Saturday, June 24, 2006

The Los Angeles Film Festival 6/22-7/2

The Los Angeles Film Festival is back with a new home in Westwood! Though this list is by no means comprehensive, here are Plume Noire’s picks at the Los Angeles Film Festival:

Several exciting screenings will take place at the Ford Amphitheatre. For Angelinos who listen to Indie 103.1 and can’t let their punk past go in spite of their day jobs, watching Steve Jones present The Filth and the Fury Live! will border on ecstasy. Another definite highlight is Richard Linklater’s adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s sci-fi novel A Scanner Darkly, in the animation style of Waking Life. Starring Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., and Woody Harrelson. The Harder They Come, a Jamaican classic starring reggae great Jimmy Cliff, will also screen.

One night will mean choosing between An Inconvenient Truth presented by Al Gore himself at California Plaza or Leonard Cohen I’m Your Man with Leonard Cohen in a rare public appearance. Thirty-somethings can revel in their memories of the 80’s in The Lather Effect, starring Tate Donovan and Ione Skye. Those who enjoyed Kissing Jessica Stein should check out Ira & Abby, a comedic look at dysfunctional relationships. In Quinceañera, gentrification, teenage pregnancy and a Mexican tradition meet at the crossroads of Echo Park, a Los Angeles neighborhood.

While there aren’t tons of Latin American films this year, the documentary East of Havana, produced by Charlize Theron, takes a look at Cuban rappers and the Brazilian film House of Sand, unites stunning actress Fernanda Montenegro and her daughter Fernanda Torres along with Seu Jorge, who sang David Bowie songs in Portuguese in The Life Aquatic.

If eating Frankenfood freaks you out, then Our Daily Bread, an Austrian film that details the food manufacturing plants, will likely haunt you and force you to plan your organic garden immediately. The documentary Matthew Barney: No Restraint features Bjork and deconstructs his life and art.

The Los Angeles Fim Festival’s Guilty Pleasures series includes Snoop Dog’s Hood of Horror and the Tae Kwon Do comedy The Foot Fist Way.

The Free Screenings include the aforementioned An Inconvenient Truth, the classic love story West Side Story, a movie about how movies are made: Cinematographer Style, and Maquilápolis (city of factories), a documentary that probes corporate exploitation of Mexican workers and the labor movement growing along the border. Like last year’s Romantico and Maid in America, the Los Angeles Film Festival has chosen another film that chronicles the complex immigration issues in this country.

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