Years from now, when the planet becomes uninhabitable for humans (Leonardo DiCaprio warned us, and still we didn’t listen!), and when alien anthropologists come to sift through the ruins of Earth to learn about late-homo sapien culture, I can only hope they come across a pristine copy of Benten Films‘ LOL DVD and have the aptitude to understand what they’re looking at.

Of all of the movies lumped into the Mumblecore bucket, LOL comes the closest to making an accurate diagnosis of a certain contemporary real-life character type (the literal gadget fetishist?) that, if seen elsewhere in culture, has nowhere else been properly condemned. The aliens may not understand why these young humanoid males spend so much time at their circa-2006 wired workstations, but if they can find an English-to-Alien translator, David Hudson’s liner-notes essay should put it all into context.

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More news from the front lines of The New Talkies coming soon, but here’s a tidbit for the capitalists: Chris Wells, who starred in and co-wrote LOL and who now works at the IFC Center, told me before the 6:05 PM screening of Hannah Takes the Stairs that in the film’s first three shows, it had already made enough money to cover the budget of Joe Swanberg’s first film, Kissing on the Mouth. I caught up with Chris again later in the evening, at which point he told me that not only had the 8:00 PM Hannah show sold out, but Swanberg’s third film had, in its first day of release, grossed more the budgets of his first two features combined. If you know anything about Joe, you know that we’re not talking about millions of dollars here, but I still think it’s impressive evidence that the DIY model doesn’t have to be an economic disaster.

More mumblemania to come…