To comprehend the duality that'll exist in movie theaters this summer, look no further than this upcoming Friday. The movie that you, your mother, and your mother's friends are anxious to see? The Great Gatsby, of course, in which Leonardo DiCaprio and Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann bring the late novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic Roaring Twenties story of memory, excess, and tragic love to stylized life. With a starry cast and music overseen by Jay-Z, it's about as foolproof as box office successes can get.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, though, is Sightseers, the latest genre subversion from on-the-rise English filmmaker Ben Wheatley, whose bleak horror film Kill List ranked high among our favorite movies of 2012. The major differences between The Great Gatsby and Sightseers—other than content and star power—are budget and visibility. Whereas DiCaprio's new one is scheduled to open on more than 3,350 screens nationwide, Wheatley's dark comedy will be found in a significantly smaller number of theaters—as in, less around the country than Gatsby will play in, say, New York and New Jersey alone.
Which, if you're an open-minded cinephile, actually makes Sightseers the more interesting of the two films. And if that's the case, you've got more invested in the following list of the summer's 25 most anticipated indie movies than you do with the 25 big-deal Hollywood blockbusters and wider releases included in last week's countdown. The cinema gods would be pleased.
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Written by Matt Barone (@MBarone) and Tara Aquino (@t_akino)