CS Weekly Archive > The Big Picture > 06/29/07

Shock Jocks and Sickos:
The 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival

By danny munso & jeff goldsmith

The Los Angeles Film Festival invades Westwood once again with its unique combination of new and classic films, exclusive talks with some of Hollywood's greatest screenwriters, and a one-hour chat with a baseball-wearing documentary filmmaker who has been known to divide opinions like no other.

The opening night gala at this year's Los Angeles Film Festival was the premiere of Talk to Me, where the film was celebrated in style. When the lights came up, it turned out that the kudos were well deserved. The film follows ex-con Petey Greene (Don Cheadle) as he strikes up an unlikely friendship with radio executive Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and ends up on the Washington D.C. airwaves, becoming a spokesman for his generation and an iconic figure in the civil rights movement. The script was written by Michael Genet (She Hate Me) and Rick Famuyiwa (Brown Sugar), who hook you into the character of Petey right from the opening scene.

Although the film is riotously funny much of the time, the centerpiece of the movie is the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the resulting riots that encompass D.C. shortly afterwards. The power that this sequence elicits is hard to put into words, but several audience members (myself included) were moved to tears over an event already well documented. It is through these events that we discover who Petey and Dewey really are and how close they have become. In recent memory, only a few moments on film can capture the kind of magic that those 15 minutes did.

Unfortunately, after this emotional crescendo, the film takes a dip in quality. Dr. King's death signals an all-time high of Petey's influence, and Dewey, a strong believer in his friend's message and potential, wants to have Petey heard all over the country. He begins booking club dates where Petey can deliver his views as a comic, and it even leads to an appearance on The Tonight Show, where Petey crashes and burns. The third act focuses on the duo's friendship, but it's too rushed and spans too many years to have the emotional impact it probably should. That said, it wasn't enough to completely derail the film, which, up until that point, had potential to be truly great.

The Screenwriters Panel sponsored by the Writers Guild of America is a long-standing festival tradition where three writers speak in an open forum on the craft and business of screenwriting. This year we were treated to four: Phil Alden Robinson (Field of Dreams), Allison Anders (Gas Food Lodging), and the panel's first ever writing team, Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski (Ed Wood, 1408). Anders served as the session's moderator and proved more than capable, easily transitioning the others' responses into more descriptive questions. If anything, she did too good of a job and sometimes forgot to include her own answers before moving on—a shame since she is a great writer in her own respect.

The only problem with an hour-long panel that features four great writers is that you're bound to have a lot of quick responses where the writer isn't allowed to go into detail. That said, some interesting exchanges took place among the panelists. Anders prompted Robinson to discuss adaptation, a field where he works almost exclusively. When writing the first draft of Field of Dreams, Robinson remarked that he "had the book (Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella) open while writing my first draft, just lifting prose from the novel and using it as exposition and dialogue. Then when I handed in the draft, the executive said, 'OK, you wrote W.P. Kinsella's first draft, now go write yours."

Alexander and Karaszewski latched onto the adaptation thread, since their latest one, 1408, just debuted to laudatory reviews and over $20 million at the box office. They agreed with Robinson's thoughts that the first draft is usually incredibly faithful to the book. "It's almost like once you get that first draft down," Alexander says, "then you can throw the book out and just work from there." Karaszewski adds that sometimes it's better to toss the book out and begin putting more of yourself into the project. "Our days seem to be filled with all these weird moments and conversations," he said, "and we just love typing those into our scripts."

Anders also wondered how they got past rough patches in their scripts, citing times where she would literally have to leave the house to avoid staring at the blank page. Robinson put it best when he said that "writing on some level is a leap of faith where you say to yourself, 'I am the best person to do this.' For me, it's always about, what does the character want to do? I will strip everything away that the scene doesn't need and then work from there."

Later in the evening, the festival paid tribute to the legendary Robert Benton, who sat down with film critic Elvis Mitchell for a career-retrospective and to talk about his upcoming film The Feast of Love, a romantic drama starring Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear that's set amongst a community of friends in Oregon. Among Benton's many accomplishments is the fact that he made his screenwriting debut with none other than Bonnie and Clyde, one of the greatest films in history. Benton later moved into directing, helming the classic Kramer vs. Kramer (for which he won both the writing and directing Oscars), as well as beloved films like Places in the Heart and Nobody's Fool.

As was the case last year when Richard Linklater sat down for a similar chat, the talk was directing-heavy, as opposed to focusing on Benton's screenwriting work. A lot of time was devoted to his transition from a writer into a writer-director, his battles with producers, and how he learned to trust actors to deliver his lines. Benton is a gifted storyteller, regaling the audience with tales of old-time Hollywood and how he has stayed relevant in today's changing industry. He did offer an interesting note to writers on a perhaps untapped resource in their scripts. "Location is the most important thing in a screenplay," he proclaimed. "Just as a character must be true to themselves, the location must be true to what it is as well. Use it and explore it."

