ballast

read this crotchety review of sundance darling ballast to get an approximation of how I felt about it. other reviews made reference to charles burnett's killer of sheep, presumably because it stars black people, and the dardenne brothers because it is handheld and depressing. director lance hammer (whose imdb credits include VFX work on batman forever and batman & robin) said he made the movie in response to his experience of the landscape in Mississippi but that he would only shoot when it was cloudy because of his affection for european cinema -- he should have just shot in belgium. he wouldn't say how much it cost (he said, "less than a million and more than two dollars") or how he got the money but he did say that he wrote for 2 years, shot for 45 days and edited for 2 years, so I guess he's independently wealthy.