Robert Rodriguez’s idea was to make three cheapo Mariachi movies for the Mexican home-video market. “Then I was going to clip together the best scenes for a demo film to get backing for a real feature film, like sex, lies and videotape or Reservoir Dogs. And then I was just going to explode out of nowhere. That was the original plan.”Alas, overnight success got in the way.
This funny-grungy “taco Western,” which the 24-year-old writer-director-producer-cameraman-editor-craft-service-guy made for a preposterously low $7,000, won the Audience Award at Sundance, was bought by Columbia Pictures and earned about $2 million in theaters. “If I thought a lot of people were going to see this,” he said, “I would have changed a lot of things that people ended up liking.” In the end, Rodriguez didn’t go Hollywood; Hollywood went Rodriguez. The do-it-all auteur still makes his movies in Austin, Tex., where he’s turned experiments in 3D and green-screen into hits like Spy Kids and Sin City (which had a scene shot by Tarantino). Like El Mariachi, these cunning, high-adrenaline indies are made for audiences, not film festivals.
The lesson of Sundance hits was that a young filmmaker didn’t have to be in L.A. or NYC to get started. As long as you had something new to say, you could make your movie in the Quick Stop Grocery in Leonardo, N.J. That’s where Kevin Smith shot his feature debut, for a chintzy $27,575. It’s pretty much just a long conversation between a convenience-store guy and his pal from the video store; they talk dirty but think long and wistfully about the life that is passing them by. “That seems to be the leitmotiv of your life: ever backing down.” Their customers and girlfriends are just as lost, goofy and irrelevant. Clerks, which got picked up by Miramax and earned more than $3 million at the wickets, pegged Smith as the Chekhov of slacker life — or maybe the Preston Sturges — a promise he fulfilled with Chasing Amy and Dogma.
The Grammys honored Houston in the awards themselves, which showcased forceful women who had dominated the year in music, and reminded us of her TV influence as American Idol’s diva ideal.
From Nicki Minaj’s Red Riding Hood getup to Katy Perry’s head-to-toe blue ensemble, TIME rounds up some of the best (and worst!) sartorial choices at the annual music awards show.
