The Independent Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)May 3rd, 2002
Planet Sick-Boy: http://www.sick-boy.com
"We Put the SIN in Cinema"
© Copyright 2002 Planet Sick-Boy. All Rights Reserved.
Before he became a household name for directing the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson perpetrated the closest thing to War of the Worlds that New Zealand had ever seen. Jackson made a film called Forgotten Silver, a documentary about a New Zealander called Colin McKenzie, who, unbeknownst to anyone in that country, was one of the pioneers of filmmaking. Silver went on to show how McKenzie invented things like color film, the close-up, the tracking shot and synchronized sound, while modern luminaries raved about his influence and importance (Harvey Weinstein bragged about buying the rights to one of McKenzie's recently unearthed films, and announced plans to release it with an hour edited out of the final cut).
Silver was a goof, but one so elaborate and well made that it duped most of New Zealand when it aired on television. Nobody is going to be fooled by The Independent, another mockumentary about a film pioneer, albeit on the opposite end of the artistic spectrum from McKenzie. The subject here is Morty Fineman (Jerry Stiller), a writer-director who is equal parts Russ Meyer, Roger Corman and Ed Wood. Morty and his Fineman Films made 428 films over his 30-year career, yet only one within the traditional Hollywood system. The Independent opens as Fineman is shooting his latest - Ms. Kevorkian - at a hospital that's about to toss him out because he's run out of money. It seems that none of Morty's numerous films have made much dough, and he was recently crippled financially by The Whole Story of America, a $30 million Dances With Wolves-like bomb that starred Morty.
With the aid of his longtime assistant Ivan (Max Perlich) and the somewhat unexplained arrival of his estranged daughter Paloma (Janeane Garofalo), Morty is able to temporarily stave off his many creditors and the bankers who want to buy his entire film catalogue (for $8.00 a pound). He moves his production office to a cheap motel and envisions his company's saving grace to be the acquisition of the screen rights to the life story of a recently convicted serial killer (Larry Hankin), who gives consent to the deal only after Morty agrees to make the film a musical.
In the meantime, Ivan is desperately trying to find a film festival that will screen a Fineman retrospective, but his only bite comes from Chaparral, Nevada, a town that features a fruity festival programmer played by a punk icon (John Lydon), a mayor played by a porn star (Ginger Lynn Allen) and a festival that's merely a front for its primary business (hint: Chaparral is known as Blow Job, Nevada). Throughout each wacky event, The Independent is peppered with interviews in which film icons like Karen Black, Ted Demme, Fred Williamson, Nick Cassavetes and, yes, even Roger Corman comment on Morty's career and, in some cases, specific films. Peter Bogdanovich explains he didn't care for Bald Justice, while, for some reason, it seemed to really touch Ron Howard.
While The Independent's story isn't at all revolutionary, it's brought to life by clips of Morty's oeuvre, which play like skits discarded by Mr. Show With Bob and Dave. Who could ever forget Morty's first film, The Simplex Complex, a syphilis war movie inspired by Bergman (and populated by actual Mr. Show actors); or Brothers Divided, a Viet Nam-era flick about Siamese twins (one a hippie, the other an angry militant) who get drafted and sent off to the war? These, as well as occasional references to Morty's other hysterically titled films, are more than enough to keep The Independent moving for its meager 85-minute running time. Heck, it's worth the price of admission just for the closing credits, which thoughtfully lists the bogus names of Morty's 428 films, like Twelve Angry Men and a Baby, LSD-Day, Heil Titler, What Planet Is This? (Oh My God, It's Earth!). If they actually existed (I'd rather see any of them than The Scorpion King.
Directed and co-written by National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation's (a.k.a. the bad one) Stephen Kessler, The Independent features lots and lots of screaming from Stiller, while Garofalo plays his spot-on deadpan straight man. The film is kind of unpolished, even for a mockumentary, but ranks right up there with Silver, John Waters' Cecil B. Demented and Christopher Guest's The Big Picture as terrific spoofs of the business of moviemaking.
1:25 - R for language, some violence and sexuality
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