Never Mind Pop Film

One for the studio and one for you. That's the mantra for actors/writers/directors who want to achieve some modicum of success while maintaining artistic credibility. The idea is intriguing yet the execution rarely works as described. Should the "one for Hollywood" succeed, sequels are greenlit, franchises are spawned and then one turns to three or four. Jon Favreau made his one for Hollywood, it was titled Iron Man. Two years later the sequel was met with much less fanfare.

Arthouse curios are truly one of the great gifts that cinema continually offers to fans of indie filmmaking. There isn't a lot of room for experimentation in blockbusters or mid-budget dramas, but with a film like Under the Skin, anything goes. Jonathan Glazer has turned in two off-beat pictures in Sexy Beast and Birth, but this, this is an even rarer find. With the exception of casting star Scarlett Johansson, everything about Under the Skin is a barebones production, from the use of non-actors to utilizing hidden cameras to capture scenes.