'The Devil' and Ti West

Ti West was interviewed by Karina Longworth on Spout.com this past Monday. In the interview, he discussed his two most recent projects: the Cabin Fever sequel which has been shelved, and House of the Devil, which is premiering at Tribeca Saturday Night.

In it, he talks of the frustrations he's had crossing over into more mainstream fare, such as Dark Sky cutting a crucial four minutes of House. West says that in spite of trying to mainstream himself for his larger efforts, his financiers still weren't satisfied. Longworth writes:

In the case of Devil, West says, the money guys knew what they were getting into when they hired him, and didn’t seem to have a problem with what they got until recently.

Then adds:

West says the producers test screened his cut without his knowledge, and then showed him response cards. The audience’s answers to the leading questions along the lines of “Were you bored by anything in the house?” were presented as evidence that the audience asked for the specific cuts that Dark Sky eventually mandated. That he had made a film that was even subject to last minute revision based on testing came as a surprise to the director.

“It was in the rough cut, it was in the fine cut, it was in the final cut it was in the sound edit — it’s never changed, and it was always boring the whole time. It’s this whole last minute fear.”

I've seen Trigger Man. I'll be honest--it was a little slow for my tastes, but I really wanted to see House of the Devil. It was the one movie I really would've definitely seen had I gave in and gone to Tribeca this year. Ti makes an important point here:

I feel there’s some value to people knowing that if they go see this movie on Saturday night at Tribeca, and you think you’re at an independent film festival seeing an independent film, you should know that this movie was market researched like a new flavor of Pepsi. Nobody thinks about that, that they’d go see a low budget movie, and that’s the process it’s gone through to get to a film festival. And it’s a bummer.

I don't think people who see indie films in mainstream theaters realize that "indie" films (or as others call them, "Indiewood") are often just as market researched as their bigger budget counterparts. Many "indie" producers keep marketability in mind when packaging their movies.

Go, Ti! I'll be seeing House of the Devil when I get a chance.

The Fempire, Continued.

"Did you see my girls in the Grey Lady today? I was so excited to be in the Times, wearing my Technicolor Dreamcoat."

-Diablo Cody on Twitter, 3/22/09

The Fempire continues to stir a lot of attention in the blogosphere. In my spare time the last couple of days, I've been giving some thought to why I'm so ambivalent about it, but this quote from Women & Hollywood explains everything:

What I have been loving is seeing my fellow feminists weigh in. Most of us have been pretty positive about the piece. The film and gossip people, not so much.

Two sides of me are at war with it. The feminist in me thinks it's great that these women have weaseled their way into what is largely a boys' club. Not only are they not competitive with one another, they actually help each other out and give each other advice.

The other me--the filmmaker, the film fan, the critic agrees with Karina Longworth in the comments section of The Spout's Post:

That’s the problem with this sort of blind “girl power!” –– we’re seriously supposed to cheerlead for the broad who put “What Happens in Vegas” in the world, just because she’s a broad? Is it not a greater crime against feminism to say that female filmmakers are worthy of attention just because of their anatomy, regardless of the fact that they’re propping up business as usual in Hollywood and giving us shit films?

As wonderful as it is that they support each other, I think it would be even better to have Diablo Cody's magic fairy dust rub off on them, and have them write something unique. I might write another post (or make another video) of what I have to say about Diablo Cody, but I'll save it for later, since it's entirely off topic.