ETIENNE!, which world premiered at CineVegas 2009, will have screenings at film festivals across the country this fall. Directed by Jeff Mizushima (who won the Filmmaker to Watch Award at the 2009 fest), the film tells the story of Richard, who spends his days taking care of his best and only friend, a dwarf hamster named Etienne. When Etienne is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Richard decides to take him on a bicycle road trip up the California coast to show him the world before he must put him to sleep.

Click here to get the full list of screenings and to see if ETIENNE! will be coming to a theater near you!

For the most transgressive double-feature of the year, I caught the new Harmony Korine and Gaspar Noe films back-to-back in Toronto. I didn’t expect each film’s hopeful enthusiasm for innocent youth.

TRASH HUMPERS can be billed as Korine’s return to his early territory of GUMMO… Well, Harmony has always pushed the limits, breaking down the conventions of film plots and styles, reaching the high expectations of euro art yet hitting home for all of us who grew up in the 80s in mid-America suburbia with Swamp Thing as our biggest life coach. HUMPERS reaches the insane levels of GUMMO but is more disjunct with less plot and more pure moments, which turned some viewers off, at least the ones who split early. But I loved it, a film purely in the avant gutter. Every frame was put together beautifully, a photography book in motion, with a perfect looking VHS (on EP mode) format. There is a great traveling gallery show possible alongside the movie. The film documents the minutes and hours of four old people as they hump trash and mess things up around town freaking out onlookers, with a deeper life metaphor in the last few scenes that’s great. Dealing with the heaviness of adult responsibility and desperate for the teenaged carelessness in old age, it becomes life affirming.

Whenever you can, follow HUMPERS up with ENTER THE VOID, Noe’s explosion of a film about the existential circle of life. Following a brother and sister through drugged happiness, childhood tragedy and some baaaad choices, Noe reaches Spielberg levels of CGI to portray the film from inside the main character’s head, complete with eye blinks, before moving the audience on to smooth, endless floating over the characters and luscious Tokyo. It’s excessive but not overdone, with incredible colors and movement, as if Ken Jacobs’ remade The Lady in the Lake (the all-POV film noir). It’s probably too straight-forward and narrative for a pure avant-garde crowd but drug-lovers and reincarnationists will be ecstatic thoughout. Strong performances push the limits with Noe’s frenetic filmwork, bringing realism to the characters. Noe’s fascination with the incredible string of life culminates in a porn version of the last 20 min of 2001, in a way. Yes, lots of the crowd guessed where the plot was going. But if people want to see something truly visceral, tackling the complexities of life and youth, this pops the ceiling.

It’s been a decade since Ben (Duplass) and Andrew (Leonard) were the bad boys of their college campus. Ben has settled down and found a job, wife, and home. Andrew took the alternate route as a vagabond artist, skipping the globe from Chiapas to Cambodia. When Andrew shows up unannounced on Ben’s doorstep, they easily fall back into their old dynamic of macho one-upmanship. Late into the night at a wild party, the two find themselves locked in a mutual dare: to enter an amateur porn contest together. But what kind of boundary-breaking, envelope pushing porn can two straight dudes make? After the booze and “big talk” run out, only one idea remains—they will have sex together…on camera. It’s not gay; it’s beyond gay. It’s not porn; it’s art. But how exactly will it work? And more importantly, who will tell Ben’s wife?

Regal Village Square is located at 9400 W. Sahara. Showtimes are 1:15, 3:45, 6:45 and 9:15. For more info on HUMPDAY, visit the film’s website here.

Video games, like films, always starts with story. Or at least the games that get it right. A Penny Arcade Expo 2009 panel, entitled “Media is the Massage,” hoped to address this notion with an all-star team consisting of Denis Dyack (President, Silicon Knights), Joseph Staten (Bungie, Creative Director), Tim Schafer (Founder, Double Fine), Greg Zeschuk (Group Creative Officer, RPG/MMO Group of EA and Co-Founder, BioWare) and moderator Adam Sessler (Editor-In-Chief, G4). My quick and dirty notes after the jump.

