Why I like low budget movies

I have to admit, I'm a sucker for 'low budget' movies. I really do appreciate them. I was watching one such movie last night with a friend. It was called "In the Land of Women" (starring Adam Brody *sigh*). I had been wanting to see this movie for a while, and although I knew it hadn't been released in all major cinemas (but rather a few povo ones in whoop whoop), I wasn't really expecting what I got. The trailer portrayed it to be your typical 'feel-good' Hollywood movie. So as the movie rolled - as the rather boring storyline unfolded, and as I realised all the feel-good parts were already in the trailer - I thought about what I like so much about low budget movies. They aren't flashy. They have a craptacular soundtrack, which is really just a dodgey piano piece played over and over again. They don't have much special effects, if any at all. The storyline usually drags, and is always a bit on the weird side. Each moment in the movie isn't perfect, melodramatic and all that necessary to the plot. When something sad or happy occurs, your body doesn't breathe that emotion, your lungs completely filled by it, as other movies may demand. Heck, even the seemingly feel-good parts in the trailer weren't all that feel-good in the movie, just 'cause of a lack of sensational music to create the mood in an otherwise bizarre situation. But as I witnessed all this, I realised, that's the very reason I like these movies. In my last blog I talked of how movies illustrate life at it's extreme. But low budget movies are quite the opposite. They're sometimes boring, sometimes lame, sometimes weird. They aren't perfect, they aren't over dramatic. They're full of random bits which, most people would agree, should be left out. They don't make you over emotional in any sense, and most of them actually don't end with the notion of "and they lived happily ever after, and the whole world was at peace again". They don't leave you thinking If only this were me. On the other hand, they definitely don't end with a teary goodbye within a romantic relationship. They're raw and more like life - each scene rolls without being cut and retaken, and the soundtrack can't be relied on to set a heart-warming (or wrenching) mood.