Music

At LACMA on Saturday night, a girl in a white Victorian dress sat on a bench with her hands folded, looking pissed off. A photographer from the clothing company Clockwork Couture stood a few feet away.
“Want to sit in her lap?” the photographer asked me.
“I think I’m okay,” I said. The girl looked so familiar, I had to ask. “Have you ever watched True Blood?” I asked.
She stared at me. “I know what you’re going to say,” she snapped. “Lorena, right? I hear it all the time.” She looked coldly into the camera as it flashed.
I guess I don’t blame her for being pissed off. I would be too, if I had to pose with bystanders at the fourteenth annual LACMA Muse ‘Til Midnight event, where the clothing was Victorian, the food supplied was chips and salsa, and there was an open bar. The tickets were $40 for non-members, $25 for Muse members, and it was hard to see what all the fuss was about.
The event sounded great, in theory: a neo-Victorian dress-up night at the museum, coinciding with the Thomas Eakins and Catherine Opie show, Manly Pursuits. Eakins painted wrestlers and rowers in intimate situations in the late 1800-early 1900’s, while Opie currently photographs teenage football players and surfers. Connecting the two artists requires a stretch of imagination, but the show is a valuable statement about the forced efforts and vulnerability of masculinity.
However, the Muse ‘Til Midnight event didn’t have much to do with the show, or with anything at the museum. The event was described by a Yelp user like this: “A full line-up of entertainment with open bar in an unique environment for $25-$40? On a Saturday night? In Los Angeles? Even including parking? Do I need to keep asking rhetorical questions?” Unfortunately, the event became a Los Angeles situation in which too many good ideas were not executed properly, with too many people in attendance to leave such margin for error.
After waiting in a long line, guests were ushered into the museum’s main plaza where Dusty and the River Band played and video projections flashed on the walls. Two performers on stilts made their way through the crowd, surrounded by a thick circle of photographers, documenting the “insanity” for various nightlife blogs. Two stilt-walkers, a couple of dancers and some people in costumes didn’t seem like enough to justify paying $40, but let’s not forget about that open bar, which included “100% Agave Tequila, Blackheart Spiced Rum, Hpnotiq Liqueur, Pernod Absinthe, and FIJI Water.” It seems that people will spend any amount of money to get sloshed while wearing a corset.
Maybe next time, LACMA should make dressing up for the event mandatory, as the people who were wearing full neo-Victorian garb looked to be having the best time. Many people wore costumes from Clockwork Couture, a “steampunk” line that mixes Victorian clothing with modern touches, while others had improvised their own costumes. A thin blonde woman and her chunkier date wore matching top hats and lace-up boots, trailing long feathers behind them. Another woman wore a corset and a matching flowered neck brace, and many men (and women) sported fantastic moustaches.
At ten o’clock, everyone was ushered into a much longer line leading to the roof of the Penthouse suite, only accessible by an elevator. (Too bad for the claustrophobes.) The roof offered a nice city view of the Variety building, along with some mysterious devices, including a giant telescope and various contraptions used to “measure electrical phenomena.” A stage was set up for a burlesque show, and a dancer in chalky makeup tiptoed around the crowd en pointe as flashbulbs popped all around her.
Nearby, a man wearing suspenders rested his foot on a stack of pillows. “I sprained my foot, but this is awesome,” he declared, looking at the dancer. “Look at this. Look at her. Can you believe it?” I could believe it, though next time I would prefer to look at photos of the event rather than attend. Despite the congestion, chips and salsa, long lines and limited number of performers, it seemed like many people had a wonderful time. Never underestimate the power of a little absinthe.

- By Cassandra McGrath

For mose information about LACMA, and any upcoming Muse events, please visit www.lacma.org/membership/Muse.aspx, or call 323-857-6000.

