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On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.

First, read the Bait: a weird and wonderful pick from any time in film. Then, try the Bite: a breakdown of the movie’s ending, impact, and any other spoilers you’d want.

The Bait: A Lynchian Language Barrier and a Break from Sadness

To steal from a popular meme this week, January has been the longest year of the month.

With Los Angeles still burning in the background, David Lynch died a few weeks ago — from complications of emphysema at 78 — and Hollywood went into sudden and deep mourning. Even against a steady stream of more bad news, tributes to the late filmmaker are still going strong.

From “Eraserhead” to “Inland Empire,” the beloved director was a quintessential and divisive voice of midnight movie culture, one whose surreal embrace of...

Exclusive: Leviathan Productions has acquired the remake rights to L’Homme de la Cave (The Man in the Basement), the French psychological thriller from director Philippe Le Guay, which was released just last year.

Inspired by a true story, the film is about a Jewish couple who sell their basement to a history professor, only to discover his secret life as an antisemitic conspiracy theorist. As the couple struggles to unwind the sale, the professor starts to indoctrinate their impressionable teenaged daughter.

Marc Weitzmann, Le Guay and Gilles Taurand wrote the script for the original film, with Anne Dominique Toussaint producing. Rights were acquired from Tournellovision and the remake will be produced by Ben Cosgrove, Frederic Golchan and Neal Israel.

Founded by veteran film producer Cosgrove and bestselling author Josh Foer, Leviathan Productions is an independent production company focused on acquiring and developing mass-market films and television content based on Jewish history,...

Ryan Reynolds plays a meticulous efficiency expert whose regimented life is suddenly thrown off kilter in Chaos Theory, a would-be satire that spends its 86-minute running time struggling to find a workable tone and sticking to it.

The few moments when it does manage to stumble into a semblance of a comic groove, the film -- directed by Marcos Siega (Pretty Persuasion) from a blunt-edged script by Daniel Taplitz ("Breakin' All the Rules") -- suggests an ersatz American Beauty, but the effect proves fleeting.

Shot two years ago in Vancouver, the Warner Bros. release unlikely will cause much of a commotion at the boxoffice.

Reynolds' Frank Allen is the uptight author of a self-improvement best-seller titled "The Five Minute Efficiency Trainer," and he personally practices what he preaches, organizing his life into a series of index cards filled with to-do lists.

One morning, in a well-meaning effort to give her husband's painstaking scheduling a little breathing room, wife Susan (Emily Mortimer) has moved the clocks back 10 minutes, mistakenly believing she's bought Frank more time, when the opposite turns out to be the case.

That lost 10 minutes proves to be costly for Frank -- starting with a missed ferry to a speaking engagement and setting off a chain-reaction of awkward moments and misunderstandings that succeed in sending Frank's life spiraling completely out of control.

It would be tempting to say that the film follows suit, but that would be implying that there was a prior point at which Siega had some kind of grip on the material.

But that's never the case here as the picture continuously shuffles moods like tunes on an iPod without ever making any lasting commitments.

As a result, neither the comedy nor the quieter, more introspective moments carry any convincing weight, making it difficult for audiences to have much empathy for the leads and their predicaments.

Reynolds capably navigates those constantly shifting twists and turns, but it's at the expense of any sort of character credibility.

At least he gets to try different dispositions on for size as opposed to poor Mortimer, whose underdeveloped character feels like it was jotted down on one of Frank's index cards.

Production values are serviceable, though there are times when Siega, who started out as an in-demand music video director, seems more intent on keying sequences to their accompanying songs rather than making an effort to really connect with the story at hand.

CHAOS THEORY

Warner Bros.

Castle Rock Entertainment and Lone Star Film Group present a Frederic Golchan production

Credits:

Director: Marcos Siega

Screenwriter: Daniel Taplitz

Producers: Frederic Golchan, Erica Westheimer

Executive producer: Fred Westheimer

Director of photography: Ramsey Nickell

Production designer: Sandy Cochrane

Music: Gilad Benamram

Co-producer: Barbara Kelly

Costume designer: Tish Monaghan

Editor: Nicholas Erasmus

Cast:

Frank Allen: Ryan Reynolds

Susan: Emily Mortimer

Buddy Endrow: Stuart Townsend

Paula Crowe: Sarah Chalke

Ed: Mark Erwin

Peg the Teacher: Constance Zimmer

Running time -- 86 minutes

MPAA rating: PG-13...

