Arts & Culture

The American Film Institute’s annual film festival, which took place Nov. 8-15, is arguably Los Angeles’ best and most comprehensive annual fete of feature, documentary, short, animated, domestic and foreign cinema. Here are capsule reviews of some of AFI Fest 2018’s myriad productions.

THE WEEKEND -

Woody Allen’s films have sometimes been criticized for their dearth of Black characters, even if most of the Manhattanite’s movies have been set and shot in New York City. This despite the fact that according to the 2006-2008 U.S. Census 25.1% of NYC’s 8.5 million residents are Black - somehow the Woodman consistently managed to miss the estimated 2,086,566 Black people residing in New York City. Toronto-born writer/director Stella Meghie may not be American, but she is of African ancestry and her new rom-com, The Weekend, is a sort of all-Black Woody Allen type of comedy.

The American Film Institute’s annual film festival is arguably Los Angeles’ best and most comprehensive annual fete of feature, documentary, short, animated, domestic and foreign cinema. Here are capsule reviews of some of AFI Fest 2018’s myriad productions.

NON-FICTION -

The son of film/TV director Jacques Remy (best known for directing the Inspector Maigret series), Olivier Assayas continues the aesthetic of the French New Wave’s auteurs. His sensibilities seem to range from Francois Truffaut’s (when it comes to romance) to Jean-Luc Godard’s in terms of politics (if not film form). His previous movies include the 2002 thriller Demonlover and works dealing with leftwing subjects - 2010’s Golden Globe winner Carlos, about terrorist “Carlos the Jackal,” which scored Edgar Ramirez Emmy and Golden Globe acting noms, plus 2012’s superb Something in the Air, about French radicals shortly after the May 1968 student-worker uprising.

What is Politicon?

Politicon is to politics what San Diego’s annual Comic-Con is to comic books and superheroes - a convention geared for news junkies, avid followers of current affairs, talking points and of the talking heads who spew them in the rarefied realm of cable TV, talk radio, ripped-from-the-headlines books, newspapers, magazines, the Internet and beyond. This fourth annual confab has provided Angelenos with another encounter, live and in person, with pundits, commentators, spinmeisters, speechwriters, journalists of the chattering class, etc., who are mostly based in Washington, DeCeit and Manhattan. There weren’t any current candidates or officeholders per se in the various forums, panels, etc. - but rather those who comment upon and cover politicians and politics.

La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts’ crowd pleasing production of Agatha Christie’s beloved 1934 Murder on the Orient Express is a highly entertaining combination of murder, mystery, mirth and morality. Stage and screen stalwart Tony Amendola steps into the spats-covered shoes of Christie’s character Hercule Poirot, the quirky Belgian detective previously portrayed by Albert Finney and Kenneth Branagh (sporting the world’s worst mustache) in star-studded 1974 and 2017 movie versions of Christie’s bestseller, and by Alfred Molina and renowned Poirot portrayer David Suchet in 2001 and 2010 TV versions of Orient Express. The iteration currently on the boards is the West Coast premiere of the first stage rendition of Christie’s novel, written by Ken Ludwig (whose comedic Lend Me a Tenor has also been performed at La Mirada’s beautiful venue).

A Bravura, Colossal Opera of Activism

To support his musical habit and pay the bills, for 20 years among other day jobs composer Philip Glass was a cab driver in New York City. But being a hack finally paid off in 1980 as the Glass ceiling was shattered when Satyagraha burst upon the Schouwburg’s stage in Rotterdam, Holland.

There’s a tendency to look down on opera as a centuries’ old art form that’s an outdated medium for old maids, stuffed shirts and all-around fuddy-duddies. But Glass’ revolutionary Satyagraha gives the lie to that clichéd canard. Through mesmerizing music, magisterial stagemanship, surreal scenery, radical politics and more, this three-act, three-hour-plus operatic extravaganza about Mohandas K. Gandhi’s (tenor Sean Panikkar, Pennsylvania-born son of immigrants from Sri Lanka) struggle for social justice is a tour-de-force. 

Novelist Henry James’ 1898 Gothic novella The Turn of the Screw has oft been adapted for the big and little screen, opera and in its latest incarnation by playwright Jeffrey Hatcher, it’s currently scaring the bejesus out of ticket buyers at The Harold Clurman Lab Theater - just in time for Halloween. Set in 1870s England, The Woman (Australian actress Emily Sulzberger) answers a newspaper ad placed by a British gentleman (Sean Spann displays the span of his acting range in multiple parts) seeking a live-in instructor for his niece and nephew living in a posh country manor.

America has never been as divided as it is today - except, perhaps, for that little kerfuffle called the Civil War and maybe that hawks-versus- doves dustup over the Vietnam War. Conflict makes for good drama - but it just may be that it makes for even better comedy. The whole Red State versus Blue State clash now dividing the USA between conservatives and liberals (and beyond), pro- and anti-Trumpers, etc., has been finding its way into our comedies, like sitcoms such as the Murphy Brown reboot and Roseanne-cum-The Connors. On the big screen, The Oath is a left-versus-right laugh riot.

Unforgettable. That’s the best word to describe Joan Baez’s recent show in Cleveland. The setlist consisted of socially conscious songs spanning nearly 60 years and topics from the Civil Rights movement to women’s rights and labor activism. Her voice was as clear and beautiful as it was at Woodstock and she surrounded herself with gifted musicians and singers. As sonically pleasing as the concert was, it was so much more.

Director Damien Chazelle has had a meteoric rise in the Hollywood firmament. His 2014 hit Whiplash had a $3.3 million production budget and earned more than $13 million at the box office, while 2016’s La La Land cost $30 million. Presumably because that musical scored five times its costs, Chazelle’s latest movie, First Man, almost doubled La La Land’s budget. I usually don’t dwell on film finances and focus instead on cinematic aesthetics, social commentary, film history and the like, but in the case of First Man the movie’s money matters have impacted upon its style - and in a mostly negative way.

The film’s title character is Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling), the first man to step foot on the moon. Like Miles Teller’s wannabe drummer in Whiplash and Emma Stone’s aspiring actress and Gosling’s striving jazz pianist in La La Land, First Man’s protagonist is - in this case, literally - reaching for the stars, against impossible odds.

In Dubious Battle - More militant than and written before The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck depicted a bitter Red-led strike in California’s orchards in his 1936 novel. James Franco stars in and directed this neglected 2016 gem with Selena Gomez, Robert Duvall, Ed Harris, Bryan Cranston (who previously portrayed blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo), Vincent D’Onofrio.

WHAT: Screening of In Dubious Battle; 113 minutess. Film historian/critic Ed Rampell intros the film, followed by Q&A.

WHEN: Doors open 7:00 p.m., program starts by 7:30 p.m., on Thursday, Oct. 25.

Where: The L.A. Workers Center, 1251 S. St. Andrews Place, L.A., CA 90019. Refreshments served. Donations requested.