Authors — Mike S. Ryan
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The Low Down: Is Microbudget Production the Response to the Industry’s Devaluation of the Dramatic Feature Film?
There are conflicting opinions regarding the budget cutoff for the category commonly referred to as “microbudget filmmaking.” Sometimes referred to as “no-budget,” “ultra-low-budget” or “nano-budget,” the term refers to an increasingly popular level of filmmaking below “low-budget” that emerging filmmakers as well as, in some cases, veterans engage in. When Venice’s Biennale College Cinema was started eight years ago, the budgets of €150,000 (about $162,000) awarded to each filmmaker seemed low. And indeed, while makers of films—ambitious pictures such as The Fits, H., Memphis and This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection—produced through that program struggled with the budget […]
by Mike S. Ryan on Mar 17, 2020 -
2010s: An Eventful Decade for American Independents
At the end of 2008, the Wall Street-generated economic collapse blew a deflating hole in the Film Indie cash cow. 2009 saw the consequent slashing of staff at the mini-majors, the closing of many companies and a pullback by the content-clueless hedge funders. The result was a low output of indies in 2009, although what films were made were made for the right reasons rather than simply a desire to make another faux-indie TV movie to satisfy desperate distributors. So the decade started there, at a solemn hushed, funeral-like Sundance 2010, one that was also a refreshing, offbeat event for […]
by Mike S. Ryan on Dec 31, 2019 -
Independent Film’s Sorry Quarter Century?
The American independent film movement began in a movie theater a little over 100 years ago when Oscar Micheaux watched, through clenched teeth, the racist Hollywood establishment blockbuster The Birth of a Nation. A few years later, the first American indie film was released to a targeted niche audience; Oscar Micheaux’s The Homesteader announced the beginning of a movement born of rage and profound personal vision. What followed were deeply personal, formally inventive narratives from such innovators as Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, Ida Lupino, Melvin Van Peebles and John Cassavetes. The films were made on low budgets with little to […]
by Mike S. Ryan on Sep 14, 2017 -
Happiness is Overrated: A New Book Examines the Arthouse Sub-genre, “the Feel-Bad Film”
This summer I have brutalized myself with one challenging theater drama after another, and I have been utterly enriched by the truthful and uncompromising bleakness of these experiences. Stephen Karam’s Tony-award winning The Humans is a play about a family that comes together in a crummy New York City apartment to share secrets of infidelity, sickness, aging, unemployment and just overall sadness. It ends not with a resounding “chin up” march into sunlight but with a cinematic, dialogue-free, horrific sequence that plunges us even deeper into the dark than when it started. Watching the play in a crowded theater is […]
by Mike S. Ryan on Oct 20, 2016 -
TV is Not the New Film
As much as I love Breaking Bad, The Wire, Mad Men and Twin Peaks, as great and as groundbreaking as those shows were, they still are not cinema. The recent explosion of quality long-form cable series has taken the TV form to a new level of artistry and craftsmanship. A show like Mad Men is not only thrilling because of its commentary on its era, but because of the zeitgeist energy created by everyone watching the show, talking about it and sharing opinions on social media. Today, perhaps more than ever, a new season of a quality show becomes a […]
by Mike S. Ryan on Jul 23, 2015 -
TIFF: Nathaniel Dorsky’s Song and Spring and Peter Hutton’s Three Landscapes
Through my late teens, my Sunday mass of choice was the 1pm. I was lucky to belong to Catholic parish that was built in the turn of the century; I loved the dark wood, red velvet, shadowy vibe and how it contrasted to the sunny bustle out on the street. Later in life, as I gained the courage to face reality without a dogmatic crutch, I still longed for that peaceful hour spent in quiet reflection in the middle of the day. At 1pm this Sunday, a TIFF 150-seat theater was filled with a festival audience that remained totally still […]
by Mike S. Ryan on Sep 11, 2013 -
TIFF 2013: Ben Rivers and Ben Russell’s A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness
One of the more anticipated films of a very strong Wavelengths section, Ben Rivers and Ben Russell’s A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness unspooled Saturday night to a packed house at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall. A true collaborative effort by two major filmmakers, the feature follows a black guitar player, Robert A.A. Lowe, from a northern Finland commune through a solitary journey across a lake into an isolated wilderness to the climactic scene on a stage in Estonia, where he performs with a black metal band. The film is less of a character study than it is the […]
by Mike S. Ryan on Sep 8, 2013 -
The Way It Is Now
For the past half-year or so, I have been in constant dialogue with the distribution and foreign sales companies who are releasing four of my recent productions. While engaging these companies, in conjunction with the four directors, I noticed some patterns emerging that are revealing of the current distribution landscape — patterns that differ dramatically from the old ways of theatrical and home video release. Rest assured, it’s not all bad news. It used to be that foreign pre-sales would help us get our dramas financed. Now we can barely find foreign sales agents for our American independent films, even […]
by Mike S. Ryan on Jul 18, 2013 -
Kiss of the Damned — A Hammer To Nail Review
(Kiss of the Damned world premiered at the 2012 Venice Film Festival. It becomes available on VOD on March 28, 2013, and opens theatrically on May 3rd. Visit the film’s page at Magnet Releasing to learn more. NOTE: This review was written in conjunction with the film’s North American premiere at the 2013 SXSW Film Festival.) One of the most accomplished and engaging North American premieres I saw at the 2013 SXSW Film Festival was a genre film, the first fiction feature by Xan Cassavetes. Xan is the daughter of cinema legends John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands. Her first film, Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession, was a documentary about […]
by Mike S. Ryan on Mar 28, 2013 -
Gun Hill Road — A Hammer to Nail
(Gun Hill Road world premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, which is when the original version of this review was first published at Hammer To Nail. It was picked up for distribution by Motion Film Group and opens theatrically in New York City on Friday, August 5, 2011, and Los Angeles on Friday, August 12th. Visit the film’s Facebook page and official website to learn more.) A late work by the Cuban director Tomas Gutierrez Alea called Strawberry And Chocolate is one of the few films I’ve ever seen to confront the strange relationship […]
by Mike S. Ryan on Aug 4, 2011
