Category: Commentary

The Los Angeles Film Festival announced its line-up today, and any fears that its new director might steer the festival–with its solid line-up several years running–in an untoward direction have been put to rest. Some of the highlights follow.

The latest edition of the always excellent “The Films That Got Away” series programmed by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association:

• Musica Nocturna, described by Robert Koehler as “the most realistic depiction of a married couple that I’ve seen on screen since Cassavetes.”

• The Silence Before Bach, which I’ve been dying to see ever since it earned …

Drag Me to Hell (left); Enter the Void (top right); Thirst (bottom right)

By Robert Koehler

Lost amid the general, conventional sense of the Cannes competition lineup (see here) as a colloquium of auteurs–from Haneke to Campion, Audiard to Tsai, To to Resnais–is the fact that, for better or worse, the Palais will be the site of a bloodbath this year. There will be a whole lot of killers stalking around the lineup that Thierry Fremaux and Gilles Jacob have constructed. In his good rundown of all the sections announced today, complete with reference links, IFC Daily‘s David …

Robert Koehler has been a longtime supporter of–and occasional contributor to–Film Journey, and I have written many times of my respect and admiration for Rose Kuo, who has transformed AFI FEST in Los Angeles the past couple of years into a major festival for world cinema, so I’m delighted to quote Variety‘s announcement yesterday:

“Robert Koehler, longtime film critic and freelance writer for Variety and other publications, has been tapped director of programming for this year’s edition of AFI Fest.

Due to assume his duties in May, Koehler will work as the fest’s No. 2 under artistic

I understand that the rainy season in Los Angeles extends through March, and that temperatures quickly rise after June Gloom burns off, but as a devotee of the many smaller ethnic/national film festivals in the city, I’m distressed that so many of them have chosen April as their play date. Los Angeles famously could use some coalescing of its film culture, so it’s unfortunate that its festivals are so unduly competitive (even after the ill-fated Russian Nights festival dropped out of the running):

• Vietnamese International Film Festival (April 2 – 12)

• Japan Film Festival (April 10 – 19)…