By far one of the greatest opening sequences of any film ever made is Woody Allen’s Manhattan. Yes, it’s the photography, the voice-over narration, the shots of New York City at its finest, but more than anything, it’s George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” The undertow of buzzing clarinet and twinkling piano, combined with the slow, celebratory build of the entire orchestra induces a simultaneous feeling of hopeful anticipation and relaxed confidence. In Gershwin’s own words: “I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness.”

No, no. Too expected. Too pretentious. Calls too much attention to the movie. Try it again.

By far one of the best pieces of music to completely and flawlessly capture the essence of an entire season is “Summertime,” by George Gershwin. Originally conceived for the ‘folk-opera,’ Porgy and Bess, the aria—which has been covered more times than “Blackbird”—manages to somehow smell like summer. You need an iced tea when you hear it. And what better time, what better place than the Hollywood Bowl…

No. Just get to the point, Josh. You’re supposed to be giving away tickets. That’s all people care about. Just do your job.

This Wednesday, August 25^th at 8:00 PM at the Hollywood Bowl, the LA Philharmonic presents Gershwin Across America, an all-star, all-genre tribute to the legendary composer and upcoming CD of the same name. Artists include Jason Mraz, Monica Mancini (daughter of film composer Henry Mancini), gospel singer Bebe Winans, Grammy Award-winning Nancy Wilson), St. Vincent (for the hipster fetishists among us), and an accompanying big band and strings section feautring the Shelly Berg Trio, Gordon Goodwin, Tom Scott, Arturo Sandoval and more.

To win two tickets to this summertime rhapsody of sorts, all you have to do is enter your first name, last name, and e-mail address into the form below,and you will automatically be entered into the running for this concert, as well as our next three ticket giveaways.

I guess that’s good enough. Why make a blog longer than it needs to be? Why even write these things? God, it’s hot out… I wish I could play the piano…

- By Joshua Morrison

The Ford Amphitheatre, located not a stone’s throw away from the Hollywood Bowl off the 101, is a good venue to stage a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or possibly Into the Woods. The sandstone sloped arena, where the audience sits, collides onto a central platform—to be had by the performers—which is backed by a lush, green, jungle-like mountain-side. It’s a little like one of those alternate dimensions you see characters in science fiction movies walk into, and it provides a sense of imminent danger. It’s perfect for Shakespeare, for fairy tales, and as was evidenced in the case of this past Sunday night, for Jews.

As a card-carrying member of Jewish tribe, who has attended my fair share of family Passover dinners, I know all too well the importance of a real or perceived threat (historical oppression, a gentile daughter-in-law, an infamously inedible recipe, etc.) in accommodating the success of a large-form, Jewish get-together. It creates unity. And the effect was no different on Sunday evening at the Ford Amphitheatre when the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony performed their latest melange of classical numbers, entitled “Cinema Judaica,” for a sold out audience of almost all geriatric Jews.

A woman two rows in back of me: “It wouldn’t be a Seder without Bubby’s kogl.”

Another woman holding two fingers together: “Our daughters and Sherri are like this!”

About the conductor: “She let her hair grow longer.”

And indeed the conductor, Dr. Noreen Green—also the founder and Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony—did have long locks of blonde hair that bounced neatly atop her shoulders as she walked casually out to the central, elevated plank, and initiated a  rousing rendition of Alfred Newman’s “20^th Century Fox” theme, arguably the best known musical score in cinema. It was after the piece finished, however, that Dr. Green started in with her second role of the night (equally integral), which was quiz master and all-around emcee.

“What movie won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1956?” she asked aloud to the crowd, following a brief introduction of the program on bill.

“The Ten Commandments,” screamed back some sporadic (though passionate) voices from the audience. But they were wrong. Cecille B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments did not win Best Picture that year; it was just nominated. But it was first up on the night’s listing of Jewish-composed/themed film scores—the composer of this piece being the great Elmer Bernstein.

He was supposedly hired by DeMille after another composer dropped out, and is still credited with changing the face of music for cinema. Hearing his epic “Ten Commandments Suite” played live by truly professional musicians—depsite the summer-camp vibe—I could make out the roots of Laurie Johnson’s Dr. Stangelove score, or even early John Williams.

