ALSO READ: "Night 1, Game 7: Look Out!"
With close to 100 films screening over 11 days, the Los Angeles Film Festival can offer a daunting array of possibilities.
So for those inclined to sample the offerings on display in downtown Los Angeles from June 17-27, here’s a little help: a dozen (all right, a baker’s dozen) good reasons to go downtown.
Lucky Elephant" style="margin: 15px; height: 301px; width: 200px; float: left;" src="/files/u1482/__One_Lucky_Elephant_selected_still.jpg" />
Understand, this is a selective sample that only scratches the surface, and in the vast majority of cases it’s based on things I’ve heard rather than on actually seeing the movies. (I’ll be down there myself trying to check out many of them.)
I’ve left out some of the high-profile films at the festival: Closing-day attraction “Despicable Me” is a major studio release that’ll soon be on billboards all over town, while the opening-night film, Lisa Cholodenko’s “The Kids Are All Right” (which I hear is wonderful) is sold out.
And you certainly don’t need me to tell you about the “festival adjacent” premiere of “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse”; you’re either really interested in it, or you’re really not interested it.
(Note: the full schedule, and ticket information, is available at LAFilmFest.com.
“Ain’t In It for My Health: A Film About Levon Helm” (right)
Back when Martin Scorsese made “The Last Waltz” in 1976, the Band’s songwriter, Robbie Robertson, talked lots about how the road had been the death of that great American rock group. But the Band’s drummer, Levon Helm, never stopped playing or touring, despite drugs and bankruptcy and throat cancer. Director Jacob Hatley offers an intimate (and to my mind, essential) portrait of the best singing drummer in rock ‘n’ roll history.
“Animal Kingdom”
A tough Australian drama about petty crooks, vicious thugs and a teen who has to negotiate his way through the criminals in his family and the cops on his tail, David Michod’s spare, dark film moves to a deliberate pace and continuously rachets up the tension. Most of the violence is not explicit, but the film is definitely not for the faint-of-heart.
“Cane Toads: The Conquest” (left)
Worried about beetles threatening their sugar crop, Australian farmers imported cane toads in the 1930s. Oops. A billion and a half toads later, Mark Lewis has followed his 1988 short film with what is reportedly an irreverent, unhinged, tongue-in-cheek look at environmental catastrophe – in 3D, no less. This one looks like a hoot and a half.
“Cyrus”
The Duplass Brothers move from mumblecore to semi-mainstream – or, at least, they recruit a batch of mainstream actors (Jonah Hill, John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei) for an Oedipal comedy that looks as creepy as it is amusing. A “freakishly engrossing black comedy,” says the Village Voice.
War" style="margin: 15px; height: 225px; width: 300px; float: right;" src="/files/u1482/Disco_and_Atomic_War_1.jpg" />“Disco and Atomic War” (right)
This one is a favorite of the festival’s artistic director, longtime critic David Ansen, and a tale of cultural revolution via bad TV.
