AN INDIE FILMMAKER'S DRIVING NEED

Living out of a van with five other young cinephiles for the past several months, Twin Cities native Todd Sklar has been compensating for the downsized state of independent film distribution by personally bringing movies to theaters across the country.

On Tuesday night his new company, Range Life Entertainment, will stop at the Trylon microcinema in south Minneapolis to present two comedies -- "Adventures of Power," starring Michael McKean, Jane Lynch and Adrian Grenier (7 p.m.), and "Assassination of a High School President" with Bruce Willis (9 p.m.) -- that have scarcely been shown on big screens since premiering at the Sundance festival almost two years ago.

"A number of the [distribution] companies that could've picked up these high-caliber movies went out of business last year," said Sklar, whose current tour has included screenings of a dozen films, including his own low-budget comedy "Box Elder" and the Minnesota-filmed "Nobody," in more than 20 U.S. cities.

The Trylon, at 3258 Minnehaha Av. S., is an intimate 50-seat room. Sklar said the greatest pleasure of his tour was discovering that despite the rise of video-on-demand technologies, there's still a hunger for the communal experience of movies.

"The more things become digitally oriented in the film world, the more valuable our old-school model becomes to an audience. The theatrical experience is a special one. It's like sending someone a letter or a postcard instead of an e-mail."

ROB NELSON