Bernstein’s composition for The Chosen was next was on the agenda (after, of course, a second round of the ever-more-crowd-pleasing Quiz Show with Dr. Green.) This film demanded both jazz and traditional klezmer, in addition to Bernstein’s classical model. What emerged on stage was a swirling mixture of all three genres. Like a practiced jam band, the bass-players plucked swinging jazz riffs, while the clarinet and synthesized harpsichord snapped along with the klezmer, allowing for improvised sax solos and piano doodles. Never before had I considered the obvious connection between jazz and klezmer; they both rely on similar tools, such as off-key sharps and flats, to attain a colorful, upbeat music of the oppressed.

“There’s so much stuff up here,” kvetched Dr. Green once her second finely-conducted number was finished. The audience laughed, and watched her fiddle with cue-cards, batons, and god knows what else before launching into the most complex piece of the whole night: Jerry Goldsmith’s suite from the six-and-a-half-hour miniseries QB VII. Quick, unexpected changes in tempo, along with diverse instrumentation—congas, xylophones, electric guitars, and the entire Ford Festival Choir—combined for what I can only describe as Sciezmer, a perfect combination between between sci-fi and klezmer. Where the string section appeared semi-bored during the last Bernstein bout, their eyes were locked onto their music stands for this piece. Finishing off the suite with Goldsmith’s purposefully fragmented version of the Mourner’s Kaddish, the music was mesmerizing to say the least.

But just in case it wasn’t exactly a “greatest hit,” the orchestra went on to perform the instantly recognizable theme from Schindler’s List, as composed by John Williams, with Mark Kashper, Associate Principal Second Violinist for the L.A. Philharmonic, playing the solo. This piece was so moving, the couple sitting next to me (who must have been in their 70’s) started holding hands. And they kept them held together all through Charles Fox’s “Victory at Entebbe Suite,” a powerful, pop-y, Phillip Glass-inspired melody, as well as Israeli pianist Andy Feldbau’s own solo arrangement of Alan Menken’s “A Whole New World” from Aladdin. All this before intermission. No one ever said the Jews didn’t know how to squeeze in a good show.

However, Dr. Green and the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony’s directors must have been counting on the majority of the audience falling asleep during the second half, because it simply was not up to par.

First was Danny Pelfrey’s suite from Joseph: King of Dreams, which was rousing if only because it seemed like one long crescendo of music. After that came the song “Trinkt L’Chayim” from Elmer Bernstein and Sylvia Neufeld’s score for Thoroughly Modern Millie. This piece was sung by Ariella Vaccarino, who’s gift lies in her voice, not in her fashion sense (she was wearing a sparkly, red strapless dress that was a bit too Broadway for the event).

And what kind of Jewish symphony would it be without the conductor’s own daughter performing a solo? That’s right: Hannah Drew, the gorgeous (and might I add, finely dressed), 13-year-old seed of Maestra Green sung the title song from Disney’s The Prince of Egypt, as composed by the legendary Stephen Schwartz. I hesitate to critique her performance, because, after all, she’s only 13. But then again, why is her mother hoisting her up on stage at such a fragile age? All I’m going to say is that while Hannah was, for the most part, brave and astonishing, she was clearly a product of intense coaching. In other words, she’s in training, as she should be at 13.

Luckily, the most inspired and fun composition of the night, written by Yuval Ron for the Oscar-winning short film West Bank Story, came next. Ron, himself, played the oud live with the orchestra, and his passion for the Arabian/klezmer/Israeli/show-tune music was palpable. Along with his colleague Jamie Papish on drum, he was on fire.

