For two and a half years Sujewa Ekanayake has provided the indie film world with one of its funniest and most arresting blogs, DIY Filmmaker Sujewa, where the thirty-four year old Washington D.C. based Sri Lankan offers an insightful glance into the world of the independent filmmaker outside of the New York-LA indie axis. His newest film, Indie Film Blogger Road Trip, brings him into the homes and working spaces of 14 film bloggers and is perhaps the first extended meditation on the impact, limitations and peculiarities of the film blogosphere to date. We caught up with him this week to discuss the charms of Battlestar Galactica, where Kevin Smith went wrong and finding his long lost copy of Tom Wait’s “Rain Dogs”.

What films or television shows have you seen recently?

Battlestar Galactica, Sarah Silverman show, The Office, Cookies & Cream, 30 Rock, Zack & Miri Make A Porno - off the top of my head that’s some stuff I’ve seen recently, been watching.

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Peter Greenaway’s Nightwatching turns the making of Rembrandt’s The Night Watcher into an epic tale about marriage, color, the secret lives of paintings, the nature of looking, and the impossibility of a peaceful relationship between commerce, politics and artistic genius. It’s pretentious and stagey, both visually decadent and over-talky, and, from what I saw of it, kind of wonderful. My biggest regret of the 2007 Toronto Film Festival is that, in the middle of the press screening, with a hot cup of coffee in my hand, I fell asleep.

I really don’t think it was Greenaway’s fault. I do understand that his highly-theatrical tableau and inflated speeches of philosophical exposition can turn viewers off, and this film, like his best works, has an implacable rhythm to it that could be misconstrued as monotony. But I’m a reluctant sucker for Greenaway’s style, so I can’t really blame my unfortunate press screening narcolepsy on the director. I absolutely loved the first 15 minutes of the film, in which Greenaway introduces us to Rembrandt, his somewhat fantastic home life, and his unconventional but deeply touching bond with his wife Saskia. I could probably write a full-length review of a single early scene, in which Rembrandt, played by Martin Freeman of the UK version of The Office, addresses the camera with the story of how he and Saskia got together, but I feel like I really *shouldn’t* write anything more without seeing the full film. Since Nightwatching doesn’t yet have U.S. distribution, I’m not sure when that will be.

So, while I curse my brain for failing me in the clutch, across the jump you’ll find a look at what other people are saying about it.

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• Michael Apted, who was recently hired to direct one of two upcoming Narnia films, has been elected to a third term as president of the Director’s Guild of America. If Apted should become unable to perform his duties, DGA VP Steven Soderbergh will have to step off the remake train and step up.
• Richard “Shaft” Roundtree will join Christina Ricci, Emile Hirsch and Susan Sarandon (!) in the Wachowski Brothers’ Speed Racer adaptation.
• Via Brian Lowry’s review of License to Wed, we learn that Robin Williams is still annoying, Mandy Moore is still pretty enough to escape real criticism, and Variety readers still need to be reminded why John Krasinski looks so familiar: “Unleashing Robin Williams in the least flattering possible manner, License to Wed squanders the modest chemistry between its appealing central couple — Mandy Moore and The Office’s John Krasinski — uniting its elements in an astonishingly flat romantic comedy, filled with perplexing choices.”

More on these films on Spout:

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Speed Racer
License to Wed