I have previously written on this site about the ‘quirky’ cinematic sensibility, which is represented most clearly in the kinds of millennial and post-millennial American indie comedies and comedy-dramas brought to mind by names and titles such as Wes Anderson, Michel Gondry, Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze, Jared Hess, Miranda July, Buffalo ’66, Punch-Drunk Love, I …
‘The Rally to Restore Sanity’, held on October 30th in Washington D.C. was first announced back in September by Jon Stewart on his satirical ‘fake-news’ programme The Daily Show. Clearly intended as a response to extreme-right pundit Glenn Beck’s earlier ‘Restoring Honor Rally’, Stewart pitched the event as a protest against the hyperbolic and self-perpetuating nature of the media’s political discourse in the U.S., unfurling a banner behind him that urged viewers to “Take it Down a Notch, for America”. Immediately following the announcement, Stephen Colbert (an ex-Daily Show correspondent whose act consists of parodying the right by embodying its values ironically) announced a counter-rally on The Colbert Report: ‘The March to Keep Fear Alive’. Supposedly campaigning on the precise opposite of Stewart’s message, Colbert asserted, “Now is the time for all good men to freak out for freedom!”
Quirky is a word that critics apply to American ‘indie’ movies with a tiresome predictability – indeed, it sometimes seems to be treated as synonymous with the contemporary American independent film landscape as a whole. However, while it certainly can be used merely as a tedious buzzword, I would also argue that – properly defined …
I’m always asking my dad how that boat knew to go down right there, right over us. He laughs and says, ‘God did it.’ Glory at Sea (2008) is a 25-minute short film about a rag-tag group of survivors of a terrible storm who together build a boat and sail out in search of the …
