CS Weekly Archive > The Big Picture > 6/27/08

Los Angeles Film Festival 2008

compiled By david michael wharton

A group of Creative Screenwriting and CS Weekly writers spent a few warm summer nights in the best way possible: seeing new movies and meeting filmmakers. CS Weekly brings you part one of our two-part coverage of the 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival.

The Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF) began with a bang last Thursday night by hosting the world premiere of Wanted (co-written by Michael Brandt & Derek Haas and Chris Morgan, based on the comic-book created by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones). Attendance was so high that the screening was spread out between three sold-out movie theaters in Westwood, proving from the outset just how healthy LAFF's presence truly is as it unleashed an amazing 10-day lineup that includes 175 narrative features, documentaries, shorts, and music videos. The post-Wanted block party featured the L.A. film community at its finest as film school students and film enthusiasts mixed with the film's stars, entertainment journalists, and development executives, as well as producers, writers, and directors from the festival's lineup. The LAFF's diverse programming should satisfy the taste-buds of writers from the sum total of genres and styles. Socially, it's also a great way to connect with the Los Angeles film community in a positive setting where cinematic enthusiasm becomes contagious. Similar to the Screenwriting Expo, LAFF provides various Q&As with top filmmakers that offer an intimate insight into their craft and work habits. There's a lot to cover at the fest, and the web was spread wide by CS Weekly's very own Amy Dawes, Jason Davis, Jeff Goldsmith, and Danny Munso, who scoured the fest to provide the following highlights.

Twenty-three years after screenwriters Lawrence and Mark Kasdan revived the Western film genre with Silverado, the film still holds up brilliantly and was the focus of a Q&A and screening moderated by National Public Radio's Elvis Mitchell. Lawrence, who also directed the film, said that development executives at the time thought they were crazy to try and do a Western and had numerous problems financing the film. Which is why when Lawrence finally found backing, he gave up his salary as part of the deal and shot during the winter so his financiers wouldn't have a chance to back out. As Lawrence explained, Silverado was a tribute to the heroic Westerns he grew up with. Lawrence explained that Columbia studio chief Frank Price's first comment to him upon watching the film with a crowd was, "I didn't realize this was a comedy." Yet the comedic wit of the film reinforces its positively heroic nature, which contrasted the previous slew of darker Westerns made in the years before. "There were a lot of elegiac westerns with cars coming into the last shot [signaling] the end of the West," Lawrence says. "I decided to do it for fun. If we did it now, everyone would've died."

During the Q&A a lost sequence was brought up, which concerned Native Americans capturing the settlers whom the heroes rescue earlier in the film (rather than the white bandits of the final film). Ultimately, as the Kasdans explained, the Native American political tone didn't blend well with the rest of their script, and such a sequence would have added over a million dollars to the already $20 million budget.

The 460-seat Majestic Crest Theater in Westwood was sold out for the Entertainment Weekly-hosted sneak peak of The X-Files: I Want to Believe. Six years after the show's finale, X-Files fandom was alive and well as two clips from the movie unspooled to squeals of delight. The first intercut a young woman's attack by an unseen creature with an FBI manhunt across a snow-covered field, while the second unveiled Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson). Writer-director Chris Carter, writer-producer Frank Spotnitz, and Duchovny then took the stage to "confuse, inveigle, and obfuscate" for an hour as EW's Whitney Pastorek tried in vain to learn more about the film's mysterious plot. Questions directed to Duchovny or Spotnitz were followed by a glance to Carter, who would either nod or shake his head. Duchovny alluded to a three-word line of dialogue that summed the film up for him. Carter noted that he and Spotnitz took research trip to Cleveland and revealed that, "One night…we were filming in a place that was not exactly in the script and it was not exactly scripted. I swear to you, no one on the crew, including this man," he indicates Spotnitz, "knew what I was doing."

A spate of super-hot weather gave rise to balmy nights, particularly enjoyable during a poolside filmmakers reception Monday night, during which comic Jeff Garlin (HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm) cracked wise at the mike and Sundance jury prize winner Courtney Hunt (Frozen River) relaxed with a cocktail before the Q&A of her film, which was making its L.A. debut at a venue nearby. Also in the crowd circulating the swimming hole at the W Hotel was at least one of the transgendered ladies featured in the documentary Trinidad, about the little southern Colorado town that has become the nation's sex-change capital. That well-made film, which premiered to very enthusiastic response Sunday afternoon at the capacious Majestic Crest theater, offers a penetrating, candid, and ultimately inspiring interlude with several of the transitioning patients, their loved ones, and Dr. Marci Bowers, the transgendered doctor who now performs the life-changing surgeries. Filmmakers P.J. Raval and Jay Hodges, who said they'd made at least eight trips to Trinidad over two years to get the story, were on hand.