The Festival offered a unique viewing experience with an outdoor screening of 1927 silent Mexican film Iron Fist at the landmark John Anson Ford Ampitheater. This special screening featured a new score by Tijuana electronica maestros Nortec Collective, which breathed new energy into the film. Iron Fist concerns a young couple drawn into a morphine-fueled nightmare filled with kidnappings, murders, and addiction. Although sometimes silly (child detectives try to fight a drug gang), the film takes a much more serious look at the dangers of drug addiction than the campier American-made Reefer Madness would nine years later. Nortec Collective's excellent score added another layer to the already dreamlike landscape of the film and made for a great night outdoors at the movies.

One festival highlight was a screening of 1972's The Man. Based on the novel by Irving Wallace and adapted by Rod Serling, The Man concerns the accidental inauguration of America's first African-American president, Douglas Dilman (James Earl Jones). Thrust into the Oval Office via a fluke in the laws of succession after the president dies abroad and the vice-president is too sick to take office, Dilman faces racism and back-room politicking aimed at removing him and impeding his power. The Man posits how America would react to an African- American president that they didn't elect. After watering down the book and making it for TV, a young Barry Diller decided The Man was too good for television and gave it a theatrical release where it wound up lost in the shuffle. The Man imbued a level of satire and political savvy that still felt relevant after all these years.

Centerpiece gala Joshua was the feature debut of documentary director George Ratliff (Hell House), who co-wrote Joshua with David Gilbert. The film concerns a family bringing home a newborn baby girl who receives a cold reception from her older brother, Joshua (Jacob Kogan). Post-partum depression, sibling rivalry, sleep-deprivation, and a little madness pepper this psychological drama that kept audiences on the edge of their seats. Stars Kogan and Sam Rockwell were on hand for the screening and party, as was co-writer-director Ratliff.

On Monday night, festival-goers were given a treat in the form of filmmaker Michael Moore. Thanks to Entertainment Weekly, 100 lucky people had an intimate chat with the documentary director, so up close and personal that microphones weren't even needed. Moore was there to discuss his new film, Sicko, which tackles a sensitive subject in America: our health care system. As you might expect, Sicko has all the hallmarks of a Moore film: biting homor and plenty of controversy balanced against its share of powerful, emotional moments.

The hour was moderated by EW Senior Editor Dan Fierman, who told that crowd that this was his ninth or tenth time interviewing Moore (Fierman recently wrote a great cover story on Moore than was on newsstands a few weeks ago). Fierman's relationship with Moore turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. Their back and forth was wonderful, and Fierman seemed to know when to let Moore go off and tangents and when to reign him in, but some more obvious questions were missed, particularly when it comes to Moore's filmmaking, which seemed to take a backseat to Moore's politics, as it usually does. When Fierman opened it up to take some audience questions, Moore fielded three straight filmmaking questions, causing him to remark, "I love getting these filmmaking questions. All I'm ever asked about is politics!"

Unlike many documentary directors, Moore does not operate with an outline. "I first think of the idea," he explained. "But I can never outline because I don't know what the film is going to be yet. Bowling for Columbine began as a different movie than I thought it would be. I have to wait until everything is filmed and then I can begin to create my film."

Moore went on to describe his initial vision for Sicko, in which he posted a message on the Internet calling for stories about individuals who are suffering without health care. He thought he would be able to pick some of the best ones and then make a film that culminated with them getting the care they needed via the publicity their stories would obtain. "The problem was," he said, "we wound up with over 20,000 responses, and I realized we couldn't possibly pick only 10 from these stories. We'd be playing God in a way, and I didn't want to do that. So, instead, we went out and found our own."

While his views on America's health-care system and his opinions on the upcoming presidential election took up most of his time, Moore did respond to a query about why he makes the films he does. Why does he put himself on the line to get an agenda across? "Honestly, I just want to make a good movie," he said. "I try and think about the kind of film I can go to on a Friday night and watch while eating some popcorn. That's all I ever do when starting out."

Click here for part two of our coverage!

Danny Munso graduated from film school in 2004 and can currently be found on his computer working on one of his many half-written screenplays. Or, more likely, he's on the Internet checking the scores of his beloved Bay Area sports teams.

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.

Talk to Me courtesy Focus Features
Joshua courtesy Fox Searchlight
Sicko courtesy The Weinstein Company

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