It’s a stunning lineup this week on the Way Too Indiecast as Loki himself, Tom Hiddleston, joins the show along with director Marc Abraham to talk about their new movie I Saw the Light, based on the final years of country music icon Hank Williams’ life. Mr. Hiddleston also talks about working with Elizabeth Olsen, learning to sing with country legends, and his take on irascible MCU fans.

Also joining the show is filmmaker Dennis Hauck, whose new film Too Late is in theaters now, exclusively screening in 35mm. The film stars John Hawkes as a private detective and is divided into five short stories, each consisting of one, uninterrupted shot. He talks about why the movie took years to make, his decision to only screen on 35mm, working with John Hawkes, and everything else you need to know about one of the most unique film releases of the year.

Topics

• Tom Hiddleston and Marc Abraham Talk I Saw the Light (5:36)
• Dennis Hauck Talks Too Late (43:03)

Articles Referenced

• I Saw the Light Interview
• Too Late Review

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Director Marc Abraham takes a unique approach to the musician biopic with I Saw the Light, a movie spanning the six music-filled, final years of Hank Williams’ life. Intertwining the country icon’s songs with his turbulent life experiences (revolving largely around his wife, Audrey, played by Elizabeth Olsen), the film focuses not on Williams’ artistry, but the events and environments the art was born out of. From his agonizing bout with spina bifida to his unfaithful marriage to his spiraling addiction to drugs and alcohol, Abraham covers the singer’s darkest days, which culminated with his death at the early age of 29 in 1953.

The film’s star is fan favorite Tom Hiddleston, who bears a striking resemblance to Williams and sings every note of the legendary songs we see onscreen. It’s a layered role with several shades of grey lurking beneath the surface, but the English actor came prepared, having spent long periods of time in Nashville with some of country music’s most respected artists, learning to sing in an accent far removed from his own. The work shows in his tortured performance, which is simultaneously tragic and celebratory of Williams’ spirit.

In San Francisco we spoke to Hiddleston and Abraham about I Saw the Light, which is in theaters now.

The opening shot really knocked me over.
Tom: What’s interesting about that shot is that we shot it very fast. Marc had actually given himself and me some time, generously, in the schedule. We had a very tight schedule. We shot 130 pages in 39 days. We had to move quickly. He had actually created a space in the schedule to make sure we had time to breathe so that we didn’t have to rush it. The opening is the first time that the audience will hear me sing, without musical accompaniment, and it’s a declaration of intent. Interestingly enough, after having created all that space and all that time, it didn’t take very long.

I think it was a brilliant and brave decision by Marc, and terrifying for me initially, to start the film with a very cinematic sequence that invites the audience to engage with the poetry of Hank Williams in a completely different way. They may come in expecting to hear “Hey Good Lookin’,” they may come in expecting to hear “Lovesick Blues.” They may come in expecting to see white fringe and cowboy hats and clichés of country music. What Marc did is, he said, “Here’s something else.”

Marc: As Tom said very eloquently, as he always does, it was a statement of intent. There are all these expectations, and a lot of people think they know Hank Williams’ music, but what they don’t understand is that he was one of the most important literary influences of the late 20th century because his poetry changed the way music was actually looked at. The lyrics were extraordinarily vulnerable for a man to be singing. “I’m so lonesome I could cry.” Men weren’t doing that. What I wanted to make sure was that people were hit smack-dab on the jaw with the beauty of his words. The way to do that, I thought, was to make it as unadorned as possible and create it out of space and out of time and, as Tom said, without horsecrap on the boots and the kind of hee-haw aspect people were kind of expecting.

The purpose of it was also to say, this is not an imitation of Hank Williams. This is not us trying to mimic him. This is our version, a portrait of a very important artist, a young man. We had the benefit of one of the world’s great cinematographers, Dante Spinotti. We shot it on a stage and we had painted a giant black circle and hung black all around it with a ton of smoke. We put a stool in the middle of it and asked Mr. Hiddleston to come on out. He came on out, he sat on that stool, we floated those cameras, and Tom, as Hank, was about as naked as you can be. We wanted to let people know right off, this is how naked we’re prepared to go, this is how it’s going to sound, this is who this man is, and he’s doing his own singing.

The movie’s not about Hank writing songs. The songs are almost like punctuation. I think that’s an interesting approach.
Marc: I love that you say that. I have never cared for watching movies where artists are doing their painting or typing at the typewriter and tearing the [paper] out, other than maybe The Shining. That’s not something that I even know how to do. Nor was I interested in any of the psychological explanations for why Hank Williams became Hank Williams. He was a poor kid from Alabama. Why he became who he was and how he had that inside of him…you could get Sigmund Freud, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard…they could all spend time trying to figure it out. I doubt anybody could answer that question. What we wanted to do was show an artist as a young man. Not the roots of his psychoanalysis but the cultural environment and personal environment, which is where the fertilizer was.

