Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes: A Guided Tour Across a Decade of American Independent Cinema

Charting his rise from a movie house programmer to prestigious producer's rep for struggling first-time filmmakers, Pierson offers a knowledgeable but unctuously schmoozy, insider's account of the independent film business of the last 10 years. In 1985, he gave Spike Lee $10,000 to complete his first feature, She's Gotta Have It, a deal that launched Pierson as a producer's rep-a go-between who funds and finds distribution for films made outside the studio system. He brokered similar deals for Michael Moore's Roger and Me, Richard Linkletter's Slacker and the lesbian romantic comedy, Go Fish (hence the book's clunky title); in meticulous, sometimes self-aggrandizing detail, Pierson recounts the players involved, the negotiating tactics and financial terms of each. Interspersed are a series of gossipy conversations with Kevin Smith, the 24-year-old director of Clerks and Mallrats. There is much of value here for aspiring filmmakers; yet Pierson's penchant for business jargon and his determination to appraise each film in economic, rather than cinematic, terms will alienate readers outside the film industry. Pierson now has a ``first-look deal'' with Miramax, a subsidiary of Disney. (Jan.)