Last week, as I watched Quentin Dupieux’s Rubber, I noticed that the trailers on the rental Blu-Ray were all of titles sharing space at the top of my queue: titles like Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins, Kim Ji-woon’s I Saw the Devil, and Jason Eisener’s Hobo with a Shotgun. All, I quickly realized, had been released by the same studio, Magnet Releasing, whose label I recalled first noticing in front of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bronson. After some quick Internet searching, I quickly realized what I should have known initially, that Magnet was a subsidiary of indie distributor Magnolia Pictures. The practices of “indie” subsidiaries of studios has become commonplace. That majors like Universal and 20th Century Fox carry specialty labels Focus Features and Fox Searchlight which market to discerning audiences irrespective of whether or not the individual titles released are independently financed or studio-produced has become a defining practice for limited release titles and has, perhaps more than any other factor, obscured the meaning of the term “independent film” (Sony Pictures Classics, which only distributes existing films, is perhaps the only subsidiary arm of a major studio whose releases are actually independent of the system itself). This fact is simply one that has been accepted for quite some time in the narrative of small-scale American (or imported) filmmaking. Especially in the case of Fox Searchlight, whose opening banner distinguishes itself from the major in variation on name only, subsidiaries of the majors can hardly even be argued as “tricking” audiences into [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Often composers fall into a groove, defining themselves with a particular style and running with it across the cinematic board. Not so with Nathan Barr, whose career is speckled with comedies, horror movies and a little of everything in-between. Barr’s eclectic resume includes True Blood; Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever; Broken Lizard’s Club Dread, Beerfest and The Slammin’ Salmon; The Last Exorcism; and Ruben Fleischer’s upcoming action comedy 30 Minutes or Less. His latest, the character-driven thriller The Ledge, was picked up by IFC Films after premiering at Sundance. The movie centers on Gavin (Charlie Hunnam) who has an affair with Shana (Liv Tyler), the wife of fanatical religious man Joe (Patrick Wilson) who forces Gavin to either jump off the ledge of a building or watch him kill his wife. It’s like that middle school game “MFK,” but real. We sat down with Barr during Sundance to talk about his process as a composer, the similarities and differences between his many projects and what how each one is its own musical challenge:

It has been a while since The Criterion Collection has graced our shelves, but this week they bring us two films on Blu-Ray. Both films are imports from France, and both star a beautiful actress. One film comes to us from Legendary director Jean-Luc Godard. The other is a more recent film starring Juliette Binoche. These two films, of course, are Vivre Sa Vie and Summer Hours.

When thirty-something David isn’t working as a photographer at a high-street photo studio he is stressing over his love-life. Torn between his rather-too-agreeable girlfriend Lisa and the exciting but tricky Nina, he has serious decision to make. When he gets it all wrong and loses them both he has to start all over again

As if the image of Willem Dafoe’s nude buttocks wasn’t enough to haunt you, Lars Von Trier’s entire film is going to be landing in New York and Los Angeles on October 23rd. Spooky!