Even more impressive was the superb documentary Man on Wire, which also stood out at Sundance, winning both the jury prize and the documentary audience award. Filmmaker James Marsh always finds a compelling story; he's the one who broke though with Troubleman in 1994, about the murder of Marvin Gaye at the hands of his father. This time he's crafted a fascinating tale about a man obsessed: French wire walker Philippe Petit, who fantasized about 'dancing in the air' between the twin towers of the World Trade Center before they were even constructed, and finally pulls it off in the summer of 1974, crossing the chasm eight times with no net or harness before he's arrested. It really is poetry in motion; and writers take note: it's constructed like a marvelous caper film, complete with flawed and unpredictable characters in his support team. Very sharply told, it's a strong model for narrative as well as documentary writing, as well as a damn fine yarn.

A big treat for festgoers was the unspooling Sunday at the Billy Wilder theater of the 1939 George Cukor movie The Women as a prelude to the release in September of writer-director Diane English's update. English was present to show a clip from the new movie—the confrontation in a department store dressing room between a wronged wife and her rival (Meg Ryan and Eva Mendez)—and to do a Q&A, at which she said of the upcoming movie, "It has a real sea change shift in it, which is that it's a valentine to women." (The original play, by Claire Booth Luce, was more of a poison pen letter).

Well-attended, but not as successful, was the world premiere in narrative competition of The Poker House, the directorial debut by Lori Petty (Tank Girl), who co-wrote with thesp David Alan Grier. The gritty day-in-the-life story follows a trio of neglected young girls growing up in conditions of severe neglect in a party house in which their strung-out mom (Selma Blair) entertains her paying customers and her pimp. Based on Petty's own early life, it has a socko climax, but meanders plenty on the way there, and is notable mostly for the affecting lead performance by teenage newcomer Jennifer Lawrence.

Judging by the lines around the block, one of the more sought-after tickets at the festival was an event to mark the U.S. DVD release of the cult British TV hit Spaced, created by a then-unknown Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes. The two-hour session featured the screening of two episodes of the series, plus a long conversation with director Edgar Wright, who went on to collaborate with Pegg on Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. The show, which only ran for two seasons and a grand total of 14 episodes, is a true gem and its influence can be felt in many subsequent shows both here and across the pond. Though the series has been available on DVD in the UK since 2001, BBC Video was finally able to bring it to an American audience, though as Wright pointed out, many were able to check it out anyway. It's tough to argue with him, since he revealed that the DVD will include commentary tracks from such famous fans as Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Diablo Cody, and many more.

On Monday, Entertainment Weekly sponsored a talk with the father/son tandem of Ivan and Jason Reitman. While the one-hour conversation was lively and entertaining, it did focus a little too much on Jason's recent rash of success, rather than Ivan's past hits. I know Juno was the darling of the Oscars, but let's not forget Ivan directed Ghostbusters. Which of those two films will people still be talking about in 50 years? The talk was best as Jason explained how he fell in love with films while frequently visiting his father's film sets and interacting with the cast and crew. "Those experiences were formative for me," he said. "It's easy to fall in love with movies when that's all you're exposed to." It was also nice to see how proud Ivan was of his son, which was said more in the subtext of his words. But again, it would have been nice for the event to acknowledge that, despite the son's recent hot streak, Dad was no slouch either.

A disappointing session was the Screenwriter Coffee Talk, an annual event that has admittedly been hit or miss in the past as well. This year featured Shane Black (Lethal Weapon), Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en), and was moderated by Rita Hsiao (Toy Story 2). The information doled out here was too project-specific to gain any real insight into how these authors truly work, and Black in particular seemed more interested in telling fun stories than explaining how he writes. Walker was the event's star, cracking up the crowd on more than one occasion, and going into how it felt for him to work on Universal's upcoming blockbuster The Wolf Man, since he's never worked quite on that scale before.

