It often feels like forever-and-a-day between the time I see a film at a fest, and when it finally sees light of day in a theatrical or DVD release. Such is the case with Police Beat, directed by Robinson Devor and written by Charles Mudede (the same team who just this year brought us an eye-opening look at the sub-culture of people who have sexual relations with animals in the documentary Zoo).

Police Beat was released yesterday on DVD, with Home Vision/ Image Entertainment handling distrib, and can be purchased through the Image Entertainment website (or, if you're local to Seattle, at Scarecrow Video or Broadway Market Video). The film, scripted by Mudede and based off his column of the same name which he writes for Seattle's alterna-weekly, The Stranger, follows an immigrant bike cop around scenic Seattle as he deals with one after another of a series of bizarre crimes (regular readers of Mudede's column will know that, as with many things in life, you just can't make up anything that would be better than the craziness cops deal with on a daily basis) while dealing with the possible break-up of his relationship with his girlfriend, who's gone off on a camping trip with a male "friend."

The film, though relatively low-budget, is full of gorgeous painterly shots of Seattle in the summertime (thanks to DP Sean Kirby, who shot in 35mm scope) and if you live in Seattle or have spent any time there, it's fun to see all the places you hang out in up there on the screen in all that technicolor glory. It also has the distinction of being the sixth film co-produced by Seattle not-for-profit Northwest Film Forum, which does some truly fantastic work supporting indie film and independent filmmakers.

It's great to see this little film getting some distribution at last; it had strong reviews overall, but for a while there I didn't think it would get out there for more people to see it. It's always nice to see the hard work of independent filmmakers pay off, at least a little, and I hope the film will get some strong support in Seattle, where the film was shot in over 100 locations with hundreds of locals. Even if you don't live in Seattle, Police Beat is a good film for indie film fans to see and support.

My pick of new indies out on DVD this week (July 10) is Japanese filmmaker Shunji Iwai's Hana and Alice. The bare bones of the plot are bare indeed: two teenage girls who have been lifelong friends find a boy coming between them. As with all such adolescent dramas, though, it's the characters that separate the wheat from the chaff. I can't put it better than this review by luna6: "This film is packed with moments that will stay permanently etched in your mind." True enough; it's been three years since I've seen it and I can still recall the gorgeous visuals and the warm, very recognizably human interplay, both dramatic and humorous, between the three teens coming of age. Look for the DVD from Homevision.

Another notable release this week is Danish director Susanne Bier's After the Wedding, about a man coming to grips with family issues after an unexpected invitation to a wedding. Cinematical's Jeffrey M. Anderson called it "fairly middlebrow and melodramatic," though he had kind words for the "unique and charismatic star Mads Mikkelsen." (Jeffrey really nailed down why this extraordinary actor is so good.) Other critics rated the film much higher; Rotten Tomatoes certified reviews as 86% positive. IFC is the distributor.

When Robinson Devor's Police Beat played at the Seattle film festival in 2005, Cinematical's Kim Voynar wrote that it "isn't your typical cop movie, not by a long shot. There are no prolonged gun battles, no drawn out car chases ... It's a story about lovesickness, and jealousy .. played out, almost distantly and distractedly, amidst a cacophony of crime scenes." Kim's conclusion? "Judging Police Beat on its own merits, though, I have to say that overall I enjoyed the film. I like it when a director has the chutzpah to try something different." Devor went on to make the controversial documentary Zoo. Police Beat hits DVD this week, courtesy of Homevision.

Because you just can't know too much about horse sex, filmmaker Robinson Devor and his writing partner Charles Mudede, who collaborated on 2005's critically acclaimed narrative film Police Beat, have joined forces once again, this time to tackle the difficult task of exploring the death of a man who had sex with a horse. The idea for Zoo came from a real news story: In July of 2005, in the town of Enumclaw, Washington, outside Seattle, a man died of a perforated colon as a result of having sex with a stallion. The case was widely reported on both within Washington and around the world, and as a result bestiality, or sex with animals, was made illegal in Washington.

Prior to the death of this man (whose identity was protected by most Washington media, who referred to him only by his online moniker, "Mr. Hands," the name under which he posted videos of himself engaging in sex with stallions), sex with animals -- while not something that most people who engaged in would go around talking to their friends and neighbors about -- was perfectly legal. Mr. Hands and his friends in the zoophile community (and really, I could have lived the rest of my life without knowing much as I know now about this particular form of sexual deviancy) weren't doing anything wrong, strictly speaking.

Being a few years into the twenty-first century, animals and humans have been through a lot. Our poor animal friends have dealt with clubbing, being used for coffee harvesting and all sorts of extinction. Us humans have dealt with our own share of hardships, from holy crusades to Kevin Federline's "music." For the most part, we've existed separately, living differently and sometimes loving similarly. But there are those out there who want to traverse the human/animal wall, and Zoo, a new documentary by Robinson Devor, details what can happen when a man loves... a horse.

Yes, this isn't a tale of a young girl and her horse, which is the usual Hollywood horse theme, but of a real man who loved horses just a little too much. You might have heard of the story that made headlines in 2005 (we did mention it a couple times -- how could we not?): Kenneth Pinyan was a man who had a prolific collection of horse sex videos under the name "Mr. Hands." One warm July day, while receiving sex from a stallion so terribly, yet aptly named "Bullseye," Pinyan received fatal anal injuries and died. Now, after only screening a few minutes of the movie, THINKFilm has picked up the rights for the controversial documentary, which will be screened at Sundance this year. John Cooper, Sundance programmer, insists that the film is "as smart as it is eloquent," and investigates just "how much perversity we can tolerate in others." Maybe the bigger question is how much perversity the moviegoing audience can handle before we either get too disgusted to continue watching, or so grossed out that we can't help but guffaw.

Odds and ends from a very slow Monday:

•  Yes, the following story deals with a man having sex with a horse. Yes, it was that slow of a news day. Seattle filmmaker Robinson Devor has begun shooting a documentary based on popular story from 2005 in which a man from Enumclaw died after having sex with a horse. We first reported on this story waaaaaay back in October, but now, it seems, things are gearing up. Devor, who premiered his last film Police Beat at Sundance last year, hopes to debut In the Forest There is Every Kind of Bird at Sundance in 2007.
• As I've mentioned before, with Pirates of the Caribbean 2 landing in just a few days, Johnny Depp is all over the news this week. According to Contact Music, Stephen Cannell is looking to revive his 21 Jump Street series and turn it into a feature film starring none other than Johnny Depp. You'll remember Depp played Officer Tom Hansen on the original television series, but left the show on bad terms. However, the actor recently said he's keen to bring back the character, but only he gets to play him a certain way. Depp says, "He's out of his mind. He's really old now. But he thinks that he's really young. That I would love to do."
• Awhile back, we told you how a huge sneaker fan was desperately trying to get Nike to produce those cool futuristic sneakers Marty Mcfly wears in Back to the Future 2 and sell them to the public. Only one pair has ever existed and they were worn by Michael J. Fox in the film. Well, now that the petition has gathered up over 20,000 signatures, Canadian Ron Al Cabino** has partnered up with an unnamed New York media mogul in the attempt to create a TV campaign to help his cause. Not for nothing, but the jacket Fox wore was so much cooler. Oh, and what about the hovercraft -- how about they make one of those?
  

**(Thanks, Al Cabino, for emailing to let us know your name is Al, NOT Ron. -eds.)