MovieChat Forums > The Guatemalan Handshake Discussion > piece of indie-shmindie crap

piece of indie-shmindie crap

posted 17 years ago by s-mosdal
14 replies | jump to latest

What a pretentious, boring and un-original going-nowhere piece of crap "indie" moviemaking. None of the characters engaged, or appeared long enough to engage,
the story went nowhere, the "poetic" scenes where embarrasing and boring,and the movie was trying WAY to hard to be "quirky". Like, uuh, lets put a huge orange rubber cowboy-hat on the little girl, uh, here's a boy in a wheelchair with rollerskates on,oh how INTERESTING, the old mans got a funny-looking little car, and how interesting AND funny, will Oldham has pink socks on. COME on.
And the new thing every little indie movie seems to have is a fat, black girl, who befriends a geekboy with a dumb haircut. Whats that about?
I see more originality in a farelly bros movies for chrissakes.
I wish indiemoviemakers would just stop aping Harmony Korine and Hal Hartley and get ON with it.
Sorry if I seem a bit agressive about this film, but it just seems indie movies are getting so lame and samey, its like hollywood-movies in terms of unoriginality.

[–] coex 17 years ago

I just saw this. you nailed it. AND you nailed the current idea of "indie". how have indie films ended up in the SAME rut as Hollywood? Do all these indie filmmakers make an intentionally quirky film ONLY to get a Hollywood job? It certainly seems that way...

[–] bdn5723 16 years ago

Actually, I just spoke to the director of this film and he more or less refuses to get a Hollywood job. He is not in it for the money at all. He has refused to sell this film, as well, because he does not want a studio to shelve it or alter it. He has traveled the world with this film in the back seat of his car and he is still doing so.

[–] Eels25 16 years ago

He has apparently given up that noble cause for it recently was released as a two disk dvd.

Caffeine Junkie

[–] HLB1 15 years ago

If only he would have kept it in his back seat we would all be better off.

Go ahead, make my day....

[–] flippp 16 years ago

I agree. After Will Oldham disappears in the beginning, we don't even get to him again except in flashbacks! Instead we have to watch a bunch of people trying to be all quirky and weird.

[–] flippp 16 years ago

"And the new thing every little indie movie seems to have is a fat, black girl, who befriends a geekboy with a dumb haircut. Whats that about?"

You're so right. How many times have we seen this before? Stop with the fat black girl and the geeky guy already. We've seen it a million times!

[–] flippp 16 years ago

Also, it's the new thing for the two lead characters to sing Moldy Peaches songs to each other.

[–] karlowar 16 years ago

I mostly agree with everything that was said here - I really tried and wanted to like this film, as I am a huge Will Oldham fan...but it just ended up making me angry.

However, it should be noted that this movie came out before "Juno" - therefore the whole guy-girl-sing-happy-cute-MoldyPeaches-song-to-each-other bit was at least somewhat original at the time.

[–] peacecorpsdrew 16 years ago

For a long time I believed the actors and maybe the director/writers were retarded and I was thinking "this movie is pretty good for an all-retard production". But when I came here I found out that the makers of this movie actaully wanted it to be like it was, I was disappointed.

This movie is horrible, boring, anticlimactic, and slow.

[–] bacardi119 14 years ago

I have been looking for a place to download this movie for quite sometime now, if anybody knows a place where I can download it I will appreciate it.

[–] M_Qtips 16 years ago

I'm with you. When did stylized quirkiness become an acceptable replacement for a plot?

[–] the-lyons-dendotcom 16 years ago

TOTALLY agree with you guys in this thread 100%. im an independent filmmaker myself (just finished my first feature) and i am all for small budget material that has a unique voice and vision. but come on!

"Trying way too hard" is a perfect statement. Hand drawn poster/cover. check. quirky characters. check. bad acting. check. silly music. check. weak editing. check. it's like someone thinks they figured out a formula that fests like and yeah, its INTERESTING to see maybe 4 or 5 of these characters in their first scene but then once you realize "wow, this is really all the filmmaker had to show" then its just wasting your time. this MIGHT have been a "quirky" 5 minute short. somehow. i dont know.

P.S.- another movie you guys need to avoid that i saw earlier this year at SUNDANCE (of all places): "Anywhere, USA". This movie reminded me a lot of it. But Tarantino, who was on the judges panels this year, knew the little girl in that movie so im sure thats why it got there.

People that find movies like this fascinating have probably never driven an hour outside of the city. Rusty cars - WOW! dirty comfy chairs - AMAZING! strange old people - QUIRKY!

[–] jcsavesyou 15 years ago

I totally disagree.

The acting was really good. I thought the lil girl, the father, and Oldham were great. The movie had me laughing and smiling a lot. Yes, some of it was definitely over-the-top. But all in all it was fun and poetic.

Yeah, some of the relationships weren't developed enough. But since when does a good plot have to resolve everything.

[–] fomq 15 years ago

The acting was far from really good. The people in the movie that you deemed great actors were mediocre at best. What many of the people said about this film already is absolutely true. I don't think that their problems with the plot are that nothing was resolved. I didn't formulate my opinion of the movie at the very end when supposedly nothing was resolved, it was an ongoing process throughout the watching of the film. The film didn't strike me as having any sort of ingenuity and seemed to rely heavily on "quirks" which were lame for the most part. None of the quirky aspects in this movie were clever, they were things that when I was in high school I would have sat around with my friends and maybe snickered about. Did this movie really make anyone think about anything? To me, it seemed like watching the deleted scenes of a movie. The was no substance, no drive, no character development, and a bunch of superfluous random *beep* thrown in the mix.

If you feel like snuggling up in your blanket on the couch tonight, popping some popcorn, maybe lighting some candles, and being bored out of your *beep* mind, and possibly angered to the point of wanting to write death threats to whatever ignorant creature made this film possible, then watch Guatemalan Handshake.