Lastly and appropriately, the show ended with a reprise of Jerry Goldsmith, this time from his score for the film Masada. It cleanly showed off the overall unity of the orchestra, the immense responsibility it takes from each and every musician to come together as a cohesive and beautiful whole. I looked around the audience, and not a seat was empty. Everyone, even the oldest and the youngest, were still present and awake. I realized that a symphonic piece of music like Goldsmith’s is not a bad metaphor for Masada, or even Jewishness in general. Because group unity (borne from individuality) is what’s it’s all about.

- By Joshua Morrison

Photography by Guy Madmoni.

For more information about Ford Amphitheatre events, please visit www.fordamphitheater.org, or call 323-461-3673.

I have mixed feelings about Rent.

On one hand, the wildly popular, Tony Award-winning musical turned major motion picture seems to have climaxed to the level of bubbly pop non-sense—Joey Fatone playing no small role in this symbolic transformation. (Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Team America: World Police decidedly contains the best satirical take on Rent to date: a group of overjoyed actors on a Broadway stage, clapping their hands to the lyrics, “We’ve all got AIDS!”—the bourgeois audience happily joining in).

On the other hand, Rent is a great show. It reinvented the musical genre and operatic concept for a younger audience, told a worthwhile and relevent story, had some excellent numbers that I still find myself singing in the shower, and originated from the genuine heart and soul of a true artist: Jonathan Larson.

In a weird way, the on-going legacy of Rent has begun to reflect its central theme, which, to me, is the struggle between the intentions of romantic integrity and the compromises of life’s daily realities. Where Larson once insisted on casting actors with little or no experience, the role of Mimi in the film adaptation was handed over to Rosario Dawson. Where the production was once a simple staged reading at the New York Theatre Workshop, the latest tours have ventured as far as Slovakia and Guam. And where the first two rows of every Broadway show were once reserved for the homeless (or at least whoever stood in line the whole day), tickets now sell upwards of $200 a pop.

Late July and we’re knee-deep in festival season. You’ve likely hit a few events from the Slamdance, the LA Film Fest, the Fringe Fest, Outfest, Comic-Con, the Middle Eastern Comedy Fest, Lilith Fair…the list goes on and on. The urge to see it all keeps us coming back, but I know, festival fatigue is strong. Hang in there, though—we’re at the home stretch. The REDCAT’s NOW Festival, which kicked off this weekend, should bring festival season to a spectacular end.

The New Original Works Festival features new dance, theater, music, and multimedia performance works by artists who are known for their often radical and unconventional approaches. While Week One (with work from Maureen Huskey and Killsonic) may have past us by, there’s still time to catch Weeks Two and Three, beginning this Thursday, July 29th.

Three artists make up Week Two of NOW: Christine Marie & Ensemble, in the expressionist theater piece “Ground to Cloud,” uses projections, electric light and shadowplay to unfold a multidimensional mythology of nature and human intervention. Systems of Us, from choreographer Rae Shao-Lan Blum & composer Tashi Wada, explores the disruption and transformation of relationships in a dance collaboration that may call to mind those early experiments of Cage and Cunningham. Finally, master of Breaking and hip-hop dance innovater Raphael Xavier’s “Black Canvas” explores the body of the Breaker in relation to the stage and life.

Week Three, beginning August 5th, features theater, dance, and animation. Alexandro Segade’s “Replicant vs. Separatist” depicts Segade himself calling the shots on a live sci-fi film shoot in which two male couples navigate the murky waters of state-mandated marriage. Hana van der Kolk’s “Once More, Again, One (Solo)” uses familiar pop music as the background for her solo dance adaptation of a work originally conceived for four dancers. To close, animator Miwa Matreyek (of Cloud Eye Control) uses animation with live projection to explore fantastical worlds in “Myth and Infrastructure.”

- By Helen Kearns

Each “week” of NOW is really only a Thurs/Fri/Sat, so budget your time accordingly. If you only attend one more festival this summer, consider the power of NOW. For more information, please visit www.redcat.org, or call 213-237-2800.

