"At the dawn of independent film, growing out of avant-garde culture, the movies reveled in their outsider status, portraying edgy misfits living on the cusps of society, in films like Stranger Than Paradise. Somewhere along the way, however, America’s self-styled outsider arts, the 'indie' movement in all its manifestations across film, music and fashion, not only made their peace with the capitalist hierarchy, but began to celebrate it. Across culture, the 'indie' world filed for emancipation from its downtrodden, protest-heavy forbears, and became something cloying, cutesy and simpering. Once upon a time, the sight of a man walking across the screen of an independent film in a $500 silk [...]

Sofia Coppola's latest film, Somewhere, "a story about an actor dealing with the emptiness of his life thanks to his child," which, LOL, arrives in December, in old-fashioned Oscar season, and mostly what I've heard about it is really positive! I think a lot depends upon your feelings about Stephen Dorff. My feelings about the Dorff are "absolutely." But there are other parties who are not as appreciative: "So Sofia Coppola has now, we can pray, completed her trilogy on the problems of rich people hanging around at luxury hotels with nothing to do (Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette, Somewhere). (Versailles is not technically a hotel, but [...]