So Adrien Brody is suing in an attempt to stop the imminent DVD release of Dario Argento’s Giallo, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Interesting stuff. How many other actors don’t walk if their compensation deal falls through? And really, though, just as a sidebar, shouldn’t someone on his management team be on top of this, you know, before the week of release? Feel free to drop an Amazon “release alert” into the mix. Some will knock Brody for his post-Oscar choices, but he’s pretty much the definition of adventurous and honorable to me. Even if the film doesn’t work (I’m thinking chiefly of you, The Jacket), he’s always interesting, and totally present.

The ranking system will perhaps be a bit arbitrary to some, but over at Movies.com, Jeff Otto takes a look back at nine of the cheapest and most successful independently financed films of the modern era. Zeitgeist influences all, no doubt, from Clerks and Swingers to Napoleon Dynamite and Paranormal Activity, and proof that complacency born of abundant resources is often the enemy of imagination.