Rewarded At Last

It's true enough that the independent film as we know it owes much of the recognition it receives today to the Weinstein brothers, Harvey and Bob, and the studio they founded, Miramax, but this is far from the only studio that has produced some truly quality independent movies in the last fifteen years or so.

My personal favorite purveyor of indie films happens to be Fox Searchlight Pictures. Sure, like many fans aggrieved by his decisions with respect to Marvel Comics movies I may think Tom Rothman is the devil's spawn, but Fox Searchlight is a different animal from 20th Century Fox and they've come up with some really memorable films. For those unfamiliar with their films, it will be my pleasure to list my favorites:

The Full Monty (1997) is, as far as I know, the film that put the then-fledgling indie film distributor on the map. Directed by Peter Cattaneo and written by Simon Beaufoy, the film tells the (apparently true) story of several blue collar workers in England who, upon being retrenched, decide upon a rather unorthodox way of making money for their families, i.e. by doing a male striptease act a la Chippendales. It's British humor at its very finest, and even the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences was captivated; the film received four Academy Award nominations including nods for Best Picture and Best Director.

Waking Ned Devine (1999) set in a tiny Irish village, is another absolute gem of a film about a man who dies of a heart attack upon learning that he has won the lottery, and, more imporantly about the village's collective effort to cover up his death so that they can collect the prize and split it amongst themselves. I think I may have burst blood vessels laughing at how funny that movie was.

Sideways (2004) is set on the other side of the pond for a change; specifically, California, where depressed middle-school teacher Miles (a wonderful Paul Giamatti) accompanies his friend, over-the-hill actor Jack (the hilariously authentic Thomas Haden Church) on one last weekend of fun in California wine country before Jack gets married to his longtime girlfriend. The film alternates between haunting poignancy and laugh-out-loud hilarity, and was my favorite release of 2004, even over the acclaimed blockbuster Spider-Man 2. It also got multiple Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture, and it ended up taking home the golden statuette for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Little Miss Sunshine (2006) a film about a children's beauty pageant, which has her entire family composed of her self-help guru dad (Greg Kinnear), exasperated-to-have-invested-all-her-money mom (Toni Colette), emo/ultra-quiet/aspiring pilot half-brother (Paul Dano), her insane, profane, drug-addict grandfather (Alan Arkin), and her suicidal gay college professor uncle (Steve Carell) make a cross country trip in a beat-up Volkswagen bus that turns out to be a character unto itself as the movie unfolds. Like Sideways, it's a movie about a road trip, and what a road trip it turns out to be! I loved this film and apparently the MPAAS did too; it won two Oscars, one for Best Original Screenplay and the other for Alan Arkin's supporting role as the foul-mouthed granddad.

Juno (2007) is a movie about a smart (and smart-mouthed) teenage girl (Ellen Page) who gets pregnant by her best friend (Michael Cera) puts her baby, unborn for most of the movie, up for adoption. The couple that responds to her ad, a pair of yuupies played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner seems to be the perfect couple and therefore the perfect parents but like the saying goes, looks can be deceiving. Again, Fox Searchlight flirted with Oscar as the film garnered nominations for Best Picture, Director, Actress for Page's spunky teen, and Original Screenplay. Writer Diablo Cody took home the award for her bitingly original script.

If I seem unduly preoccupied with the attention the films released by Fox Searchlight have been getting from the MPAAS it's because I am truly and deeply glad that on February 22, 2009 at the Kodak Theater, one of their releases, the extremely popular Slumdog Millionaire, finally took home the top prize for the studio, besting offerings from Paramount, Focus Films (Universal Pictures' independent arm), Universal itself, and Oscar veterans the Weinstein brothers courtesy of their new studio, Weinstein Films. It was also the film through which Monty screenwriter Beaufoy managed to snag a long-overdue Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

What I like about Fox Searchlight movies is that while they show a broad spectrum of human experience with dark or heavy films like Boys Don't Cry or Kinsey also having come from their stable, most of their truly outstanding movies, and the ones that garner the most recognition, are all life-affirming, lighthearted affairs that, even if they don't necessarily have storybook happy endings, are nonetheless very positive in their overall outlook. I hear that Slumdog continues this trend and am quite excited to see it, apart from the fact that it has won an award for the studio which it has deserved for a long, long time.