New Film Chronicles South L.A. High School Rugby Teams' Journey to New Zealand
South L.A. rugby program ICEF Rugby took its first international trip to compete in Hong Kong in 2006, and film and T.V. crews have been scouting its two high school teams ever since. First there was...
View ArticleYes, Anita Ho Is the Name of a Real Movie
How many Asians in film can you name? Sure, there are some of the obvious ones, like Ang Lee or Jackie Chan. But most people probably can't list more than ten. To try and help spread the word of Asians...
View Article10 Films You Must See From the L.A. Comedy Shorts Festival
This past weekend at the Downtown Independent was the fifth annual Los Angeles Comedy Shorts Film Festival, featuring ten film blocks of shorts. Topics (and interpretation of "short") varied in the...
View ArticleA Film Showing Grandchildren of Auschwitz Survivors Who Tattoo the Numbers on...
It's been over sixty years since the Holocaust, but time has not faded the memories for those who survived it. And as part of this year's 27th Israel Film Festival, a tribute will be made to the...
View ArticleTCM Classic Film Festival: Watching Hollywood's Greatest Films on Its Most...
Hollywood Boulevard during the TCM Classic Film Festival is mostly business as usual: Captain Jack Sparrow and Marilyn Monroe walk up and down the street to the delight of camera-wielding tourists,...
View ArticleFive Dance Shows to See in L.A. This Week, Including a Dance in a Vintage...
This week's dance events include the return of Dance Camera West dance film festival and Eifman Ballet's sensual bio-ballet Rodin. See also: *5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week *Our Latest Theater...
View ArticleWill Anyone Buy My Amazing Festival Movie?
As tends to be the case, several of the best films made in the last year have yet to screen outside of the festival circuit. For some this is because their scheduled release date simply hasn't arrived;...
View ArticleThe Greatest Gathering of Vine Creators Ever
Andy Warhol overshot when he predicted everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes. Apparently, all one needs is six seconds. That's the length of a Vine, the video app explored during last Sunday's...
View ArticleThe Best of West African Cinema, at LACMA and LMU
Though it's often overlooked on the repertory circuit, West African film has long been a rich and vital voice in global cinema. Mired in tragedy, the region's colonial history has inspired a volatile...
View ArticleHungarian and Italian Film Fests, and an Alice in Wonderland Ballet: Your...
Friday, Nov. 15 The 13th Hungarian Film Festival makes its way back to Laemmle's NoHo 7, with two features and a short on Friday. At 7:15 p.m., watch The Notebook, based on Hungarian writer Agota...
View ArticleSundance: A Documentary Defends Pamela Smart, the Sexpot Schoolteacher...
Pamela Smart, the sexpot schoolteacher who seduced three teenage boys to shoot her husband, has been imprisoned without parole since 1991. Her official release year is sometime in 9999, assuming that...
View ArticleGuantanamo Babe: Will Audiences Take Kristen Stewart Seriously as a Soldier...
Kristen Stewart spent five Twilight films getting rescued by werewolves and vampires. Consider Camp X-Ray, her rebuttal to a half-decade of playing damsels in distress. As Guantanamo guard Private...
View ArticleIs Sugar the New Cigarettes? Sundance's Fed Up Thinks So
Sixty years ago, Fred Flintstone hawked Winston cigarettes. Today, he pitches cereal. And both can kill. Stephanie Soechtig's rabble-rousing documentary Fed Up argues that it's time to attack Big Sugar...
View ArticleWhy Do We Judge When We Watch People Dance? Living Stars Reveals the Truth
Every Sundance there's a crowd-pleaser, and most years it's got one degree of separation from the Little Miss Sunshine crew. But the most delightful flick of the 2014 fest is an unconventional...
View ArticleNymphomaniac, the Lars Von Trier Porn Movie That Isn't a Porn Movie
Let's start with the ending: the closing credits disclaimer that insists that none of the lead actors in Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac filmed penetrative sex. If there is real sex in the movie, and it...
View ArticleSundance 2014: Ten Films to Watch
For Robert Redford, Sundance's opening day was a bummer. He woke up to learn the Academy had snubbed him for a (deserved) Best Actor nod for the sparse yachting drama All Is Lost, and had to spend his...
View ArticleA Found Footage Fest at L.A. Filmforum
Anyone weary of Paranormal Activity's take on the found-footage genre need look no further than the Egyptian's Spielberg Theatre for a healthy dose of the real thing. Hosted by L.A. Filmforum and...
View ArticleFound Footage Festival Reunites 1980s Public Access TV Stars This Week in L.A.
When comedy writers Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett launched the Found Footage Festival out of a Manhattan bar in 2004, it was a means of showcasing the odd assortment of found VHS tapes they'd collected...
View ArticleEtheria Film Night Screens Horror and Sci-Fi Movies Made by Women
Etheria Film Night is out to dispel that women don't want to be directors. More importantly, the new film festival exists to address the misconception that women don't direct scenes that bleed, crash...
View ArticleTales of the Grim Sleeper Uncovers New Victims and Shames the LAPD
Sixty-six-year-old British documentarian Nick Broomfield didn't blend in when he went cruising around South Central Los Angeles to retrace a 22-year serial killing spree for his upcoming doc Tales of...
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