The movie that started it all - if "it all" means "almost every cash grab faux-indie film-making trend that makes movie fans want to lock themselves in a room and only watch Gamera: The Revenge of Iris until every movie producer is dead." Garden State is what would happen if an advanced artificial intelligence typed "Quirky" into DuckDuckGo and just generated a movie based on the search results. Heavily medicated, depressed, struggling actor who waits tables and has goofy fashion sense? Added. Paralegal epileptic pathological liar with an adopted African sibling? Throw it in there. Grave digging stoner jewel thieves? Successful childhood friend with a fortune from a zany invention? Method Man? QuirkBot 2000 must have it all! Even despite that, Garden State would have almost been tolerable if it wasn't for critics, fans, and most annoyingly Zach Braff, all clamoring desperately for this to become The Graduate for a generation that really didn't need The Graduate. Zach Braff actually called Garden State a "life-affirming state of the union address for 20-somethings." He had that thought and then said it out loud with complete earnestness. Frustratingly, nobody made fun of him for that until he started begging for money on Kickstarter. It is hard not to agree with him though. Garden State is an over-hyped, efficiently marketed, disappointing mess where nobody really knows what they are doing, everybody is unhappy most of the time, and indie music never stops playing. So, yeah, pretty spot on representation of being a 20-something Zach. Between this and Napoleon Dynamite, 2004 was objectively the worst time in human history. Thank god White Chicks came out that year to redeem it. Which other beloved indie gems deserve to be on this list? Share your own suggestions in the list below.
Gavin Bard was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambiance of his home city of Los Angeles. His work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. In 1986 Time called Bard a "laureate of American lowlife".
Wait, crap, hold on a second. That is Bukowski. Sorry. Gavin plays too many video games, thinks pro wrestling is the world's best performance art, and considers Hunter S. Thompson a better journalistic influence than Edward R. Murrow.