That’s, in fact, how Tom and I ended up working together. People think he probably played the guitar for me and I sat back, scratching my jaw, and thought, “Well, can he be Hank Williams?” You know how we did it? We talked about what movie we wanted to make. He and I, who had gotten to know each other over a very lengthy period of time; what did we actually want to do?

Tom: Marc drew together the music with the marriage and the man. The placement of the music…What I’d hoped people would see was that these songs came out of his experiences. That’s the other thing: These songs and this film are about a man who loved women. Every song you could listen to that Hank wrote is about women. It’s about falling out of love, being in the doghouse, loneliness, separation from women.

“Why don’t you love me like you used to do/why can’t I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart.”

“You’re cheatin’ heart will make you weep/you’ll cry and cry and try to sleep.”

“You’re my gal and I’m your fella/you dress up in your frock of yella/you’ll look swell and I’ll look swell/setting the woods on fire.”

This is a guy with a huge love of women. His whole career was about flirtation and sexuality. I think what was so brilliant about Marc’s script is that he really drew that together, the songs and Hank’s relationship with women. It’s very telling that the majority of characters in the film, apart from Hank Williams, are women. And they’re played by women: Elizabeth Olsen, Cherry Jones, Maddie Hasson, Wrenn Schmidt. Those were the major figures in his life. That was the fascinating central thesis of the screenplay. The way the songs

The way the songs were dispersed, as you say, was like punctuation and expressive of other things in Hank’s life. I suppose the best example of that is at the end of the end of the film when I sing “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” He’s not long for this world at that point. Is he singing to himself? I think so. Probably. I think he’s singing about regret. But he could also be singing to Audrey.

So…I’m kind of a failed country musician. [laughs]
Tom: [laughs] That was the last thing I expected to come out of your mouth.

It’s true! I tried to play country music for years, but I’m from [California] and I don’t have the accent to sing that kind of music.
Tom: I don’t either!

But you have license to adopt it because you’re an actor. That’s an incredible opportunity. I’m so jealous. In your research, you got to spend time with Rodney Crowell! That’s amazing!
Tom: Yeah, it’s amazing. And not just Rodney, but everybody he knows, everyone who was open to working with me. The generosity of spirit shown to me by the musicians I met in Nashville is something I’ll never forget. Within three days, I was in Ray Kennedy’s studio, recording music on the same equipment Hank recorded on, standing around a single microphone with Richard Bennett, Chris Scruggs, Rodney Crowell, Wes Langlois…These guys have been making this music for years, and they were just jamming. To sing my first cover of “Lovesick Blues” with them and the band is an insane privilege. You’re absolutely right: a gift.

When some people try to sing country, it sounds fake. I should know. [laughs] It’s almost like a caricature. You really have to connect with the lyric. You can tell that you get the emotion behind Hank’s lyrics.
Tom: That all came from Rodney, in a way. I didn’t know where to start. He said, “You have to find out what these songs mean to you. There’s no way you’re going to transmit the power of these songs if you don’t invest yourself inside them.” It’s got to be real. I love the challenge of that; it is an acting challenge. It’s a challenge of interpretation. Whenever you take on a big acting role, you’re interpreting that character’s emotional truth and filling it with your own. The same is true of these songs. When I was singing “Move It On Over,” that’s my mischief, my rebellion. When I’m singing “Cold, Cold Heart,” that’s my sadness. It’s filtered through the prism of Hank, but really, it’s me. Has to be.

There’s something special about Elizabeth that I can’t put my finger on. What is it?
Marc: She has a bearing beyond her years. She’s 26 years old or something, but she has a weight to her that’s undeniable. That’s something that’s genetically inside her. I personally feel that the thing she brings to Audrey that is just so essential is that she’s a keenly intelligent woman who doesn’t really suffer fools or foolishness much. Because of that, she invested Audrey with a sense of intelligence. She took a character who is easily dismissed as being a shrew, a bitch, a difficult person, Yoko breaking up the Beatles…because of her bearing of intelligence, when she performs and you see her with Hank, you come away with, “You know what? You think I’m an asshole? You think I’m a bitch? You try living with this guy.”

Tom: She’s very honest. I suppose it’s best illustrated by describing the opposite. I’ve worked opposite actors who are immaculate in delivering what they’ve prepared, and sometimes they don’t have the life experience to represent the particular emotional truth. So they reach for an idea of what they think that is. Lizzy is incapable of falsity in her acting. She has extraordinary integrity. The choices she makes are very instinctive. When you’re acting opposite Lizzy, you’re acting opposite a real person. The magic of the scene comes from the rally you play with each other. That’s when acting’s fun, to be honest. When you’re doing preparation, that’s a solitary activity. When you’re reading a script, that’s a solitary activity. There’s so much about acting that is, necessarily, a solitary activity. But when you’re on set with your scene partner, the beauty of it is that you take the leap together. You don’t really know where the scene is going to go, and if you’re working with someone really good, as she is, what you have to do is listen.

