film Festival.

The Seattle International Film Festival may be long over, but the SIFF group is still bringing Seattleites great films all summer long with their SIFF Cinema Summer Series. Through August 2, they're showing Apachatpong Weerasethakul's Syndromes and a Century, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's Daratt, Bahman Ghobadi's Half Moon, and Tsai Ming-Liang's I Don't Want to Sleep Alone.

Also this weekend in Seattle: On July 28, The Film School brings Oscar-nommed director Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) into town to sneak-preview his latest doc, Taxi to the Dark Side, which played at the Tribeca Film Festival. Taxi is about torture practices used by the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, told through the story of an innocent taxi driver who was tortured and killed in 2002. Gibney's a sharp guy and a solid filmmaker -- that one's a must-see for you Seattle film buffs. Tix available at Warren Etheredge's website, The Warren Report.

Toronto: Heading north of the border, Toronto film fans can head over to Yonge-Dundas Square on Tuesday, July 31 to catch Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

Austin: This weekend at The Alamo Drafthouse at Lake Creek brings you a screening for the kids (or those of us who haven't quite grown up yet, Dark Crystal. Coming up August 3 and 4 -- midnight screenings of Jackie Chan's Drunken Master! At the South Lamar location, bring the kids to free screenings through August at Kids Summer Movie Camp. Films will include Nanny McPhee, Holes, and one of my own faves, Howl's Moving Castle. Plus: The Village location has Rocky Horror Saturday night at 11:55 PM, so break out your corsets and fishnet stockings!

Dallas: Coming up in Dallas, the Dallas Video Fest runs July 31- August 5. The fest is surprisingly affordable -- all-day passes range from $10 weeknights to $25 weekends. Check out the full schedule and start making your plans now.

Oklahoma City: This weekend at the Oklahoma CIty Museum of Art: Ten Canoes and Susan Hayward in Tulsa (one screening only on Sunday). Upcoming in August: Summercamp!, Bound for Glory, La Vie en Rose, and The Outsiders. And mark your calendars NOW for Sarah Polley's remarkable Away From Her, screening starting August 16.

Want your city covered? Send your film news and links to me at kim(at)cinematical(dot)com ...

It's time to take a little peek around the world of indie film sites and see what other folks are talking about. We're going to be posting a regular Indie Film Blog Group Hug. Do you have a blog where you're writing about indie films, foreign films or docs? Are you an indie filmmaker with a site up about your film that you'd like us to take a look at? Run a little film fest you want to get the word out on? Feel free to send your indie film links, hot tips and other fun stuff to me at kim (at) cinematical (dot) com.

And now, for this week's Group Hug:

• Over at Deep Structure, Christopher John Stack is writing about his film, An Exercise in Vigilance, which will screen at the Action on Film International Film Festival in Long Beach, CA, which apparently runs to coincide with a big martial arts fest -- so all you action film fans who live in that area might want to check it out. An Exercise in Vigilance screens at the fest at theater 4, 5:30PM on Sunday. And just to be really nice and throw other filmmakers some love, Stack even has a breakdown of the sched for you right there on his site. Congrats to Stack on his film getting into the fest.
• Movie City Indie's Ray Pride has a fasciYnating interview up with filmmaker Usama Alshaibi, who in 2004 returned to his native Iraq to shoot a documentary titled Nice Bombs, which won a best doc prize at the 2006 Chicago Underground Film Festival.
• DVD Panache, which runs a regular bit called "Friday Screen Test," wherein various film bloggers are asked all sorts of questions -- kind a True Confessions for film geeks -- put my fave Amsterdam-based film blogger, Peet Gelderblom, to the test. What's Peet like when his feet are put to the fire? Well, he once saw Famke Jenssen's sister in her underwear, so I guess that makes him just one degree removed from Famke herself. Check it out, and if you don't read Peet's blog, Lost in Negative Space, already, hunker down with some french fries with mayo to give you that "Amsterdam feeling" and check him out.
• You gotta love a film site that calls itself Burbanked: All the Smug of Hollywood, in a Much Less Desirable Location. Alan Lopuszynski, who runs the site, posits the question: Can one scene make a movie a classic?
• Another of my regular blog reads, Strange Culture, almost always has something intriguing to check out. This week, RC has a post up about torture as it relates to -- ahem -- "unorthodox" and secret torture used by government officials in interrogations. How does this relate to film? Rendition, an upcoming film due out in October, starring a pretty impressive cast including Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep, Jake Gyllenhall, Alan Arkin and Peter Saarsgard. Check it out.
• Peter Nellhaus has a blog called Coffee, Coffee and More Coffee, where he writes about all kinds of interesting film-related stuff. Most recently, Peter has a great little DVD review of the 1960 film called Seven Thieves, complete with some nice black-and-white stills, and another more recent flick, 2004's The Taste of Tea.
• It's been a while since we checked in with NYC blog Blank Screen. Most recently, the Blank Screen folks have been interviewing Thumbsucker director Mike Mills (who's currently dating another indie-film darling, Miranda July -- now that's material for an indie flick!). Side note: They also have tons of info on what's going on in the arts in NYC; if you live there and don't have them bookmarked, what are you waiting for? Bookmark, already!

As you know from reading Ryan Stewart's post below, the main face of Cinematical is changing. That doesn't mean the indie, foreign and short film coverage you've come to know and love here is going away -- a lot of it is just moving to it's own house (or really, it's own bedroom in the big house that now makes up Cinematical). Starting right ... about ... now! ... you will be able to get all your "classic" Cinematical -- reviews of indies, foreigns, obscure art house films and shorts, penetrating interviews with indie filmmakers, news on the world of indie film, and, of course, lots of film festival coverage, -- at CineIndie. I'll be hanging out with you there as managing editor of CineIndie, and you'll see some familiar faces posting there, and eventually some new ones as well.

