"A perfect storm of anemic indie conventions."

Because I have a chunk of coal where my heart should be, The Reeler's takedown of Winter Passing made my morning. Revel in the snark:

While Passing does not quite float up from the same burbling gastric swamp responsible for, say, Flannel Pajamas, it implodes spectacularly enough as [Adam] Rapp's rambling drama-ectomy removes any sense of conflict the way one might remove an opponent's spine while playing Mortal Kombat. It seems unlikely--if not impossible--that such inoffensive principals could be so repellent together, but you would not expect the vice-president to shoot someone either, so chalk it up to bad chemistry or a misaligned cosmos or whatever. Shit happens.

Yee-ouch. Have you seen Winter Passing's trailer? Even the Focus Features Marketing Department can't save this one. First of all, it looks like the film was shot on Super 8, sent to a lab to be developed in bacon grease, then blown up to 35mm. Secondly, it's one of those tortured indies where the father and his estranged daughter are trying to reconcile, but in this case the father is J.D. Salinger (played by Ed Harris). Of course, they can't call him J.D. Salinger, so they call him Don Holden. Get it? Get it? Subtle, Adam Rapp. Subtle.
Okay, enough beating up on some helpless indie I haven't even seen.