Everybody knows the big Hollywood spiritual enlightenment movies scheduled to release this year. We all know what blockbusters will be lighting up the box office and hitting our theaters. However, all too often, some of the best movies of the years are the ones we never hear about. The ones that aren’t big Hollywood releases and don’t receive the publicity that your ‘Transformers’ or ‘X-Men’ receive. Thus, today I’d like to turn the attention to indie movies. Here is a list of 11 independent films that should be good and are worth watching out for in 2011.
Analysis: Kentis and Lau were the duo responsible for the 2004 sensation Open Water. In their follow-up film, Kentis and his wife Lau return to remake Gustavo Hernandez’s Uruguayan film by the same name. What’s impressive about this movie is that it is done in one long continuous shot. Now, a few movies have tried this before, but none really succeeded so well in presenting a good movie with it. For that reason, with the addition of tight spaces to film in, the original was quite the achievement in cinematography. The film itself was well-received by critics and said to be a fine addition to the horror genre.
So, that being said, we know the source material is good. We know the concept can be a good movie. Now let’s see what American filmmakers can do with it. I’m left somewhat skeptical due to the boring venture that was Open Water from Kentis and Lau. Not to mention, most of the time it turns to crap when foreign films get an American remake. However, that’s usually in reference to Hollywood remakes of foreign films, so it could be better with indies doing the remake. The material is there though and we could potentially have another Paranormal Activity on our hands, which I believe is a good thing. So I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out on this one.