This is kind of an impossible question, but I’m going to ask you both anyway. You’ve spent so much time getting to know Hank Williams and the man he was. In your opinion, what was his greatest fear?
Marc: This is not to diminish the question, but there is no possible way I can give you a sense of what his greatest fear was. I can tell you that he was incredibly vulnerable. What he wrote was undeniably vulnerable. That’s what he was telling us. I know those are feelings that he must have had. I have no idea what his greatest fear was. You could surmise that one of the things that he most wished had happened in his life was that he had a daddy.

Tom: I can tell you a number of things I don’t think he feared. He didn’t fear death. I don’t think he feared any one person…he wasn’t afraid of people. Maybe his greatest fear was of losing himself, somehow diverting from his own integrity. That there were people who would try to reshape him or change who he was, smooth out his rough edges so that he would stop being him.

Tom, you’re so generous with your fans, me included. We see stuff about you on the Internet and it just makes our day. It makes us smile.
Tom: Thanks, buddy.

It’s great! Thank you. We appreciate it.
Tom: I love what I do. I really love it. And I wouldn’t get to do that without an audience to watch it. There is no such thing as acting in a vacuum. I started in the theater, and I learned that the audience is an integral part of the conversation. I came from the audience. When I became an actor, I just wanted to become a part of the conversation in the way actors I admire contributed to it. Bruce Springsteen said that his life’s work is a conversation. I’m flattered that if I have any fans, they follow my curiosity into wherever my work takes me. I don’t take that for granted. There are people who are willing to pay money to see my work. I wouldn’t be allowed to do what I do without that, so I have enormous gratitude. It’s still a source of constant surprise and delight that I have fans at all.

Some fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are so starved for advance information about the stories you’re telling with those movies.
Tom: I am still so surprised and grateful that I’m allowed to make a living doing what I do. I have loved cinema and theater for as long as I can remember for in all its variety and diversity. The idea that I get to be a part of it is extraordinary to me. But even as much as I’ve loved it, I love to be surprised by it. I don’t want to know too much about a film before I watch it. I might see a trailer, but I don’t want to see articles about it, I don’t want to read reviews about it, I don’t want to know what happens to the main character. I don’t want spoilers. I want to be surprised.

I just worked with Bill Corso, who was the makeup head on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. We were working together for three months. He had so many stories he could have told me. But in the makeup bus it was banned. We just didn’t go there. I didn’t want to know what happened to Han Solo. If I had found out, I would have strangled him! He’s Harrison Ford’s makeup artist and he could have told me that in a second, but he was so respectful.

Listen, this is really getting to the heart of the matter. You’re sitting in the theater and you hear the opening fanfare. Maybe it’s the letters of Universal spinning around a globe, maybe it’s 20th Century Fox. It’s the flickering Marvel logo, the Lucasfilm thing. A drama teacher told me this once when I was training: The audience’s capacity for delight at that moment when the lights dim and the music starts is at one hundred percent. There’s an absolutely palpable electricity in the air. If you know what’s going to happen [in the movie beforehand], it’s all over! All I’m trying to do is keep the magic of that expectation alive. I understand the enthusiasm, I understand the curiosity. Unfortunately, my mother and father raised me with some self-discipline, so you won’t get those secrets out of me!

Three years ago, Joss Whedon was given an awesome set of toys to play with: a bounding, hulking man-beast; a crimson-haired femme fatale; a hammer-wielding Norse god; a deadly archer super-spy; a ballistic man made of iron; a patriotic super soldier; Samuel L. Jackson with an eyepatch. He had a big sandbox to play in, too; 2012’s The Avengers ran a whopping 2 hours and 20 minutes, giving him plenty of room to smash his new toys together, give them quippy things to say and conjure up some villains (alien invaders and a smirking, meddling trickster) for them to save the world from. It was big, it was loud, it was a hell of a lot of fun, and all us kids standing around the sandbox showered him with applause once the dust settled and the show was over. Then, he called it a day, putting his action figures away until his next grand production of geek theater.

That brings us to The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Whedon‘s hotly anticipated encore performance. The super-sequel has got everything you’d expect: insane action scenes, clever one-liners, high-stakes drama and geeky easter eggs galore. It’s exciting to have Whedon return to the MCU playground, but there’s a problem: he’s got about twice as many toys as he did last time. Suddenly, the sandbox seems a bit crowded. With four major storylines going on simultaneously and a staggering number of superheroes and villains to keep track of, Marvel Studios’ latest summer blockbuster feels stretched too thin.

On the other hand, it never feels jumbled or messy; Whedon is a seasoned storyteller, and he somehow manages to make this tightly packed mega movie feel pretty well-organized, streamlined and easy to follow. He never loses command of his band of heroes, but what he’s lacking is prioritization. Each of the nine (!) primary characters is given a rich backstory and emotional arc to explore, which sounds cool until you realize that, due to time constraints, they have a mere handful of scenes to get the job done. As a result, the storylines feel abbreviated across the board.

