Category: Commentary

An explanation about these two lists. You may notice that one overlaps the other. The world premieres list includes only movies that were first seen anywhere in the world in 2017, in festivals, commercial release or some other type of exhibition. The U.S./Los Angeles list is, as usual, a record of how the U.S. is a laggard in screening many significant world premieres. What this means is that, as usual, U.S. film festivals are much slower than festivals in other parts of the world to screen important, essential movies. So while these (overlapping ) lists may include a lot of …

News has finally arrived that the biggest Los Angeles repertory success story of the last ten years, Cinefamily, is permanently shutting its doors due to accusations of sexual impropriety and harassment among its employees. I write “success story” (even though the owners now say they have “crippling debt”) because Cinefamily, especially in its early years (say, 2007-2012), was regularly touted by local culture commentators as “some of the most vibrant and unusual repertory and independent-film programming in the country.” This included art house, music videos, cable video, repertory, and many other genres programmed on a nightly basis. And Cinefamily had …

I’ve got a piece in today’s LA Weekly previewing Academy @ LACMA’s new Orson Welles series, the most comprehensive in this city in at least a decade. The series includes more readily available titles, but there are a few more films Welles directed that are available online; I thought I’d list some here:

The Fountain of Youth (1956) (YouTube) This very witty television show, based on a story by mid-century fantasist John Collier, was only broadcast once in 1958, but it still managed to win a Peabody Award. It was intended to be the pilot for an …