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[bryant]

The Brattle begins their LA Noir film series tonight with Los Angeles Plays Itself. It's a documentary/clip show about the way LA has been portrayed in film over the decades. In a weird kind of a way, it sounds like Ackroyd's London in cinematic form; Los Angeles is a character in this movie, not just a subject.

Also showing over the course of the next week or so: Chinatown (Jack), Criss Cross (not the boy band), This Gun For Hire (Veronica Lake, Alan Ladd), Point Blank (Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson), Collateral (Tom Cruise), and To Live And Die In L.A. (everybody Wang Chung tonight). Sweet lineup. Must viewing.

Comments

[carneggy.livejournal.com]

I'm amazed they aren't including LA Confidential, considering.

[bryant]

Me too. I'd guess it's a money thing. Most of those would be pretty cheap to rent.

Mulholland Falls wouldn't suck either.

[totient]

So I finally saw this (at the Harvard Film Archive, where it is also playing Sunday night). And I was mostly disappointed: there were a few good sequences pertaining to architecture, but Anderen is that annoying kind of small-minded literalist and this played as though he carried with him at all times notebook of film grudges, and had then alphabetized them by subject. Maybe if he had been less langorous about it; there was a lot of overuse of film dialogue to support his points.

A sidenote: The film was digitally projected 4x3, which fact caused one of the audience to storm out in a snit, bringing back fond memories of my decision *not* to major in VES as an undergrad. I had thought it odd to combine architecture and film into one department, but one evening in the Carpenter center was enough to let me see that the major was really 'pretentiousness' and the fit is excellent.

[bryant]

I wound up missing it, which I kinda regret but I kinda had a feeling it might turn out just like you said it did. When you get right down to it, I didn't so much want to see a movie bitching about how LA is portrayed in movies -- I'm interested in the subject, but I'm not interested in hearing about how Hollywood gets it wrong. I live in Boston; I know all about how Hollywood screws up city depictions.