It’s unfortunate, because there’s some really interesting stuff going on here that could have used more time. Robert Downey Jr.‘s Tony Stark sets up the main conflict early on, strutting unknowingly into a world of tech trouble when he and The Hulk himself, Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), inadvertently birth Ultron (the villain of the film’s subtitle, voiced by James Spader), a sentient A.I. designed to protect the world, but who instead decides to purge it of the “poison” that is humankind. What hath Stark wrought? A.I. panic is fascinating, relevant subject matter that Whedon unfortunately has precious little time to explore (look to Alex Garland’s recent Ex Machina for deeper insight).

Where Whedon excels is at building his characters in quick strokes with tasty details that stick to the back of your brain like bits of candy. It’s amusing, for example, when you realize that Ultron has somehow inherited Stark’s glib, quick-fire sense of humor: When a group of scientists run away from him screaming after he brutally murders several of their colleagues, he sarcastically pleads, “Wait! Guys?!” as if he’d made an innocuous party foul. The tyrannical robot is clearly his father’s son, and yet throws a fit at the slightest notion that he’s anything like his genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist daddy. Whedon’s always been great at giving his villains a human dimension (Buffy fans holler), and Ultron is no exception.

Iron Man’s robo-baby issues aside, the relationships between he and the rest of the Avengers are deepened and expanded. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Dr. Banner explore further the flirtation teased in the first film, providing an unexpected taste of romance. Captain America (Chris Evans) takes issue with Stark’s reckless exploitation of technology (setting the foundation for the impending Civil War), and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) does some extraneous soul-searching that’s mostly there to set up his next solo movie. Franchise newcomers Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson join the fray as Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, a pair of “enhanced” twins who carry a deep-seated vendetta against Tony Stark.

Surprisingly, the film’s most poignant presence is that of Jeremy Renner‘s Hawkeye, who’s been significantly upgraded from his second-tier role in the first movie. We get to see a bit of his refreshingly ordinary home life; his wife is played by Linda Cardellini, who gives a terrific, grounded performance that comes completely out of left field. Through Hawkeye, who’s essentially a man amongst gods, Whedon defines both the story’s stakes and what being an Avenger truly means.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the thing most ticket-buyers will be paying to see: the action. The sweet, sweet, fist-pumping, “I can’t believe I’m seeing this” action. The movie opens with a snowy raid on a Hydra fortress in the fictitious Eastern European country of Sokovia. There’s a slo-mo shot (featured prominently in the trailers) of all six heroes charging through hoards of Hydra henchman phalanx-style, each Avenger locked in the most badass action pose you’ve ever seen. It’s ridiculously cool. On the other end of the film, we see Iron Man, Thor, and their new buddy, a monk-like floating android called Vision (Paul Bettany), attacking Ultron with laser beams and lightning bolts in unison. Again, ridiculously cool!

Moments like these are so slathered in comic-book awesomesauce my inner geek spontaneously combusted with excitement. Yes, the action can be a bit hollow and flashy, like watching the Harlem Globetrotters light up the court. But you know what? I love the freaking Harlem Globetrotters! (Especially when they were on Gilligan’s Island!) If I’m being honest, I could watch Iron Man pile-drive The Hulk through a skyscraper over and over without a word of complaint.

Avengers: Age of Ultron has no obligation to be the be-all-end-all epic most people want it to be. In reality, it’s nothing more than the action-packed culmination of three years-worth of superhero solo movies, and that’s fine by me. I did have problems with how evenly the narrative focus was spread across the main characters (I’d have much preferred Thor’s lame side story be cut in favor of more “Hawkeye at home” time), and I do feel like the existential quandary embodied by Ultron could have been fleshed out more.

But then I think about a fantastic party scene early in the movie in which the gang make a fun wager to see who can lift Thor’s precious Asgardian hammer, Mjolnir. Cap gives it a wiggle; a look of panic flashes across Thor’s face. The friends exchange Whedon-esque banter, sip some bubbly, talk a little trash and share some laughs as they use their incredible powers for cheap entertainment. It’s lighthearted, juvenile fun. Can’t be mad at that.

A well iced cake can look quite pretty, but if it’s undercooked it won’t taste very good. Naomi Foner’s directorial debut Very Good Girls has some delicious icing, including excellent performances from Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen, and plenty of trimming in the way of Demi Moore, Richard Dreyfus, Peter Sarsgaard, Clark Gregg, and Boyd Holbrook, but its under-developed plot and overly sentimental premise leave it ooey and gooey in the middle with not even a sugar rush to make up for its failings.

First premiering last year at Sundance, Very Good Girls is marketing itself as a virginity pact movie, but that’s not quite accurate. Other than a brief conversation held between best friends Gerry (Elizabeth Olsen) and Lilly (Dakota Fanning) at the beginning of the movie, where they discuss first Lilly catching her father cheating on her mother and then the strange notion of parents having sex in general before moving on to their own unappreciated virginity, there is no real plot to become de-virginized. The film is a friendship story, focusing on the strange purgatory that is the summer between high school and college. As if dealing with their various family issues, creepy bosses, and annoying siblings aren’t enough to keep them occupied the girls’ friendship is tested most when they meet David (Boyd Holbrook), a sexy ice-cream vendor at the beach who likes taking pictures. They both take an interest in him, but Gerry, being the more vocal of the two, marks her territory by constantly discussing her interest in him and by pseudo-stalking where he works. Of course, as these things are apt to go, David was much more interested in the darker, quieter, Lilly and seeks her out.

