CS Weekly Archive > The Big Picture > 7/2/08

Los Angeles Film Festival:
Closing Days

compiled By david michael wharton

Creative Screenwriting's Jeff Goldsmith and Danny Munso were on hand for the closing days of the Los Angeles Film Festival 2008, which presented everything from fading rock stars to American presidents.

While the second half of the Los Angeles Film Fest (LAFF) featured lots of well-written dramas (Ballast), documentaries (Man on a Wire), and archival restorations (Shadows by Cassavetes), it should also be noted that comedy lightened the cinematic landscape as well. While CS was locked out of the Edgar Wright Q&A for Spaced—his fantastic BBC comedy making its way into U.S. DVD players for the first time this month—great indy comedies continued to win over the LAFF crowd.

The Sundance sensation The Wackness, winner of the 2008 Audience Award, played equally well for the Los Angeles crowd. Debut writer-director Jonathan Levine perfectly captures the spirit of a post-high-school summer in 1994 and with it the hearts and minds of his audience. Without a doubt The Wackness is the first film this year that features character-driven writing so strong that it's nomination worthy. It's also easy to see how an Oscar winner like Ben Kingsley was attracted to such a multi-layered, well-written supporting role. Levine's sublime comedic writing and direction draws in the audience only so that he can then floor them with the film's unexpected intimate and emotional moments. The Wackness opens in L.A. and New York this weekend and is not to be missed. You can read more about The Wackness in the July/August 2008 issue of Creative Screenwriting Magazine, and in this week of the CS Podcast in iTunes.

The Duplas Brothers (The Puffy Chair) screened their Sundance hit Baghead, a film that will easily win over the hearts of screenwriters as its story concerns four struggling actors who decide they need to write their own screenplay in order to further their career. They hole up at Big Bear Mountain in a lonely cabin and decide since the horror genre is hot, maybe they can create their own masterpiece of the genre. The friends agree on the concept of a murderous stranger with a bag over his head, but only a few hours after conjuring the concept, a visitation by a silent stranger with a burlap bag over his head creeps out both our heroes and the audience. Is it one of the four actors? A friend of theirs? A legitimate threat? What starts funny ends spooky in this well-constructed indy film opening around the U.S. in July.

A still-unsold comedy, HottieBoombaLottie certainly gained a lot of fans at the fest as well. The creation of debut writer, producer, director, and star Seth Packard, the film tells a tale of high school love sought by an outsider, played by Packard, and as he explained, the title comes from his own high school experience. "HottieBoombaLottie is a word that I remember the cheerleaders in my high school using to describe the hot guys in the school," Packard says. When asked how autobiographical this high school comedy is, Packard concedes, "More than I'd like to admit. But it's also a mesh of all my nerdy friends. Almost all of the stories either happened to me or one of my friends."

With only one feature film under his belt, Packard also yielded some sound advice for new filmmakers. "Get a good script," Packard says. "If you have a good script, the rest can fall into place. There's no substitute for a good script. If you can't find a good script, learn what it takes to write one. Study your favorite films, films that you think work. Dissect them. Write an outline of what the film is doing and why it works. Then find a film that doesn't work, dissect it. Understand why it doesn't work."

The centerpiece film gala was a real treat, featuring the documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil!, held outdoors at the John Ford Theater and featuring a live performance by the band following the screening. This documentary at times feels like a reality TV show, since Anvil! documents the efforts of these fallen rock stars, the "Demigods of Canadian metal," who are now desperately trying to get a big break after the clock ran out on their 15 minutes of fame in the early 1980s. The two originators of the band, now in their early 50s, must deal with what it means to live in obscurity as an artist still hoping to make it. Director Sacha Gervasi toured with the band as a roadie in the 1980s while in high school and used his insight into their music and interpersonal relationships to make a film that's heartbreakingly funny and also inspiring to any artist who simply refuses to quit. The film and performance will be traveling around the nation in a roadshow fashion, so keep an eye out for it, and of course look for an Anvil! Q&A from the event (and possibly some live performance as well) in an upcoming CS Podcast.

Thursday saw the festival play host to a screening of the 1995 film The American President, which included a talk with the film's director, Rob Reiner. Billed as a timely film being shown in an election year, the movie didn't come across that way. Perhaps the President of the United States dating women was taboo in 1995, but that seems very PG given some of the more recent Oval Office exploits of a certain Commander in Chief. That said, The American President makes up for being somewhat dated with its considerable charm and razor-sharp script by Aaron Sorkin, who a short time later returned to the White House with The West Wing. In only his second screenplay, Sorkin clearly had his writing style down already, and the scenes seem to jump right off the screen, whether it's a crowded departmental meeting or just some quiet father-daughter moments.

Reiner, himself very involved in politics, relished the opportunity to compare the country's outlook now and then, and left no doubt about which side of the party line he occupies. But politics aside, Reiner is a great filmmaker and he was able to share his view of Sorkin's script, which he flatly stated was "so impressive that it seemed like it only took me a few minutes to read." Reiner and Sorkin had worked together before on A Few Good Men, but was still floored by President's first draft. "I knew Aaron was a good writer," he said, "but even I didn't know he was that good." While it would have been great to have Sorkin and Reiner there together, it was nice to see that even on a night when he was not there, Sorkin's script still got the praise it deserved.

The Los Angeles Film Festival closed with writer-director Guillermo del Toro presenting Hellboy II: The Golden Army. This well-constructed sequel sold out four theaters in Westwood and remained the hot-ticket for Saturday night. The film combines simplistically creative visual effects concepts with tenable character writing and delivers a crowd-pleaser fit to do well upon release. The following after party, like the premiere, took up an entire city block where fest-goers schmoozed, drank, ate, and had a heck of a good time beneath the stars. Marking the end of another successful year, the Los Angeles Film Festival proved once again that if you're a screenwriter/cinephile living in L.A. you're truly missing out if you're not at the film festival happening at your doorstep.

Jeff Goldsmith and Danny Munso contributed to this article.

The Wackness courtesy Sony Classics
Anvil! courtesy Gold Circle Films
Hellboy II: The Golden Army courtesy Universal Studios

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