• Video games did not originally start with story, look at Pong
• Environment tells story which feeds the player’s own story
• Successful games create a really interesting sandbox for you to tell your own story
• HALO tells story through it’s universe and your context within it, which has given the game more headroom to expand the universe in subsequent sequels
• Some stories are a better fit for certain types of games, like first player shooter, platformer, real-time strategy, etc.
• Engagement is the decision-making a player must make
• Immersion can be broken by anything, poor music, acting, design, etc.
• Cut scenes are an effective way of giving context, creating tension and developing characters
• Most of the time cut scenes have less to do with immersion and more to do with pacing, giving players a chance to breathe
• The challenge of writing a game is that it has to appeal to as many people as possible
• It’s about creating interesting relationships, not totally about character
• Don’t always have the player work to get the story, offer it as a reward
• Another big challenge with game writing is reminding people where they’re at in the story if they haven’t played for a long time

HARMONY AND ME takes place in Austin, TX, where a melancholy young lyricist named Harmony refuses to let go of the heartbreak caused by a crushing breakup with his girlfriend. He remains stubbornly unhappy, reducing his story of lost love to a broken-record spiel that he repeats to friends, family and anyone else who will listen. Although his depression annoys his tough mom, Harmony’s friends, as oddball and eccentric as he, seem largely unaffected by his cultivation of misery.

For show times and additional information on HARMONY AND ME, visit the film’s website here.

Seems like no art form is without the argument of “what is indie?” I got a glimpse of this argument in the context of video games at a lively panel at Penny Arcade Expo 2009 moderated by N’Gai Croal (Consultant, Writer, Columnist, Hit Detection LLC). Below are my quick and dirty notes. So what is an indie game to you?

Simon Carless (Chairman, Independent Games Festival):

• an indie game is a “punk rock experience”
• games that cost $1 like I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!1
• so many different “flavors” of indie games out there, from platformers to RTS, etc.
• the word “indie” being overused way too much in the industry now, practically means nothing
• when people submit to IGF they have to tick a box that asks “are you indie?”
• if something potentially non-indie is accepted there is a community friction rule in place, how much will this piss people off?
• there should be an “alternative games” label

Derek Yu (Editor-In-Chief, The Independent Gaming Source):

• an indie game has no budget
• actually it’s a question that really doesn’t have an answer
• two ideas when it comes to determining an indie game: intent and priority. The bigger the team, the bigger the budget the more these two ideas change
• Dwarf Fortress is a completely inaccessible indie game, but it’s interesting
• remember that borrowing money to make a game is in direct proportion to how far over you’re willing to bend over for it

Boyd Multerer (XNA General Manager, Microsoft):

• an indie game is about innovation and fun, not budget
• there’s a selection problem, mechanisms need to be in place to let the good stuff rise to the top
• for indie games to truly thrive there must be more hits to come out of it, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT of gaming so to speak
• let the community define what’s fun

James Silva (President, Ska Studios):

• I just make games I like to play
• lower budget forces you to be more creative
• potentially my games are a Xbox system seller

Cory McAbee’s STINGRAY SAM, a breakout hit from both Sundance and CineVegas this year, is coming to screens of all sizes on September 15. To celebrate this event, STINGRAY SAM will premiere simultaneously in the theater and for free online!

The film will have its theater premiere in Los Angeles at the Downtown Independent, but if you can’t make it, just visit McAbee’s blog where you will see a billboard announcing the event.  At 7PM PST on the 15th, the billboard will turn into a live broadcast of the premiere from the theater. Following the event, if you have a question you would like to ask, feel free to join the conversation by entering the chat. The video chat option will allow you to be projected onto the theater’s silver screen.

September 15th also marks the date that STINGRAY SAM will be available for purchase exclusively from their website, which will offer iPod compatible digital downloads, DVD’s, STINGRAY SAM T-shirts, and the film’s soundtrack.

The film will have screenings all across the world this fall, so be sure to check out the film’s website for the upcoming schedule so that you can see STINGRAY SAM in your city!

A world premiere from the 2008 CineVegas Film Festival, the film is the debut feature from a group of filmmakers known as Sweaty Robot. Harris Malden fakes his facial hair, and as far as he’s concerned, nobody can tell. Everything is fine in Harris’ world – until Paul brings an outsider to his 25th birthday party who immediately calls out Harris’ hairy imposter, leaving the young man and his friends to deal with the fallout of his open secret.

Bringing independent film to the diverse communities of New York City is central to their mission, which is why their 2009 Summer Series has gone ahead as planned despite major budget cuts behind the scenes. In fact, this has been a banner year for Rooftop – more premieres than ever before, groundbreaking partnerships with organizations like International Film Festival Rotterdam and Reel 13, and record audiences. By the end of the season, they will have presented more than 40 nights of incredible films in incredible locations.

Visit Rooftop Films’ website to read more about the programs your donations will support.

In the film, an age-obsessed daughter of a plastic surgeon (filmmaker Mitch McCabe) takes a journey through America’s $60 billion a year anti-aging world. McCabe spends 2 years traveling across America visiting doctors, experts and lives with a cross-section of characters from Minnesota to Texas who’ve gone to varying lengths to “beat the clock,” to paint a funny, thought-provoking and event disturbing portrait of a country that desperately needs to stay forever young. 

Click here for additional information on the film, as well as future air dates.