The unfortunate part of love-triangle stories is ensuring that each thread of the entangled relationships is given enough depth. Very Good Girls has an obvious loose thread. David’s pursuit of Lilly and the ease in which she slips into a secret relationship with him is mostly non-sensical. Considering at her day job she has a boss (Peter Sarsgaard) who is consistently hitting on her, you’d think she’d execute a bit more caution when another almost-stranger exhibits what so obviously seem to be shallow motivations for pursuing her. But the film doesn’t claim to be the great love story of the century, so it’s slightly excusable. Tensions build as expected as the repercussions of forbidden romance ensue.

Elizabeth Olsen makes the most of her artistic-minded, self-centered character, but seems a bit too much like an archetype: girls who can attract men, but not obtain them. Equally archetypical is Dakota Fanning’s Lilly, who does her best to get away with wide-eyed staring equaling out to implied depth and understanding, when really she’s just a shy, white-collared girl with some pent-up daddy issues. And winning Most Abused Stereotype is artist David with his sullen ways, who speaks of some day visiting Paris and even reads Sylvia Plath to Lilly before first kissing her.

The film wastes talent in abundance. Even the film’s music, done by Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis, seems to be trying too hard as we hear her familiar voice in almost every scene. There are some questionable wardrobe choices as well, as though the costumer didn’t think we’d understand the essence of the characters with simple words and actions, they needed to be outlandish in their outfits. If they’d been thrown into a film set in the 60s, maybe the completely illogical actions of the characters would make more sense. Unlikely and ill-advised romance, childish secrets and silly pining away for a boy without much to offer — it’s all just so incredibly un-modern.

The locations and lighting of the film do give off a definite summery vibe, and younger female audiences are likely to be drawn to the film’s stars and suggested plot, but like I said, no matter how you cut it, this cake ain’t cooked.

The film is now available on VOD on iTunes and Google Play.

Émile Zola’s definitive novel Thérèse Raquin has been translated to screen and stage too many times to count. Perhaps because it’s the definitive tale of forbidden lust gone way, way wrong. Though nobody recently has done as straightforward a rendition as first time feature filmmaker Charlie Stratton attempts with In Secret. Using an overqualified cast, he attempts to breathe new life to this gritty tale of the Parisian lower class in the late 19^th century, but not even his actors can make up for what is essentially a staging of life’s worst case scenarios played out by beautiful people.

Émile Zola is considered one of the authoritative writers in the literary realm of naturalism, the focus of which is natural behavior and speech and which goes against any kind of romanticism. In Secret is certainly at times murky, even vulgar with it’s scenery of low-class life in 19^th century Paris, but it seems to be trying so hard to be “natural” that it ends up being incredibly depressing. Each scene building on the next as a study in “what else can go wrong?”

Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene, Silent House) plays Thérèse Raquin, an orphaned girl left by her father to be brought up by her aunt Madame Raquin, played by the ever-fantastic Jessica Lange. Madame Raquin lives in the French countryside with her sickly son Camille (Tom Felton of Harry Potter fame) and when they are of age, Thérèse finds herself engaged and then quickly married to her childhood friend without much say in the matter. Camille decides he wants to pursue a job in Paris and moves his family to the city where his mother opens a dress shop. Thérèse is confined to a loveless life of dull monotony until Camille brings home a friend from work that he also knew from childhood, Laurent (Inside Llewyn Davis’s Oscar Isaac).

Never was there a brooding artistic Parisian who couldn’t sweep a sexually deprived orphan off her feet. Before rhyme or reason could ever put in a word, they’ve delved into an illicit love affair and are soon plotting the only foreseeable way to be with one another: Camille’s untimely demise. Of course, as a naturalistic tale, they couldn’t possibly find happiness in their actions and the act that soon frees them to love one another starts to wilt their obsessive love.

Elizabeth Olsen is well cast, and even pulls off a convincing British accent (forgetting of course that the story takes place in Paris). Her bright eyes and rounded mouth make her almost too romantic for what Zola undoubtedly meant to be a realistic sort of woman. She is always engaging to watch, however, and her descent into love-induced madness is well performed. Naturally, there aren’t many who could outshine Jessica Lange. Her take on the selfish and pampering Madame Raquin, especially as she grieves for her perfect son and then befalls an even greater personal tragedy, is pure Oscar material and reminded me greatly of her multi-dimensional role in American Horror Story: Asylum. It seems tragic that the dark nature of In Secret means her performance will likely be overlooked.

Oscar Isaac is wasted on Laurent and Tom Felton is a little too well cast for the gaunt and putrid looking Camille. The entire cast is what will undoubtedly drive many people to the theaters to see In Secret, and they are indeed performing at their best. It’s Charlie Stratton, who both wrote and directed the film, who couldn’t take an old and joyless fiction and  try to do what Zola never seemed able to accomplish, bring a sense of relatable naturalism. Instead he plays up a gruesome reality, including some terrifying and out-of-place-feeling scenes that would have been better suited for a horror film.

