INDEPENDENT'S DAY TWO HOLLYWOOD VETERANS GO OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM TO MAKE MOVIES THEIR WAY.

Byline: STORIES BY BOB STRAUSS

>FILM WRITER

In another summer of overproduced sequels and widescreen toy commercials, the virtues of small, heartfelt films hopefully becomes more evident.

That is certainly the case for two Hollywood veterans whose movies are released today. Politically oriented writer-producer-director Rod Lurie went to independent producer Bob Yari ("Crash," "The Illusionist") to make his fourth feature, "Resurrecting the Champ," after some heartbreaking battles in the worlds of major studio filmmaking and network television. For his part, well-regarded art director and production designer Chris Gorak, who's worked for some of the biggest names in the movie business, chose the low-budget, independently financed route for his own provocative writing-directing debut, the intimate doomsday drama "Right at Your Door."

Both filmmakers seem convinced that the creative control afforded independent directors more than makes up for lower production budgets -- and that movies can sometimes even be improved by perceived limitations.

Of course, there are just as many bad indies as there are rotten commercial flicks. But at this point of the year, anything smaller looks like a much better bet.

Rod Lurie

A onetime film critic who got his big break when Steven Spielberg decided to distribute his second independent feature "The Contender," Lurie had a bad experience on his one major studio production, "The Castle." There was a split decisions on the two TV series he wrote and produced, "Line of Fire" (loved it) and "Commander in Chief" (see below).

Lurie went back to his indie roots for his new feature, "Resurrecting the Champ," in which Samuel L. Jackson plays a homeless prizefighter, and Josh Hartnett is the reporter who befriends him for his own gain.

"Champ" wrestles with a journalist's lapse of judgment.

Sometimes journalists decide what the story is ahead of time and drive everything there instead of letting the truth drive you to the story. There's a moment in the movie when Josh tells (his) kid, "This is a really hopeful story." How does he know whether this story of a bum on the street is going to be hopeful or not? He has no idea. But he's decided that it's going to be hopeful.

How independent was the production?

Completely. We shot up in Canada on a low budget with everyone slashing their fees. We had more money than many indies, a few million dollars. But my definition of indie is, I'm making my movie. I didn't have Bob Yari on my back while we were making the film. When I was cutting the movie, he gave me a few notes, but I took some of them to heart and didn't take others. He really allowed me to make my movie. It was that simple.

Was this a reaction to losing "Commander in Chief"?

Of course it was. Listen, I sat quietly by after I was fired and listened to "anonymous sources" within Touchstone or ABC giving a spin on it that I felt was absolutely inaccurate. I wanted (his replacement) Steven Bochco to succeed with the show. Instead he put a flame-thrower to it and destroyed the show with a level of arrogance and certitude that I think that, maybe, is unparalleled in the history of television. It was the network's No. 1 new show, and by the end of the season, it got canceled. Did that make any sense?

(Bochco responded that keeping Lurie would send amixed signal as to who was in charge.)

Your next film, a riff on the Valerie Plame story, is competing with a Warner project.

I really have no idea what's going on with the other Valerie Plame movie and I don't care. I start on Oct. 10; I don't think they even have a screenplay. I wish them the best of luck -- I want to see that movie. But it's not my movie. We're concentrating much more on a reporter character. It's an examination of this woman and how far her principles are going to go. That's the kind of stuff I feel is really interesting. Will you let your principles destroy you?

You wanted to be a mainstream director. Now you sound militantly independent.

I really wanted to become a studio filmmaker. But I'm never going to make a studio film I don't have final cut on. It's too unpleasant an experience, not enough project and too much product. It's an f-ing nightmare, and it's never going to happen again. Life is too short for that. I wasn't such a great journalist, so now I want to try to be a good filmmaker. The only way to do that is to be your own filmmaker. If I'm gonna go down in flames, I want to light my own match.

Chris Gorak

Chris Gorak has worked with some some of the biggest names in the business -- Steven Spielberg, David Fincher, Joel and Ethan Coen and Terry Gilliam.

In his haunting first film, "Right at Your Door," he distills a multipronged terrorist attack on Los Angeles down to a kind of ultimate domestic dispute. When dirty bombs go off around the city, a young man (Rory Cochrane) seals up his modest hillside house according to instructions. When the wife (Mary McCormack) he's been frantically trying to contact staggers home hours later, he can't let her in.

The kind of down-to-the-bone psychological conflict that may be too intense -- or too honest -- for mainstream movie producers' timid tastes ensues.

You destroy L.A. in this film for peanuts.

We're doing an independent disaster film! When you think of things like "Independence Day," our entire budget was what they spent on Post-Its and staplers, $500,000.

Filming such an ambitious project on a low budget must have been hard.

