2013 - DRINKING BUDDIES, will this be the future of movies?

Drinking Buddies is an independent feature made on a very low budget probably with a digital camera.  For a low budgeted film it has a high degree of polish mostly because digital technology has come such a long way now that a film can be shot and edited quite proficiently. 

 

 

The cast is a group of actors that probably had a couple of weeks of free time and worked for minimum wage.  Their hope was that the film would find an audience,  give them a little serious actor cred in Hollywood and a piece of the profits if there were any to be made.

The film is about a couple of work buddies.  The woman played by Olivia Wilde is the secretary at a brewery.  She is best buds with a very hairy factory worker.  They eat lunch together, hit the bar together and generally do the work hangout thing.  Both of them have significant others.  She is involved with a nice intellectual boyfriend, the hairy guy is involved with a petite teacher with a nice butt.  I'm not sure what factory the writer/director Joe Swanberg every spent time in but I can guarantee you I was never in a place where there was a super hot administrative assistant with model looks who guzzles beer like a lumberjack.

What's kind of depressing about Drinking Buddies if you ignore the nonexistent and frankly uninteresting story, is the whole general vibe of this film.  As the film industry continues to fragment and digital delivery systems find their place in everyone's home we will probably get even more of this kind of stuff.  Films made to fill the increasing need to feed these on demand delivery systems to keep the general public loaded up with some sort of entertainment no matter how poor or mediocre it might be.  The film business is already drowning in lots of these sort of crummy movies with sort of low rent Hollywood actors.  I have a feeling we are really going to be drowning in them if we are not already treading water.  

Written by Joe Swanberg, the running time is 90 minutes.

90 minutes