Credit needing to be given where due, the costume design of the film, expertly crafted by French designer Pierre Yves Gayraud, is captivating to look at. And Uli Hanisch, the production designer, deserves accolade for capturing some definite 19^th century Parisian grit, especially involving a particularly morbid morgue and street scenes including butchers and whores.

In the end, strong performances and beautiful imagery just can’t hold together what is essentially a bleak tale of two lovers seemingly determined not to allow themselves to be happy. While scandalous in its day, Thérèse’s tale is woefully lacking in a new approach and thus in any real appeal with modern audiences.

Based on true events that took place in and around Colombia University in 1944, director John Krokidas‘ impressive debut feature, Kill Your Darlings, is a dark, moody tale of obsession, betrayal, and murder involving a handful of young men, unruly intellectuals who poison as much as they inspire and arouse each other. These young men just happen to be Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Lucien Carr (and others), the cornerstone figures of the eminently influential Beat Generation, but Krokidas’ film wisely doesn’t check your knowledge of their later accomplishments at the door.

It’s a self-contained origin story of the beloved literary and counterculture icons that’s friendly to the unfamiliar as it cuts off just before our anti-heroes go off to become famous writers. The movie’s focus begins to blur eventually when it starts playing it too loose for its own good, but it’s intoxicating throughout and harbors a murderer’s row of thriving young actors who deliver solid performances.

Daniel Radcliffe (The Boy Who Lived!) leads the ensemble as Ginsberg, a brilliant, sheepish 17-year-old freshman at Colombia who becomes enamored with Carr (Dane DeHaan, ridiculously good), an androgynous, boisterous rebel with a magnetic aura and an affinity for reciting Henry Miller on top of tables in the campus library. Carr ushers the Ginsberg into a hazy world of heavy drugs, heavy drinking, and heavy ideas, ideas that renounce societal, sexual, religious, and artistic norms. Through Carr, Ginsberg meets the kooky, likable Burroughs (Ben Foster, who’s great as usual, though he lets his younger cast-mates shine), the hard-headed (one-dimensionally written) Kerouac (Jack Huston), and David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall), a spiteful, damaged soul.

The drugged-out thinkers massage each others’ genius (it’s almost as sexual as it sounds), ruminating through the night and brainstorming ways to upheave the system and shake up the social consciousness. Kamerer is the bitter outlier of the group–he and Carr have a dark, nebulous history that eventually turns murderous–Kill Your Darlings begins at the end, opening with Carr holding Kammerer’s dead body in the Hudson River.

There isn’t a bad word to say about the performances the actors turn in. Not a thing. But still, there isn’t a grand, towering performance turned in either, though DeHaan comes close with his assured, seductive take on Carr, by far the most interesting of the lot (even the other characters are drawn to him like flies to a light). Radcliffe balances the wide-eyed naiveté and big brains of the young Ginsberg well, and he disappears into the role with ease (surprisingly, “Harry” didn’t pop into my head even once). The chemistry between Radcliffe and DeHaan sizzles, which is good, since their relationship bears the heft of the drama. The supporters–Elizabeth Olsen, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kyra Sedgwick, David Cross–are superb and make the few moments they have on camera count.

As the story–written by Krokidas and Austin Bunn–unfolds and Ginsberg follows Carr deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole, things get a little sketchy. Krokidas gets funky with his camerawork, which helps communicate the groups’ druggy state, but often results in shots that seem superficial and superfluous in relation to the narrative. One scene in particular–a happy-gas-induced dream sequence in a jazz club–feels awfully showboat-y, though it’s got a ton of style, just like the rest of the film, which is worth noting. The rich, moody atmosphere Krokidas and DP Reed Morano create is striking, with deep shadows and dusty light framing the characters as they scheme and philosophize around in and around the university in the dead of night. There’s a chilling, shadowy, nocturnal feel to the sets and locations that makes the film feel like it’s been dipped in a bucket of film noir (a good thing).

One of the film’s glaring blemishes is a writing conundrum that Krokidas and Bunn couldn’t seem to work around. From the outset, it’s clear that Ginsberg is meant to be our eyes and ears, our vessel into Krokidas’ smoky 1940’s world of knit sweaters and boozy excess. With this in mind, the scenes between Carr and Kammerer feel oddly ancillary, as Ginsberg wasn’t involved with these meetings at all. It’s a bit off-putting, though Krokidas’ narrative is obviously trapped by the reality of the events, so it’s hard to think of how he could have worked around it.

As an introduction to the Beats (which it will likely be to many), Kill Your Darlings is a success–despite its flaws, it successfully dramatizes some of the most canonized figures in modern literature without relying on their reputation (no easy feat), making them cool, young, and edgy again. It’ll likely inspire many a youth to pick up a book by one of the Beats or perhaps put pen to paper themselves, which is a triumph.