There are financial parameters in the world of independent film. But there is a freedom of creativity because of your financial limits. The tension, the drama, the conflict, the claustrophobia of this story were helped because we were limited. Because we were boxed in, we were able to kind of bottle up the anxiety that this story needed. So it's funny how more money can be the wrong thing for a story like this.

How did your experience on big-budget studio films help you manage?

Some people get it, and some people don't. I've art-directed $100 million films, production-designed a $60 million film but also worked down to $20 (million) and $8 million films and seat-of-your-pants music videos. They all have the same goals creatively but have different financial responsibility models. My producers realized that I could adjust to budget and put the perspective of this big story through the (points of view) of these two characters. I told it through their eyes, their windows, their car windshields or whatever.

Why choose L.A. for the target city?

L.A. is always a heartbeat away from something of an apocalyptic nature. I was awakened by an earthquake at 1 o'clock in the morning a few weeks ago. And L.A. being a terrorist target is not a new idea. Plus, someone on the side of the road changing a tire causes gridlock; I knew how the city would just shut down, especially if there were multiple events. And I live here; I knew L.A. the best.

How accurate do you think your disaster response scenario is?

At Sundance, I was actually approached by someone from the American Red Cross. I thought I was going to get an earful, but he said he was very excited about the way our hero first reacted to the disaster. He went in his car to charge his phone and get news, and that's exactly what people should do when their houses lose power.

Did you pick up tips from the directors you've worked with?

I consider those directors my four food groups. Each one had their strengths, and that's what I'd kind of look at. Watching Steven (Spielberg) work on a big set of a big movie and be a creative improviser is an amazing process. Someone like David Fincher is very prepared and a visionary technical wizard. The Coen brothers hand you a script -- and that's what they shoot; a lot of movies always have rewrites and adjustments, but they're very confident in their story and how they're going to tell it. And Terry Gilliam is just the opposite, a sheer creative force; he's the mad scientist of the group, I think.

Bob Strauss, [phone],

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Films go gonzo for journalists

If "Resurrecting the Champ" whets your appetite for more of the fascinating (to writers like us, anyway) subject of journalists in trouble, here are five classic movies that delve deep into the topic:

ABSENCE OF MALICE:

Sally Field is manipulated by creepy government guys into smearing innocent man Paul Newman in Sydney Pollack's only slightly hokey ethical drama. (1981)

CIRCLE OF DECEIT:

The Lebanese civil war inspires both a personal and professional crisis of conscience in German TV reporter Bruno Ganz. The most politically sophisticated film ever made by "The Tin Drum" director Volker Schlondorff, and that's saying something. (1981)

SHOCK CORRIDOR:

A reporter gets himself committed to a mental asylum in order to investigate a murder there, and ends up going pretty crazy himself. One of tabloid cinema master Sam Fuller's most lurid masterpieces, and YOU'LL BELIEVE EVERY MINUTE OF IT! (1963)

DEADLINE USA:

One of Humphrey Bogart's last great performances was as a muckraking editor trying to bring down a crime boss before his crusading paper is sold and turned into a bland commercial venture. Currently most favored viewing in the Wall Street Journal newsroom. (1952)

CITIZEN KANE:

Something about an unhappy media mogul. This news business -- it'll break yer heart. (1941)

Disaster strikes again and again

One of the many things that makes "Right at Your Door" special is that it portrays an apocalyptic disaster in L.A. that you can actually buy.

For some reason, whenever Hollywood imagines curtains for its hometown, it usually leaves out the human element that would make the disaster seem credible -- or buries it in special effects.

Here's a list of five signature films depicting the destruction of Southern California. It says something about the imaginative bankruptcy of the regional subgenre that the best of the bunch involves giant ants.

VOLCANO:

Wilshire Boulevard goes Krakatoa. (1997)

INDEPENDENCE DAY:

The slowest-moving fireball in human or alien history destroys a car-clogged commuter tunnel. Fortunately the dog survives. (1996)

ESCAPE FROM L.A.:

John Carpenter's disappointing sequel to his overrated-to-

begin-with "Escape From New York" reckons whatever part of the city that doesn't fall into the ocean would make a great future penal colony. Hey, if they don't hurry up and build more prisons like the Governator wants ... (1996)

EARTHQUAKE:

The only probable scenario in this group is undone by cheesy melodrama, horrid miscasting and, well, '70s special effects that look every clunky bit their age. (1974)

THEM!:

The giant ant one. Still nifty, for what it is. (1954)

CAPTION(S):

6 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Outside chance

Directors of 'Right At Your Door' and 'Resurrecting the Champ' take the indie route

(2) no caption (Rod Lurie)

(3) Josh Hartnett, left, is a reporter who befriends Samuel L. Jackson's former prizefighter, who has become homeless, in "Resurrecting the Champ."

(4) Even Mary McCormack can't get in when rory Cochrane, the man who plays her husband in "Right at Your Door," seals up their house after a terrorist attack.

(5) no caption (scene from a movie)