Flying Low with the Film Editor of a local paper

As I was sipping my espresso this morning, I stumbled on a piece in the LA Weekly called "Air France", where its Film Editor encourages readers to go see cinematic slush such as Sky Fighters despite admitting they’re bad. His take is that they’re commercial, accessible and might be turned into Hollywood remakes while he slams other films for being too pretentious. His article ends on a word of praise for his own Black Box — probably the most Americanized film of the festival — that he interprets as a cynical portrait of a corrupt society — I didn’t see that but maybe the subtitles came from a different film.

I don’t know how much of an authority he is on French films — even though he seems to have great credentials — but not only does he not seem to understand the identity of French cinema but he wrongly assumes LA Weekly readers will go to a French festival to see American-style pop-corn flicks rather than — possibly pretentious — psychological works. No, in a city like LA, American film-goers will want to see genres where the French excel: comedies, psychological bores and edgy sex-fueled fares. As for products like Sky Fighters, it’s actually the French who will go see them. So please, stop sending your readers to the wrong films.