Kill Your Darlings trailer:

The highly anticipated American remake of Park Chan-wook’s Korean cult classic, Oldboy, finally has a trailer for your viewing pleasure. While many diehard fans of the original are clamoring that a remake is completely unnecessary, others are glad that the film (both versions) will reach a new audience. Time will tell if Spike Lee’s version with Josh Brolin as the lead and co-stars Samuel L. Jackson, Elizabeth Olsen, and Sharlto Copley will meet everyone’s expectations are not. The trailer confirms that the violent hammer scene from the original is still intact, though the scene involving the live octopus is anyone’s guess at this point.

Watch the official trailer for Oldboy (2013):

Writer/actress Zoe Kazan stars in Ruby Sparks as the title character that is created out of Calvin’s (Paul Dano) mind as he is writing his latest novel. In addition to Kazan, Way Too Indie outlines our other favorite “Indie Film Pin-Up Girls” that include; Brit Marling, Zooey Deschanel, Elizabeth Olsen, Miranda July and more.

Brit Marling

Unofficially dubbed the Sundance Darling a couple years back, this blonde-haired beauty has written and starred in two sci-fi-esque Fox Searchlight films: Sound of My Voice and Another Earth. In the latter, she stars as Rhoda Williams, a young girl whose entire life is thrown for a loop when she crosses paths with a composer in a tragic accident. In Sound of My Voice, she portrays the mysterious Maggie, a cult leader who claims to be from the future. Now, she’s working on her latest outing with Voice director Zal Batmanglij, The East, which stars Marling alongside Ellen Page, Alexander Skarsgard and Patricia Clarkson.

Every life is death, and most deaths are suicides. Some are just more gradual than others. — Maggie

Miranda July

If Brit Marling is to indie than Miranda July would be to arthouse. She portrays herself (as she stars/directs/writes) in her directorial debut masterpiece Me and You and Everyone We Know; a quirky but creative artist who often struggles to fit in. July’s second film The Future is another prime example of her adorable yet slightly flawed character.

If you really love me, let’s make a vow – right here, together… right now. — Christine

Zooey Deschanel

It is impossible to have a indie pin-up girl feature without including everyone’s favorite, Zooey Deschanel. Zooey turned heads when she starred in the hit romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer alongside Joseph Gordon–Levitt as Summer, a girl not sold on true love. The bright-eyed comic talent is now starring in the popular sitcom New Girl on Fox as another quirky and offbeat chick with a sense of humor trying to figure out life in her early thirties.

You weren’t wrong, Tom. You were just wrong about me. — Summer

Elizabeth Olsen

The other Olsen sister has been busy making a name for herself with smaller, critically acclaimed films, like the tense and dramatic Martha Marcy May Marlene. In the film, Olsen plays Martha, a traumatized ex-member of an abusive cult trying to separate her past’s memories from her current day-to-day. Olsen has several films in the works including Theresa Raquin and Very Good Girls.

I am a teacher and a leader. — Martha

Parker Posey

Deemed the “Queen of Indies” in the 90’s by none other than ‘Time’ magazine, Parker Posey certainly deserves to be mentioned on this list. Even though she has been doing independent films for a while now, she still is as busy as ever appearing on TV Shows (recently on New Girl with Zooey Deschanel) as well as several films.

I watch soap operas. I bake brownies. Normalcy is coursing through my veins. — Jackie-O

Jessica Chastain

2011 was the year of Jessica Chastain as she starred in seven films, including The Help, The Debt and The Tree of Life. In The Tree of Life, Chastain stars opposite Brad Pitt as Mrs. O’Brien the matriarch of a family in Texas in 1956. Told through the eyes of her eldest son, Jack, the story revolves around the family’s struggles and hardships that leave lasting impressions on their children. Chastain has not slowed down since last year and can be seen in next year’s Mama and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby.

Grace doesn’t try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries. — Mrs. O’Brien

Zoe Kazan

The granddaughter of famed filmmaker Elia Kazan, Zoe Kazan had movie making in her blood at a young age. After acting in several movies like It’s Complicated and Happythankyoumoreplease, Kazan wrote her first feature film this year with Ruby Sparks. Kazan also stars as the title character in the movie that tells the story of famed writer Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano) as he creates the love of his life on paper, and she miraculously comes appears in his apartment. Kazan has several films in the works that she stars in, including the newest from Joss Whedon – In Your Eyes.

Just don’t tell me how it ends, okay? — Ruby

Debuting on Blu-ray and DVD Oct. 30
From the directors of Little Miss Sunshine comes a “charming and delightful” (Marshall Fine,Huffingtonpost.com) romantic comedy starring Paul Dano and writer-actress Zoe Kazan. Struggling with writer’s block and a lackluster love life, once-famous novelist Calvin (Dano) creates a beautiful fictitious character named Ruby (Kazan) who inspires him. But not only does this bring his work to life- it also brings Ruby to life- literally! Face-to-face with an actual relationship with his once virtual girlfriend, Calvin must now decide whether to pen this love story or let it write itself. Also starring Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas and Elliott Gould, Ruby Sparks is a smart coming-of-age story that proves true love can be remarkably magical.

