"Did you mean: dumbledore?"

Mumblecore the nascent collaboration-based film movement that includes the films of Joe Swanberg, Aaron Katz, the Duplass brothers and Andrew Bujalski, has done most of its living and thriving on the internet. This week it's also getting exposed to the cold, hard, dated light of print with two pieces, J. Hoberman at the Village Voice and Dennis Lim with a presumably soon to be New York Times article. Both display a bit of ambivalence toward the movement, but are ultimately positive. Here's Lim:

Artists who mine life's minutiae are by no means new, but mumblecore bespeaks a true 21st-century sensibility, reflective of MySpace-like social networks and the voyeurism and intimacy of YouTube. It also signals a paradigm shift in how movies are made and how they find an audience. "This is the first time, mostly because of technology, that someone like me can go out and make a film with no money and no connections," said Aaron Katz,

Here's Hoberman:

These movies may be self-absorbed—but what else could a self-portrait be? Hannah is writing a play about Kant and Newton as 13-year-old boys, which could be how Swanberg views himself and his peers. The least to be said for Bujalski, Swanson, Katz et al is that they are confronting the conditions of their lives, including making their movies. It’s impossible to predict how the Mumblecorps will mature but, given their immersion in the moment, I suspect that the films they’ve made will age very well.

+ It’s Mumblecore! (Village Voice)
+ Mumbling about my generation: A new wave of filmmakers (International Herald Tribune)