Sign up for our weekly Indie Focus newsletter
Only good movies
Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
Your host
I’m Mark Olsen and I write about all kinds of movies for the Los Angeles Times. Nothing gets me quite as excited as being knocked out by a movie for the first time and in turn passing that enthusiasm on to readers and audiences. In short, I am a nerd turned pro.
What to expect
Because life is short, time is tight and people have more options than ever on what to watch and how to watch it, I hope you think of this as your field guide. Or as I have long secretly held the motto/worldview/motivating principle of Indie Focus to be: Only Good Movies.
This weekly newsletter will spotlight my work as well as that of my intrepid colleagues on the movie team here at the Los Angeles Times as a starting point for what’s going on in the wild world of cinema.
This will also serve as headquarters for the Indie Focus Screening Series, a year-round program that I curate and host. About once a month, we bring you a movie before it opens along with a post-screening Q&A with the filmmakers. The events are free to Los Angeles Times subscribers.
The term “Indie” in this context is intended as a catch-all, an umbrella that can cover anything from one-time screenings to wide-release movies. Is it worthy enough to me to be worthy to all of you?
Nonstop movies. Movies nonstop.
Latest Indie Focus Newsletters
It’s the Envelope podcast you love — now in living color! Join our hosts for the season premiere as they break down the state of the 2024 Oscar race.
A tribute to Song Kang Ho at the Academy Museum, plus paranoid thrillers at the New Beverly, a Jonathan Glazer series and behind the scenes with Beyoncé
The Times’ new list of the the best movie theaters in Los Angeles, plus screenings of ‘Maestro,’ ‘Broadcast News,’ ‘Working Girl,’ ‘Sunshine’ and ‘Smoke Signals.’
Plus screenings of ‘May December,’ ‘Marie Antoinette,’ ‘The New World,’ ‘Master and Commander’ and ‘Fargo.’
Screening this week in L.A.: 70mm films at the Egyptian, ‘Short Term 12,’ ‘Monster,’ ‘Too Late,’ ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’ and remembering programmer Doug Jones.
Screening this week in L.A.: ‘All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,’ ‘A Poem Is a Naked Person,’ ‘Mod F--- Explosion’ and tributes to Terence Davies and Bérénice Reynaud.
Screening this week in L.A.: ‘Priscilla,’ ‘You’re Next,’ ‘Messiah of Evil,’ ‘Goodbye, Dragon Inn’ and ‘The Bride of Frankenstein.’
Screening this week in L.A.: ‘The Persian Version,’ ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ ‘The Untouchables,’ ‘May’ and ‘Nocturama’
Screening this week in L.A.: “Jennifer’s Body,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” “The World’s End,” “This Is the End” and tributes to Sofia Coppola and Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Screening this week in L.A.: The unsettling doc “Mister Organ,” plus “The Royal Hotel,” “Ganja & Hess,” “Days of Heaven,” “Leftover Ladies” and a John Carney tribute.