The opening of Red Lights immediately sets it apart from the usual crop of horror films and thrillers that get dumped out into multiplexes almost every week. Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and her assistant Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy) drive out to a haunted house in Vermont. Matheson is a psychologist specializing in the paranormal who, with Tom, go around the country debunking people’s claims of “supernatural events.” After an eerie séance at the house in Vermont, Matheson quickly figures out the real cause of the haunting and then heads back to her teaching job in Ohio.

It’s these kinds of sequences that make the first hour of Red Lights a compelling and original take on supernatural thrillers. Matheson, Buckley and one of their students (Elizabeth Olsen) go around disproving the existence of spirits and expose psychics as frauds. Not too long after one of their biggest busts, news gets out that Simon Silver (Robert De Niro) is coming out of retirement. Silver, a blind medium who has never been debunked, is so good at what he does that Matheson won’t go near him. “He’s dangerous,” she tells Buckley, who’s enraged at her for not wanting to pursue Silver. Tom tries to work on exposing Silver behind Matheson’s back, and then all hell breaks loose.

It’s at this point that Red Lights veers off course straight into a ditch (more sensitive readers be warned: minor spoilers follow). Weaver, who shows how woefully underused she’s been over the years, is suddenly taken out of the picture. Suddenly Murphy becomes the focus as he encounters more and more strange phenomena while looking for evidence of Silver deceiving the public. Rodrigo Cortés is able to keep things compelling as he introduces more mysterious elements into the story, but once he shows his hand everything falls apart. Ludicrous events pile on top of each other, leading to a climax that makes one wish for the fun low-key first half of the film to return.

That feeling doesn’t end up returning though as Cortés decides to double down on the stupidity. Almost every review or comment about Red Lights eventually brings up its ending. Cortés tries to go for a big “A-ha!” moment and falls flat on his face. The final twist goes for a more profound conclusion, but its execution is jarring with the sensational events that came before it. It’s undeniable that Red Lights has plenty going for it with its strong cast and excellent first half, but Cortés comes dangerously close to tanking the whole thing by the end. Red Lights remains interesting throughout, but by the end it’s appealing in the same way a train wreck is.

Martha Marcy May Marlene is a haunting psychological thriller from first time filmmaker Sean Durkin, about a young woman trying to recover from her years of being part of a cult. Escaping her past is nearly impossible for her to do as one cannot simply forget about the things she was put through. The film benefited from two exceptional performances from Elizabeth Olsen and John Hawkes. It is a film that might actually be better on the second viewing.

The film opens with Marcy May sneaking out of the farm house where the people in the cult eat, sleep and work together. She tries to do so without waking up the others but she is unsuccessful. With the entire house now chasing after her she dashes across the road into the woods, there is able to hide from everyone. She escapes to a nearby town where she is able to call her sister for help.

Marcy May is not her real name, it is the name given to her by the cult leader Patrick (John Hawkes). Her real name is Martha (Elizabeth Olsen), who at first believed that the group was more like a family that aspired to be self-sufficient on the farm. It took her nearly two years before she realized that she was a part of a cult.

You can tell that Martha is having a tough time adjusting to regular society at her sister’s vacation home. She does not think to put on a bathing suit when going swimming. She puts her feet up on tables and bluntly asks her sister if it is true that married people do not have sex. The group really did a number on her mentally and physically making it hard for her to be normal again.

Martha Marcy May Marlene does a fantastic job using transitions to go between present times to flashbacks of her past. While staying at her sister’s she is often reminded of her haunted past. When going out for a swim in the lake we are seamlessly taken back to when she went swimming together with the cult members. That helps illustrate how Martha has a hard time distinguishing the past from the present. The fact that she did not really know where she was at nor for how long she was a part of the cult did not help her situation.

The biggest problem Martha has is her dependence of the people around her. This likely steamed from both of her parents dying thus she never really had proper parenting. She treated the cult like it was her family which is exactly what the cult wanted. It was incredibly easy for the cult to brainwash her into thinking what is right and wrong.

Elizabeth Olsen, sister to the famous Olsen twins, absolutely nails her first major role on the big screen. Her role demanded such a high level of emotion intensity that is normally reserved for only well-seasoned actresses. You may be able to debate other aspects of the film but her performance should be left out of any controversies.

Martha Marcy May Marlene reminded me of the last film I watched, Take Shelter, in that the building up of the suspense was the best asset. So much so that it makes the conclusion feel like it missed just a little bit. My favorite endings are ones that are ambiguous, like they both were. However, I felt like both films had opportunities to go a little further than they did.

Oddly enough, the comparisons between this and Take Shelter do not end there. In fact, the main characters in both are psychologically ill and are both extremely paranoid. The pair would make a great double feature, you could call it “Paranoia Plentiful”.

You would not ever assume while watching Martha Marcy May Marlene that both the director and lead actress were making their debuts, which is pretty impressive on both accounts. There is plenty of interpretation to be done as the director leaves enough unanswered questions to make you come up with your own conclusion.