Two local festivals launch for their second year, plus the week’s best films in L.A.
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Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
The Los Angeles Festival of Movies launched its second edition on Thursday with the West Coast premiere of Amalia Ulman’s “Magic Farm,” starring Ulman, Chloë Sevigny and Alex Wolff. The festival runs through Sunday with events at venues all east of Hollywood.
Though there are several new films in the lineup, including Andrew DeYoung’s “Friendship” starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd, Neo Sora’s “Happyend,” Grace Glowicki’s “Dead Lover” and Charlie Shackleton’s “Zodiac Killer Project,” I wrote something focused on the two restorations in the lineup, both from 1981, Jessie Maple’s “Will” and Robina Rose’s “Nightshift.”
Maple was among the first Black women to direct an independent feature film. “Will” is a powerfully direct drama about a former all-American basketball player (Obaka Adedunyo) attempting to move forward in his life from drug addiction, in part through the support of his wife (Loretta Devine) and a local boy (Robert Dean) he takes in and calls “Little Brother.”
“Nightshift” is based on Rose’s own experiences working at a West London hotel, where overnight events could be unpredictable. Shot at the Portobello Hotel for a few days over a Christmas break, the film takes on a fantastical quality, exploring the zone between waking and dreaming.
Both films fit right in alongside the festival’s other offerings, signaling a connection to previous notions of counterculture and alternative methods of production and distribution. As the festival’s artistic director and co-founder Micah Gottlieb put it, “With revivals, we’re trying to make an implicit argument that these independent films — each of them a triumph of strong vision and limited resources — should also be more widely recognized and seen as part of a broader tradition of bold and visionary work.”
‘This Is Not a Fiction’ documentary festival returns
Also in its second year will be American Cinematheque’s “This Is Not a Fiction” documentary series, launching Wednesday with the world premiere of Season 2 of the travel series “Conan O’Brien Must Go.”
By spotlighting television work made with a documentary sensibility alongside more conventional documentary features, the festival expands the definition of nonfiction filmmaking.
“It’s not a traditional documentary festival,” said Chris LeMaire, senior film programmer at the Cinematheque and co-founder of the festival with Cindy Flores. “We really think of what are the different forms of nonfiction and then when you get to those boundaries of what nonfiction is, I think that’s when fun things can happen.”
Among the series highlights will be two 2024 films from Radu Jude, “Eight Postcards From Utopia” and “Sleep #2.” There will be a 35mm screening of Godfrey Reggio’s 1982 “Koyaanisqatsi,” as well as the L.A. premiere of the 4K restoration of Charles Burnett’s “Killer of Sheep.”
Alek Keshishian’s 1991 tour film “Madonna: Truth or Dare” will play at the Egyptian, while the Los Feliz 3 will host a double bill of John Heyn and Jeff Krulik’s 1986 “Heavy Metal Parking Lot” and Todd Phillips’ 1993 “Hated: GG Allin and the Murder Junkies.”
Errol Morris will be present at screenings for a number of his movies, including a double bill of 1978’s “Gates of Heaven” and 1981’s “Vernon, Florida” with a Q&A moderated by Bill Hader. Morris will also be at a double bill of 1988’s “The Thin Blue Line” and 1991’s “A Brief History of Time” as well as at a screening of his recent “Chaos: The Manson Murders.” Elsewhere during the week, he’ll introduce a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.”
Following a screening of Kazuo Hara’s 1987 “The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On,” Morris and Hara will appear together for a Q&A.
Also as part of the festival’s consideration of work made for television, there will be tribute to the reality TV show “Survivor” featuring host Jeff Probst, and a 10th anniversary event for the show “Documentary Now!” with Hader, Fred Armisen and other collaborators on the series that affectionately spoofs famed documentaries.
The festival’s closing night on April 17 will feature the L.A. premieres of Richard Green’s “I Know Catherine, the Log Lady,” about “Twin Peaks” icon Catherine Coulson, Season 3 of “100 Foot Wave” and Courtney Stephens and Michael Almereyda’s “John Lily and the Earth Coincidence Control Office.”
“It’s such a huge lineup,” said LeMaire. “We also really wanted to make sure we had something that would interest everyone. There’s a certain preconceived idea often with traditional documentary what that means in terms of a specific form of storytelling and a specific form of delivering information. Which we really appreciate and give space to in this festival, but we also really want to make it seem exciting and fun across the board, something that feels very different going on every night and at opposite venues too. So we’re proud of it and I think we really took it to the next level in year two.”
‘Beyond Barbie’ at UCLA
On Sunday the UCLA Film and Television Archive will launch a new series called “Beyond Barbie” that will run through early June. Opening with Ana Rose Holmer’s 2015 film “The Fits,” the series will look at recent depictions of adolescent girlhood from around the globe. Holmer and editor Saela Davis will be there for a Q&A, and the evening will have an introduction from writer-director Natalie Jasmine Harris, represented by the 2024 short “Grace.”
Programmer Beandrea July explained the double meaning of the series’ title, saying in an email, “Yes, it’s definitely a nod to the ‘Barbie’ movie — undeniably one of the biggest box office events related to girlhood in recent years. While the film isn’t exactly about adolescent girls, it has become emblematic of mainstream feminist storytelling and sparked a wave of cultural conversation.
“That said, I also felt like some of those conversations were limiting. ‘Barbie’ brought these ideas into the spotlight, but the series is an opportunity to go deeper. The title is a little tongue-in-cheek, but it also signals that we intend to engage with some of the same questions in a more expansive and textured way.”
