Near the end of last week, Defamer spread the rumor that Picturehouse, once the indie arm of New Line Cinema and currently dangling from the edge of the hulking entity known as Warner Bros., has its days numbered. Now that New Line is history and Warners, like many studios, has faced increasing cutbacks, it may give short shrift to the shingles responsible for handling artier fare. Along with Picturehouse, this also includes Warner Independent Pictures, whose recent release slate includes David Gordon Green's magnificent Snow Angels.

Defamer suggested that Picturehouse president Bob Berney might wind up at WIP or head up a new, currently anonymous company. On Friday, Variety's Anne Thompson put it in more coherent terms: It appears quite likely that WIP and Picturehouse will merge together as a single company, with current WIP president Polly Cohen working alongside Berney. Whatever happens, let's just hope that the final result still leaves room for the sharp selection of independent and foreign titles that Picturehouse has handled since its birth three years ago. Defamer points out that Marion Cotillard's unexpected Oscar win for La Vie en Rose matters less than the flop of Run, Fatboy, Run, while the John Simpson-directed horror film Amusement might get dumped on DVD. It was just last year, however, that the company helped edgy fare like The Orphanage and Rocket Science get the sort of release most studios would never try. Let's hope that bravery lives on, somewhere.

Jeffrey Blitz had enormous success with his debut film Spellbound. It is the 14th highest grossing documentary (better than it sounds; it made more than $7 million worldwide, while most docs never break $1 million), it was nominated for an Academy Award and it has lasting acclaim (it's #4 on IDA's list of all-time best docs). So it's OK that his follow-up, the fiction film Rocket Science, only made a tenth of what Spellbound grossed (yeah, that means it didn't break $1 million -- but it did win Blitz a directing award at Sundance). You can't hit the jackpot twice, right? Well, Blitz might know best, since he's returning to non-fiction for a documentary about the lottery. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film is expected to finish in time for a 2008 release, it's being produced by Peter Saraf (Little Miss Sunshine) and it currently has no title.

The doc apparently won't be much of an investigation into the industry, at least not in the scrutinizing vein of Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock. As Saraf has said: "It's not the Fahrenheit 9/11 of lotteries," which is pretty disappointing considering I heard that lotto winners collect their money for a few years and then some guy with a bat comes to their house and convinces them they don't need anymore money. I'm sure that is just a rumor/urban legend, but I'd like a film to tell me for sure. The film will focus partially on the lives of winners, though, particularly on how those lives have changed or not changed since winning. Other people interviewed for the doc include obsessive players who have never won, and Saraf assures us that Blitz is far more interested in the people than in the industry. If you've seen Spellbound, you can kind of imagine what the lotto film will be like. But will he ever be able to find a subject as interesting as his little poster boy, Harry Altman?

Have you been reading Cinematical Indie lately? If not, here's what you've been missing ...

COLUMNS, REVIEWS, and INTERVIEWS

• Indie Seen: Women in Filmmaking -- Monika Bartyzel takes a closer look at some of the most important women in indie film.
• Killer Bs on DVDs: Matt Bradshaw reviews Dead Time Stories.
• Jeffrey M. Anderson's 400 Screens, 400 Blows: The Life and Death of Small Films
• Erik Davis interviews Rocket Science director Jeffrey Blitz.
• Fan Rant: Scott Weinberg wonders why the heck Nathan Fillion can't get a break already.
• Review: Rocket Science
• Cinematical Indie Seven: Freaks and Geeks -- Why Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow are Superhot.

... and more right after the jump ...

"Niche freshmen were in better shape" than Hollywood product this past weekend, according to Leonard Klady, who compiled box office estimates for Movie City News. He placed Chak De! India first among independent releases by virtue of its earnings of $390,000 at 75 locations, resulting in a per-screen average of $5,250. Chak De! India stars Shahrukh Khan as a disgraced field hockey player who returns to the game as coach of the national women's team. In a New York Times capsule (free registration required to read), Andy Webster said: "The film's greatest merit is its commentary on sexism in India."

Klady also gave kudos to Julie Delpy's 2 Days in Paris for its performance; it reaped $20,510 per screen at eight locations, according to his figures. Our own Erik Davis raved about 2 Days when he saw it earlier this year. The critical response was good, rated at 85% positive by Rotten Tomatoes, so that bodes well for Delpy's future filmmaking projects. Recently Cinematical's Ryan Stewart talked with the writer/director/star in a far-ranging interview that touched on other scripts she's written as well as the challenges posed by 2 Days. The trailer, available at the official site, makes me laugh every time I see it, so I hope the film gets pushed out to a few more cities before heading to DVD.