Stuart Townsend has joined the cast of the romantic comedy Chaos Theory for Warner Independent Pictures and Castle Rock Entertainment. Ryan Reynolds and Emily Mortimer already have boarded the Marcos Siega-helmed film, which is being financed by Fred and Erica Westheimer's Lone Star Film Group. Penned by Daniel Taplitz, the story centers on a compulsive organizer (Reynolds) who decides to live his life without planning and in the process discovers love with Mortimer's character. Townsend completes the love triangle playing Buddy, the best friend of Reynolds' character who also falls in love with Mortimer's character. WIP's Mark Gill and Michael Andreen will oversee for the studio, while Martin Shafer and Liz Glotzer will shepherd for Castle Rock. Frederic Golchan is producing.

Emily Mortimer is in negotiations to star opposite Ryan Reynolds in the romantic comedy Chaos Theory for Warner Independent Pictures and Castle Rock Entertainment. Helmer Marcos Siega (Pretty Persuasion) already has boarded the project, which is being produced by Frederic Golchan. The story centers on a compulsive organizer (Reynolds) who decides to live his life without planning and in the process discovers love with Mortimer's character. Daniel Taplitz (Breakin' All the Rules) penned the screenplay. WIP's Mark Gill and Michael Andreen will oversee for the studio, while Martin Shafer and Liz Glotzer Will Shepherd for Castle Rock.

TORONTO -- Canadian independent distributor Seville Pictures on Monday said U.S. producers Barry Levinson and Frederic Golchan had acquired the remake rights to La Peau blanche (White Skin), Quebec filmmaker Daniel Roby's debut feature. Montreal-based Seville also said it has signed a deal with Warner Home Video Canada to distribute its catalogue and new movie releases to the Canadian home video and DVD markets. Seville said Levinson and Golchan screened the French-language psychological thriller at the Gerardmer Fantasy Film Festival, before successfully negotiating a deal with Seville co-President David Reckziegel and Roby for the U.S. remake rights. Seville said Levinson and Golchan will adapt La Peau Blanche, a drama about two young men facing violence and sexual obsession in Montreal, and will shop the script in Los Angeles. Based on novel by Joel Champetier, who penned the original screenplay with Roby, La Peau Blanche has had a successful run on the international festival circuit.

TORONTO -- Canadian independent distributor Seville Pictures on Monday said U.S. producers Barry Levinson and Frederic Golchan had acquired the remake rights to La Peau blanche (White Skin), Quebec filmmaker Daniel Roby's debut feature. Montreal-based Seville also said it has signed a deal with Warner Home Video Canada to distribute its catalogue and new movie releases to the Canadian home video and DVD markets. Seville said Levinson and Golchan screened the French-language psychological thriller at the Gerardmer Fantasy Film Festival, before successfully negotiating a deal with Seville co-President David Reckziegel and Roby for the U.S. remake rights. Seville said Levinson and Golchan will adapt La Peau Blanche, a drama about two young men facing violence and sexual obsession in Montreal, and will shop the script in Los Angeles. Based on novel by Joel Champetier, who penned the original screenplay with Roby, La Peau Blanche has had a successful run on the international festival circuit.

TORONTO -- Canadian independent distributor Seville Pictures on Monday said U.S. producers Barry Levinson and Frederic Golchan had acquired the remake rights to La Peau blanche (White Skin), Quebec filmmaker Daniel Roby's debut feature. Montreal-based Seville also said it has signed a deal with Warner Home Video Canada to distribute its catalogue and new movie releases to the Canadian home video and DVD markets. Seville said Levinson and Golchan screened the French-language psychological thriller at the Gerardmer Fantasy Film Festival, before successfully negotiating a deal with Seville co-President David Reckziegel and Roby for the U.S. remake rights. Seville said Levinson and Golchan will adapt La Peau Blanche, a drama about two young men facing violence and sexual obsession in Montreal, and will shop the script in Los Angeles. Based on novel by Joel Champetier, who penned the original screenplay with Roby, La Peau Blanche has had a successful run on the international festival circuit.