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'Shrek 2' vs. ... 'After the Apocalypse'?

Independent films don't appeal to everyone

By KONRAD MARSHALL 
THE POST-STAR
June 7, 2004

... Working the door at the Women in Film reception down the road, Chris O'Donnell's hair -- a spiky, blonde-with-brown-roots Mohawk -- said as much about his taste in films as he ever could. In a few days, he had seen a French drama, attended a seminar on animation and sat though "After the Apocalypse" -- a two-hour, black and white feature about life after the third world war, in which no one speaks.

"It was good, but ? it was ... different," O'Donnell said, struggling to find one superlative.

Sensing that his praise of an experimental film may have sounded muted at best, O'Donnell launched into a self-assured spiel about viewers incorrectly equating "independent" with "B-rated," about the power of seeing something original, about people being too adjusted to the Hollywood system of mass-produced, pre-packaged, sugar-coated, assembly-line movies.

And then he paused, and smiled.
"I definitely want to see 'Shrek 2,' though," he said.

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