Alert: Creative Filmaking is Good

It's that time--when your mind recedes into a pool of slack, stagnant, foul water, disturbed only by the most remote stimuli. The waters may ripple, but they quickly settle. It is choked with algae, over-fertilized by a summer of sunshine. Someone has poisoned the water. But who?

Them. The corporate evil. Those faceless elites, the money-toting goons who hold the strings and control the marionette that Hollywood has evolved into. Oh, they are evil. After the summer blockbusters begin to dwindle, it comes time to unload the nonsense, the multi-million dollar crap that fails to make even a ripple in the stagnated, algae-choked attention span--failures such as Feardotcom, The Country Bears, SwimFan, etc.? The very creation of such cinema is an embarrassment to capitalism. Surely, there is better competition, better intellectual input.

And there is. Away from the multiplex, the end of the summer is highlighted by true gems--independently released art films--that break up the typical corporate glum.

Films like the far-from-ordinary upper-class-woman-falling-for-fifteen-year-old-boy Tadpole, and the risque French flick (read: not the typical bland, censored American love story) Read My Lips. These arts films are without the over-budget carnage. Instead, they are the real stories of the fears and plights of the people they represent. The best of the lot, Sunshine State, highlights this rift between the faceless enemy and that of personal, individual dream and consequence. This is the story of the corporate takeover of a small, coastal Florida town and those who involuntarily fight the resort investment. A torrent of untold stories and unfinished endings, it examines the social rifts and racial divides that are perpetuated by corporate investment. This is the story of the invisible squelching of the small business man, the death of the black-owned-business? all done unconsciously by those who follow the American dream. Long and flowing, it encompasses a message few other films can boast. Perhaps Hollywood execs should see this film and embrace its simplicity.