We’re a few weeks away from the fall weekends when the major studios release their Oscar contenders (both expensive and indie in origin), so you ought to try and see a few more indie films coming out this weekend that might soon be overshadowed by movies with more “weight” behind them and expensive marketing campaigns.  Remember, though these films are being initially released this weekend they may not be in your area yet.  Check your local theater times and your VOD outlets of choice to see if you can view them now!

PLUSH

I think countless movies and real-life divorce proceedings have hammered home the idea that one shouldn’t marry a rock star who spends his or her life on the road.  Plush is about a young married musician (Emily Browning) who gets involved with her guitarist, only to find her life soon spinning out of control.  Unlike most indie films it hasn’t made the festival rounds (and critics haven’t seen it), so there’s no word on it just yet.

JAYNE MANSFIELD’S CAR

It’s hard to believe that Billy Bob Thornton hasn’t written directed a film since 2001’s Daddy and Them after he won an Oscar for adapted screenplay for 1996’s awesome Sling Blade.  Like Thornton’s previous films, Jayne Mansfield’s Car is a family drama set in the south. It is about a “blended family” who meets for the first time when their shared matriarch — who left her Alabama husband and family for an Englishman and started a second family — passes away.  It fits alongside the “Southern Gothic” genre of fiction writers like William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor.

BLUE CAPRICE

Based on the horrifying 2002 Washington DC sniper attacks, Blue Caprice stars Isaiah Washington as gunman John Allen Muhammad who enlisted a young man to help him carrying out his murders.  Directed by first-time feature director Alexandre Moore, Blue Caprice premiered at Sundance and has received almost universally positive reviews from critics over the last few months.

WADJDA

Though it’s already been released in most areas around the world, Wadjda is finally getting a limited U.S. release.  It’s an important film for many reasons — it’s the first feature film that was entirely shot in Saudi Arabia, and the first feature film written and directed by a female Saudi, Haifaa Al-Mansour.  Wadjda takes on the role of women in Saudi society when a young girl seeks to raise enough money to buy a bicycle — even though such ambition (and bike riding itself) by women is frowned upon in Saudi society.  This film is obviously a breakthrough in more ways than one.

AND WHILE WE WERE HERE

Though And While We Were Here premiered at last years’ Tribeca Film Festival, I didn’t get a chance to see it.  Written and directed by Kate Coiro (Life Happens), And While We Were Here stars Kate Bosworth (who we haven’t seen much since Superman Returns) as a writer who gets involved with a younger man (Jamie Blackley).  We’ve been getting a lot of those movies lately, right?  Anyway, it’s already available on VOD, but finally gets a theatrical release this weekend.

CHAVEZ CAGE OF GLORY

Written, directed, and starring marital artist/actor Hector Echavarria, Chavez Cage of Glory is about a middle-aged martial artist who becomes an MMA fighter in order to pay his ailing son’s medical bills.  It’s hard not to compare it to Rocky, but Rocky didn’t have Danny Trejo in it, did it?  The film is only being released in Los Angeles-area theaters at first.

GMO OMG (Documentary)

A STRANGE BRAND OF HAPPY

HARRY DEAN STANTON: PARTLY FICTION (Documentary)

MOTHER OF GEORGE

INFORMANT (Documentary)

FOUR

THE LAST TIME I SAW MACAO

SAMPLE THIS (Documentary)