Other films in the series include Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Oscar-nominated 2015 “Mustang,” (with Ergüven present for a Q&A), Maïmouna Doucouré’s 2020 “Cuties,” Debra Granik’s 2018 “Leave No Trace” (with Granik for a video Q&A), Nora Fingscheidt’s 2019 “System Crasher” and Shireen Seno’s 2017 “Nervous Translation,” with Seno in person.
With films from the Philippines, Turkey, Spain, Germany and France as well as the United States, the program looks at how many young women are facing similar issues that cross borders and cultures.
“Many of the most compelling films I encountered were made by non-American directors, and I wanted to reflect that,” said July. “There’s a universality to the themes these films explore — identity, self-esteem, autonomy — but each one is shaped by its specific cultural and national context. … Many of the most daring portrayals of girlhood right now aren’t coming from Hollywood, and I wanted to highlight that. And that said, Debra Granik and Anna Rose Holmer are two American filmmakers in the series who both present fascinating portraits of girls that feel very fresh.”
Points of interest
Kenneth Turan and Justin Chang talk ‘Bombshell’
On Saturday the UCLA Film and Television Archive will screen Victor Fleming’s 1933 “Bombshell,” starring Jean Harlow, in 35mm. The event will also include a conversation between former Times film critics Kenneth Turan and Justin Chang. Before the movie, Turan will also be signing copies of his new book “Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg: The Whole Equation.”
I will also be leading a conversation with Turan at the upcoming Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on April 26 as part of a panel titled “Hollywood in the Golden Age: Sex, Scandal, and the Making of an Industry” along with authors Mallory O’Meara (“Daughter of Daring: The Trick-Riding, Train-Leaping, Road-Racing Life of Helen Gibson, Hollywood’s First Stuntwoman”) and Claire Hoffman (“Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson”).
“Bombshell” is a great jumping-off point for these conversations. The film satirizes the star-making machinery of Hollywood, with Harlow playing a popular actress attempting to find romance amid the madness of the industry that surrounds her.
On Oct. 29, 1933, Norbert Lusk wrote in The Times, “The picture is too merciless in stripping illusion from life behind the scenes of Hollywood. … In this it is represented as farce, a travesty of insincerity, and that is pretty strong fare for those who cherish illusions. It is more revealing than the frankest story published in a newspaper or magazine.”
Just a few days earlier, on Oct. 27, 1933, columnist Grace Kingsley said of the film in The Times, “If movie stars, indeed, have that turbulent time in their private lives, no wonder they get nervous breakdowns. I nearly got one just watching it. Everything that ever happens to a film celebrity happens to Jean in ‘Bombshell.’ … But it’s all in fun, and you’re going to have a gay time seeing it.”
‘Play It as It Lays’ in 4K
On Sunday, the American Cinematheque will host the L.A. premiere of the new 4K restoration of Frank Perry’s 1972 “Play It as It Lays” with an introduction from screenwriter Larry Karaszewski, an avowed Perry fan.
One of those films that for too long was very difficult to see in any format, the movie was adapted from the Joan Didion novel of the same name by Didion herself and her husband, John Gregory Dunne. “Play It as It Lays” is likely the best cinematic distillation of Didion’s distinctive sensibility and perspective on Los Angeles.
Tuesday Weld plays a woman struck by intense dissatisfaction with all the wealth and privilege her life affords her, estranged from her film-director husband and uncertain of her future.
Reviewing the film in 1972, Charles Champlin wrote, “Joan Didion’s neurotic, disintegrating heroine, pacing and reminiscing through the stately grounds of a private mental institution as we meet her and leave her, is drawn from a sub-sub-culture. She is from a rarefied part of Hollywood, which is rare enough to begin with and distinct from Southern California, which is in turn distinct from anywhere else. … [The world] Frank Perry has filmed with such conscientious and hard-working craftsmanship is at once so special and so confining that ‘Play It as It Lays” is interesting as technique and almost wholly unmoving as documentary or drama. But women whose perceptions I admire are moved by it and find it — and Miss Weld — correlatives for their own dissatisfaction.”
‘Secret Mall Apartment’
The documentary “Secret Mall Apartment” was one of my favorite films at the South by Southwest Film and TV Festival last year, and it is only now reaching theaters, playing in L.A. at the Alamo Drafthouse and Vidiots. Directed by Jeremy Workman, with Jesse Eisenberg as a producer, the film tells the saga of how a group of artists in Providence, R.I., built a secret apartment in hidden, unused space within the infrastructure of a sprawling local shopping mall. Transforming the space also changed their sense of purpose about it, as what started as a lark turned into a cherished meeting place, de facto clubhouse and indeed a living space that they maintained for years until they were eventually discovered.
What might seem to be little more than an extended prank comes to take on a deeper meaning, as the apartment comes to symbolize something greater: how to live a creative life and something of a last stand against the ways in which society can crush the artistic spirit of adventure.
In other news
Val Kilmer dies at 65
Even though it was widely known that actor Val Kilmer had long been battling throat cancer, there was still something quite shocking this week about the news of his death at age 65.
From his debut in “Top Secret!” to roles in “Real Genius,” “Top Gun,” “Tombstone,” “Kill Me Again,” “The Doors,” “Batman Forever,” “Heat,” “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” Kilmer always brought an intensity and vitality to his roles.
When the documentary “Val,” drawn largely from decades of Kilmer’s own home video footage, was released in 2021, I had the opportunity to interview the actor via email. Of his reputation for being difficult to work with, he answered, “I thought, naively, that the quality of the work would outweigh the perception of me being difficult. One can only hope, but it is the hope that ‘kills’ you.”
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