The other notable indie release this weekend was Rocket Science, director Jeffrey Blitz's coming of age flick. Scott Weinberg reviewed it at Sundance, while Erik Davis took a more recent look and also interviewed director Blitz. Rocket Science made $9,390 per screen at six locations for an estimated total of $56,300. The film scored even higher than 2 Days in Paris, according to Rotten Tomatoes (89% positive), so we'll see if word of mouth builds the audience for next weekend.

Unfortunate as it is, there's a new type of genre out on the streets, waving its angsty little hand in our faces each year -- the "quirky, teen-related Sundance film." It's almost as if these films were designed to play at Sundance; their main character almost always has a strange disability (be it thumb-sucking, vagina dentata or stuttering), their family is, of course, dysfunctional, their best friend is a creepy serial killer in training and their love life is in shambles. While Rocket Science does get a lot of things right, it's hard not to label it as "just another Sundance film" -- the kind that's amusing to watch, but easily forgettable.

The nice thing about Rocket Science is that, more often than not, it's honest. It doesn't expect a lot from its characters, and in doing so the film continually keeps the audience guessing. Just when you thought the plot was heading in one direction, it spins around and heads the other way. The triumphs are personal -- more internal than external -- and while the mainstream audience might be turned off by a film that doesn't hand you the "happy ending" on a silver platter, it might be a nice change of pace heading into the latter part of a summer that's been full of dumb, predictable, popcorn fluff.

Imagine the kind of pressure one must face when their first film gets nominated for an Oscar. Writer-director Jeffrey Blitz, whose 2002 documentary Spellbound was nominated for a best documentary Oscar, decided to follow up his critically-acclaimed look at several kids vying to become the next national spelling bee champion with a straight fictional narrative about a stutterer who's love for a girl leads him to seek out the highly-competitive world of high school debating.

We already reviewed Rocket Science when it premiered at last year's Sundance Film Festival, and I'll be filing another review within the next couple days. In the meantime, while you count the seconds until Rocket Science opens in theaters this weekend, be sure to check out the following interview with Blitz in which he talks about the aforementioned sophomore pressure, why he likes stories featuring high school kids squaring off against one another in academic competitions, how close Rocket Science is to his own life and -- get this -- you might actually learn a bit about high school debating at the same time. More bang for your buck -- that's my motto. Anyway, enjoy.

Cinematical: Your first film, Spellbound, gets nominated for an Oscar. Is there pressure to follow it up with another doc?

Jeffrey Blitz: No pressure from the outside world, but I loved making Spellbound. The process of it was very exciting, and not just because it ended up doing so well -- but actually being on the road where it's sort of you against the world, in a way. It's a really exciting way to do it. There aren't layers of people to go through, you don't need to articulate your vision for the film every day to different people -- I did almost all the shooting on Spellbound and Sean Welch, who was my producing partner, did sound recording. And for the most part, it was just the two of us on the movie. That's like a really exciting, fun way to make movies. So, I want to kind of hop-scotch back and forth between fiction feature films and documentaries, if I can -- if I'm so lucky as to go on and make more movies.

After his festival-friendly documentary Spellbound hit the scene at several locations (including Toronto, South By Southwest and Tribeca), filmmaker Jeffrey Blitz found himself an overnight sensation, so he did what any suddenly successful filmmaker would do: He tried something a little different ... but not too different, and the result is Rocket Science, a festival-friendly comedy/drama very much in the vein of Thumbsucker, Art School Confidential and Napoleon Dynamite. Tailor-made to appeal to the kinds of audiences who regularly show up at the Sundance Film Festival, Rocket Science is certainly well-made and heartfelt enough to earn some praise -- but it's also more than a little familiar, and (despite several excellent performances) it's not all that consistently funny a piece. Quirky, colorful and filled with typically oddball characters, sure, but not all that funny.

Young Canadian actor Reece Thompson plays Hal Hefner, a New Jersey high school nobody who has two bickering parents, one amazingly obnoxious older brother and a speech impediment that would give Porky Pig a run for his money. When his school's debating hero (Nicholas D'Agosto) has a mild breakdown and hits the road, the astoundingly ambitious (and rather adorable) Ginny Ryerson (Anna Kendrick) enlists Reece, serious stutter and all, to join her debating activities. But poor Hal has a whole lot more to worry about than schoolboy crushes, public speaking and a nasty stuttering problem: His parents are splitting up, his brother is a klepto, his school advisor is a clueless chap and his self-confidence is at an all-time low -- even for a 15-year-old.