Cinematical and CineIndie will work together to cover the major film fests with our usual extensive coverage -- tomorrow, in fact, we'll be starting our Sundance coverage at our spandy-new space. Jette Kernion will be keeping her eagle-eye out for breaking Sundance news and deals for us, and James Rocchi, Scott Weinberg, Kevin Kelly and I will be on the ground in Park City, bringing you a slew of reviews, interviews, and all that hot Sundance scene action. We'll be cutting a wide swath through the Sundance schedule, bringing you the scoop on docs and features, competition films and experimentals, shorts and animation, and lots of video interviews with indie filmmakers and actors. Make sure you check back often, as we'll be posting day and night from January 18-29 from the Sundance Film Festival.

We hope that you'll think this is a good change for Cinematical, as we do. Please join us over at CineIndie for tons of new indie film coverage, and keep on coming to Cinematical's front page for your mainstream fare.

Hi, and welcome to the grand opening of CineIndie, the brand-new indie film blog branch of the Cinematical family tree! You can kind of think of us as the cozy little refurbished arthouse theater down the road apiece from the big multiplex -- a place where you can come to get all the news you want on the world of indie film.

One of the reasons I'm thrilled about this change is that it will allow those of us who are really passionate about indie film to devote the majority of our energy to covering it for you. We'll be greatly expanding the breadth and depth of our coverage of all things indie, bringing you interviews with indie directors, reviews of indies, foreigns, docs and shorts, and more. We'll be covering news on indie film, and more articles targeted at filmmakers as well.

My Film Clips column will be here, and you'll probably see Jette Kernion's IndieSeen, Jeffrey Anderson's 400 Screens, 400 Blows, and Richard Von Busack's After Images there as well. We'll be able to cover even more independent films, and I'm especially looking forward to being able to give some more love to under-appreciated or under-covered fest films and all you truly independent filmmakers out there maxing out your credit cards in pursuit of your dreams.

As CineIndie's managing editor, I'd like to invite you to help us create the kind of site you want to come back to every day. So sit down, have a nice latte, and open up with us about what you really want to read here. For the next two weeks we'll be nose-to-the-grindstone at the Sundance Film Festival, so be sure to check back often -- we often post at 3am from fests, so there's likely to be something fresh no matter when you pop by.

The other day, I told you how Landmark Theaters planned on opening up a giant multiplex in Los Angeles, catering only to independent film. When completed, The Landmark Film Center will become the country's largest independent film multiplex: 12 auditoriums. Three-stories tall. Stadium seating. The works.

In New York City, we're lucky to have a number of theaters that house only independent film. However, the surrounding suburbs have nothing. Most cities across the country are lucky to have one, maybe two theaters committed to showing independent film. And some of the ones I've been in were old, with seats so uncomfortable you couldn't help but feel antsy a half-hour into the film. So, is Landmark on the right track here?

When I first wrote about the new Landmark theater, one commenter felt a move like this was more about money then reaching out to the community. But isn't that a good thing? A more attractive theater may help a smaller film earn more at the box office. A more attractive theater may command the attention of a community who aren't as aware of independent film as, say, Los Angeles, New York and Austin. (Yes, I had to include Austin -- they do it up nice out there.) I know what you're thinking: "But dude, the theater in question is in Los Angeles. I'm in Montana, what the hell do I get out of this?" Well, potentially, an independent film multiplex of your own.

So, I ask you: Is a big, comfortable multiplex the answer to getting more people involved in independent film? Or, with its tremendous commercial appeal, does the multiplex go against everything independent film stands for in the first place?

So you've made an independent film. Worked your butt off filming it around your day job, maxed out your credit cards financing the damn thing, probably pissed off a few friends and relatives along the path of your filmmaking obsession. What to do with the finished product (besides submitting it to the usual round of film festivals, natch)? PBS's Independent Lens -- a "film festival in your living room" --  wants to see the fruits of your labor for their 2007-08 season. Although the series is primarily focused on documentaries, they'll also consider dramas, experimentals and shorts. You have until September to get your submissions in, so stop battling with your editor and music director and get those last-minute edits done, already.  Want more info? Go get it over here.

Winner of the Snakes on a Plane Award for most forthright title, Caveh Zahedi's fictionalized documentary I Am a Sex Addict has come to the big screen after fifteen years of production, setbacks, disasters and difficulties. The passage of time hasn't changed the tense of the title -- Zahedi may be recovered for years, but he's still got impossibly conflicted feelings and desires about sex -- and in many ways the slow crawl to the finish line enabled I Am a Sex Addict to have a sweep and scope that a lot of modern navel-gazing self-made films lack. 

As a subject (or leading man – the film straddles the line between the real and the re-created), Zahedi's a pretty unlikely figure: Bold but bashful, larger-than-life but small of stature, smart enough to be incredibly aware of how stupid many of his actions are. Those dichotomies run throughout the film, making I Am a Sex Addict repellent-yet-riveting: You don't want to watch Zahedi open up the aperture of the camera and spill his guts onto the frame , but he's so open -- and fascinating, and frank about his self-destruction and majestically pathetic -- that you can't help but watch. Of course, the fact that Zahedi's got a slow-fuse, deadpan delivery that makes him look like a neurotic Buster Keaton doesn't hurt his watchability. …