By Brian Darr

"Lance Hammer began his filmmaking career working with the art department, designing the architecture of Gotham buildings used in Joel Schumacher's Batman films. His feature film debut as a writer and director might be seen as an aesthetic laying down of a gauntlet: art thrives best when developed far from any Hollywood departments. Written, cast, set and shot in a wintery Mississippi Delta locale, Ballast emerged from its premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival with top awards for Hammer's direction and Lol Crawley's cinematography."

Brian Darr introduces his interview with Hammer - they talk about nonprofessional actors, documentaries and some of Hammer's own favorite filmmakers. Ballast is currently playing at New York's Film Forum and opens in selected cities on October 17.

By Vadim Rizov

Exactly a year ago now, New York's IFC Center was running a series called The New Talkies: Generation DIY and, writing in the SpoutBlog, Karina Longworth suggested a possible taxonomic distinction: "If Mutual Appreciation and Hannah Takes the Stairs are movies about the kinds of people who would watch movies like Mutual Appreciation and Hannah Takes the Stairs, [Kentucker Audley's] Team Picture, [Frank V Ross's] Quietly On By and, particularly, Hohokam, are about the kinds of people who consume the kind of culture that Bujalski and Swanberg's films feel like a reaction against.... Audley and Ross are at least as interested as their peers in the social dynamics of leisure, but in Hohokam and Team Picture, work life is as carefully drawn as recreation.... Team Picture is possibly the lowest-budgeted film on the New Talkies schedule, but at times Audley's long shots approach the painterly beauty of pastoral landscapes."

Now Team Picture is the latest exquisite release from Benten Films and Vadim Rizov talks with Audley about the feature and the two shorts that accompany it on the DVD.

By James Van Maanen

"No less a light than Steven Soderbergh (once upon a time the flag-bearer for independent American cinema) is on record as calling Choking Man 'everything an independent film should be," notes James Van Maanen. "If that kind of all-encompassing praise sounds difficult to live up to, not to worry. Steve Barron's film is plenty good and certainly worth its 83 minutes of your time. Though he was on vacation at the time, he was kind enough to answer a few quick questions via email."

Besides the interview, James has a review of the film as well, at Guru.

"Over these years of war and occupation, [John] Cusack has become one of the most insightful commentators on a far too seldom discussed aspect of the occupation: the corporate dominance of the US war machine," writes Jeremy Scahill for the Nation.

Still, critical reaction to War, Inc. has been, shall we say, mixed. And yet, perhaps as a sign of the times, its dark satire has been a hit where it counts most - with audiences.

Sean Axmaker talks with Cusack about, among other things, his two very different treatments of the ongoing war in Iraq, War, Inc. and Grace Is Gone.