CS Weekly Archive > Happenings > 7/1/05

Until Next Year:
The 2005 Los Angeles Film Festival

By jeff goldsmith

Some free booze, some good independent films, a few bad independent films, and a whole lotta local film enthusiasts were what you missed if you missed the 2005 L.A. Film Festival.

The Fest
After achieving record-breaking attendance, the 2005 L.A. Film Festival wound down Sunday with the premiere of its closing night film, Happy Endings. Film fans, filmmakers, journalists, and model/actress/whatevers alike went through the annoying metal detector security check before finding their seats for this well-crafted dramedy. Celeb and Happy Endings star Lisa Kudrow made a speech thanking writer/director Don Roos for writing such an original work and giving her the opportunity to act in it. And honestly, Kudrow puts in a great performance, just as she's continued to do within various independent films the past few years and HBO's well-written summer show The Comeback.

As a script, Happy Endings runs slightly long, but worked well to entertain. It also employed an amusing device to cover up Roos' lack of interest in filmic exposition: witty title cards, explaining away background information within seconds rather than wasting time with a few scenes to convey the same information. It was a welcome approach to the ever-popular voiceover solution and worked well here. (You can read the Don Roos interview in the July/August issue of Creative Screenwriting Magazine, on stands now!) After the film, some tasty food and booze were procured at the swanky Lions Gate party at LA's Palomino restaurant -- and only a few sandal-clad feet were stepped on during the initial mad rush to the bar.

Other happenings in the final week: Wu-Tang Clan founding member The RZA, who has worked on film scores for both Quentin Tarantino and Jim Jarmusch, packed the house for a midnight screening of the kung-fu classic The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, something that all kung-fu genre fans should get a chance to experience. The Cal Arts student film that became a feature, Trona screened to a warm response as audiences let their minds wander along with the film's protagonist, who trades in his 9 - 5 gig for a rusting desert car-junkyard. While the film set up an interesting world to visit, its lack of narrative thrust ultimately hurts its pacing and leaves us scratching our head regarding the journey we've been on. The Forrest for the Trees made audiences squirm with awkwardness as they watched the film's protagonist struggle to find friends in the town she's just moved to. It's a small German film that plays like a Danish Dogma film and is always a pleasure to watch.

The fest wrapped up and again proved that, even within the studio-centric town of LA, a thriving independent film community happily exists, and for l1 days its denizens from all the various area codes converged to watch films, talk about them and maybe even give birth to a project that will hopefully be on screens at next year's festival.

Events for Writers
At Friday night's "Shane Black's Noir: Uncovering Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang," the Lethal Weapon screenwriter (who makes his feature directing debut with this fall's Kiss, Kiss) told an audience that his struggles with depression and isolation are at the root of his work. Black confessed that he's drawn to writing about characters who, despite being ostracized from society, are the ones who get results, explaining how his own protagonists (like Lethal Weapon's Martin Riggs, The Last Boy Scout's Joe Hallenbeck) are the loathed Frankenstein monsters that the civilized world shuns, yet can't exist without. Using clips from several films, including Kiss, Kiss, Black pointed out that someone with a hostile, surly exterior (like Quint in Jaws) is forgiven if there's a "spark" of steadfast justice to the character, something that allows them to push further, harder, and often more violently than anyone else in the movie's world to do what's right. The flawed, but ultimately honorable, persona -- such as the title character in Dirty Harry, one of the writer's inspirations -- is probably the most consistent motif in Black's material.

2005's LA Film Festival proved its worth both on a filmic and informative level with plenty of great events for screenwriters of all varieties. While you're waiting for FIND's 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival to roll around, join over 4,000 screenwriters from around the world this November as Creative Screenwriting Magazine hosts Screenwriting Expo 4 -- a full three-day weekend of guests of honor, seminars, trade shows, and much, much more, completely writer-centric! Read more about it here!

Ari Eisner contributed the "Black's Noir" coverage for this article.

Jeff Goldsmith is senior editor for Creative Screenwriting magazine and serves as the Los Angeles Events Coordinator in charge of the Creative Screenwriting screening series.

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