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"The modestly named "mumblecore" movement in new American indies is not an earthquake like the French New Wave, more of a trembling in the shrubbery."  So says Roger Ebert.

I walked into the Duplass Brothers ("The Puffy Chair") latest film "Baghead" with some reservations.  The mumblecore movement has to be a blessing in disguise and yet I don't know if I want to embrace it just yet.  "Mumblecore" as defined by Wikipedia is "primarily characterized by ultra-low budget production[s] (often employing digital video cameras), [which] focus on personal relationships between twenty-somethings, improvised scripts, and non-professional actors."  In other words, it's the final ploy for aspiring filmmakers to turn to if they can't get the funding they need for their feature films.  Get your friends together.  Get the video camera rolling.   See what happens.

I myself am an aspiring filmmaker.  I guess I'm scared of turning toward the mumblecore movement for reasons of falling short or just coming off as plain amateurishly narcissistic; oh, look at me and my friends...we're so witty and non-commercial.

Then I watched "Baghead."

I must say that after watching this oddly effective and fresh new feature, I just might have to start having some meetings on possibly turning out my own mumblecore film.   But more about "Baghead": It's hard to place it under one categorical heading.  It's part relationship comedy and part creepy killer in the woods.  How this idea could be pulled off in a big Hollywood-sized movie is beyond me, but something small and personal like this proves it can be done.  At the same time, I thought it was great to look at.  I thought it had less camera jerks and blurs than such big budget productions like "Cloverfield" and the grainy video quality is oddly inviting; if it wasn't for the diabolical developments that unfold in the third act, it just might have passed as another underground battle of the sexes.

And yet again, I find myself being vague with the actual plot (if you could even stretch the term to that) of a film.  Sometimes it's good to know as much as possible, as in cases like "The Dark Knight."  But "Baghead" is a little nugget of a gem.  You really need to walk into this one cold.  Dark woods cold.

Scott Tobias, a writer for the A.V. Club and a friend of mine, cleverly concluded in his review of the film: "Baghead is a slight movie by design—a lark about the making of a lark—but it goes further than expected in exploring the core issues of no-budget independent filmmaking and what can or cannot be accomplished. It's also a good argument for picking up a camera and shooting away—provided you have something worth shooting, of course."

You know, I just might have to do that now.