Though they aren't quite as well attended as some of the previously mentioned events, the competition films are always a personal highlight, as it gives the viewer a chance to see some passion projects that are off the beaten path and ones they wouldn't normally catch in theaters or on DVD. The standout so far is co-writer/director Sean Baker's Prince of Broadway, the story of illegal immigrant Lucky, who is involved in some shady salesmanship and is suddenly forced to take care of an infant child that may or may not be his. The story is both jarring and moving at times, and announces Baker as a talent to watch in the future. The documentary film Largo was a personal highlight for CS writer Danny Munso, who's been a face in the crowd many times at the eponymous music club. Says Munso: The film comes at an interesting time, since the owner has recently moved venues and the new theater doesn't have the intimate feel of the club you see in the film. In the narrative competition, writer-director Barry Jenkins' Medicine for Melancholy starts off promising enough, featuring snappy, personal dialogue that evokes early Woody Allen or the Before Sunrise films. But the story loses focus near its conclusion, and though it contains some powerful moments, the script betrays itself a little. Similarly, I'll Come Running, written by Spencer Parsons and Line Langebek Knudsen, has its moments, but becomes too cookie-cutter to deliver any sort of emotional punch.

A few years back, LAFF showed an archival print of the seminal kung-fu film, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin before it was available on DVD in the US. The response was overwhelming, and in continuing with its ongoing partnership with the UCLA Film and Television Archive, LAFF hosted a five-night mini-festival featuring the works of legendary kung-fu action producers Run Run and Romme Shaw, a.k.a. The Shaw Brothers. Their films have inspired action writers and directors around the world, including Quentin Tarantino, who began Kill Bill, Volume 1 with the Shaw Brothers film logo.

This year two of the five "Shaw Sensation" selections were penned by 36th Chamber co-writer Kuang Ni and included The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (1983) and The Boxer From Shantung (1972). Thematically, revenge is an important part of both films, as once our protagonist decides he's ready to enact it, nothing can stop him (including the promise of his own demise). While Pole Fighter played as a solid, by-the-numbers genre film, Boxer delivered a strongly character-driven film that strangely and structurally resembled much of 1982's Scarface remake, even thought Boxer was produced nine years beforehand. Ma (Kuan Tai Chen), a poor farmer immigrant to Shanghai, rises up through the gangland one step at a time until, right as he nears the top of his game, his insatiable greed and jealousy push him into a fatalistic standoff with his foes.

Director Cheh Chang always held writer-director Sam Peckinpah's work in high regard, and the aforementioned battle bathes both the audience and the characters on-screen in enough bright-red blood to make Peckinpah blush. Yet the bloody fight relies not only on great choreography, but on well-thought-out action concepts as well. For instance, when our wounded hero fails three times to climb a set of rickety wooden stairs to kill the villain, he instead concedes he'll never make it up the stairs and uses the last of his strength to destroy the crumbling foundation of the stairs so that the rival mob boss falls to the ground inches away from him. Then, to payoff over half the film's foreshadowing of these characters' inevitable doomed meeting, Ma painfully crawls to the rival boss who's trapped under the debris and delivers a very up-close and personal death blow. It's another smartly written moment in a film brimming with them, and which never takes the easy road when considering its character-driven fight scenes.

The best of contemporary world cinema was present in many forms at the LAFF, especially with its genre selections. Take the 2007 Swedish film Let the Right One In, written by John Ajvide Lindqvist. This brilliantly simplistic film examines the relationship that develops between a 12-year-old vampire girl, Eli (Lina Leandersson), and the lonely 12-year-old boy Oscar (Kåre Hedebrant) who lives next door to her. Already slated for an American remake, this high-concept pic perfectly blends a realistic creepiness with a genuine coming-of-age story as these two unlikely companions grow closer, setting aside the physiological differences and leaning on each other as lonely souls greatly in need of friendship. Lindqvist also creatively re-interprets popular blood-sucker mythology in one riveting scene where Oskar silently taunts his vampiric friend to enter his apartment without being verbally invited in. A moment after Eli defiantly breaches the open doorway, her eyes, ears, and hair follicles begin dripping blood. Yet, she doesn't run away, and stands there fuming like a child holding its breath until a very scared Oskar blurts out, "I invite you in! Please, please come in!" Lindqvist created a pitch-perfect genre tale that always puts character in front of gore, which is something we can only hope the American remake takes time to mirror.

Jason Davis, Amy Dawes, Jeff Goldsmith, and Danny Munso contributed to this article.

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