Jazz remains one of the few indigenous, American art forms, in that nothing quite like it ever existed before Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton started mixing up ragtime with the blues in an early 1900’s city called New Orleans. And to understand the history of jazz, as well as its incredible influence on our culture, is to understand the history of America and American music from slavery on up. Simply put, no artist you listen to today could exist without jazz. Which is why the genre makes its sudden flares of resurgence from time to time, and why you can still walk into most hip coffee shops around the city—notably, the Downbeat Café on Alvarado—and find a slick laptop-er or two subconsciously tapping their heels to the likes of Duke Ellington or Count Basie.

This Wednesday, July 28^th at 8:00 PM at the Hollywood Bowl, jazz proves its not dead with the internationally renowned Count Basie Orchestra—still going after eighty years. Known for popularizing the Kansas City-style of big band jazz, as well as initiating some of the greatest artists in history (including Billy Holiday, Jo Jones, and Charlie Parker), Basie, himself, passed away in 1984, but his band plays on under different direction and with a regenerating cast of musicians. The current Orchestra doesn’t strictly adhere to its Kansas City roots (i.e. rhythmic riffs under improvised solos), but instead incoporates more of the East coast, neo-classisist style of big band jazz, with complex arrangements by director Bill Hughes.

That’s not to say, however, that such Count classics as “One O’Clock Jump” or “April in Paris” won’t be bouncing through the Bowl on Wednesday—along with the Dave Holland Big Band, the Dave Douglas Big Band, and yes, maybe you. Due to the overwhelming response of our last giveaways, FineArtsLA.com is once again raffling off two tickets to the Hollywood Bowl to see the Count Basie Orchestra live at 8:00 PM. Just enter your first and last name into the form below, as well as your e-mail address, and you are automatically entered into the running to win not just Wednesday night’s tickets, but also the next three FineArtsLA.com giveaways. So brush up on your two-step, and dust off those dancing shoes; even if you don’t win our contest, you can still buy tickets here.

I’m about to move neighborhoods in Los Angeles. I realize this information is of interest to very few people, and even then, of very little interest. But for the past two years, I’ve lived in the USC area, about two blocks away from the historic Union Theatre—also known at the Velaslavasay Panorama—and I’ve never once stepped inside. I’ve tried. When I first moved in and took my inaugral expedition around the hood, I couldn’t help but gravitate toward the building. It’s vastly out-of-place, an artifact from another era dropped in-between a bodega and some low-rent housing (and in fact, it is from another era: it was built sometime in the 1910’s and operated for many years as a venue of multiple uses, including a playhouse, a silent-film theatre, and a meeting hall for the Tile Layers Union Local #18). When I tried to enter beneath the grand, old-fashioned marquee, however, it was closed. Ever since, it’s just been that mysterious buidling (sometimes aglow) that I drive by nearly every day, and have yet to go in—either because it’s closed or I have no reason. And now I’m about to move.

Fortunately, I have one last chance. This weekend, starting on Friday, but running on Saturdays as well, for five weeks only, the Velaslavasay Panorama opens its doors at 8:00 PM to present the unique and aptly located live performance of The Grand Moving Mirror of California. What is it? Good question. It’s a series of moving painted scenes, which encircle the theatre like a long scroll being rolled out around the audience, and depict the journeys of early American settlers attempting to reach California during the Gold Rush of 1849. Using live narration taken from an actual 19^th century script, along with musical accompaniment and radio-play sound-effects, the show celebrates and revives a 130-year-old mode of entertainment that simply shouldn’t be missed.

Not bad for my last weekend in the neighborhood.

- By Joshua Morrison

For more information about the Union Theatre, the Panorama, or panoramas in general, please visit www.panoramaonview.org, or call 213-746-2166.

http://www.spike.com/video/2828991Bactrian camels, Arctic wolves, Pakistani snow leopards, oceanic whitetip sharks, and one coat-tailed conductor; that’s a lot to pack in anywhere, even the Hollywood Bowl. But this Friday and Saturday at the legendary amphitheatre, the LA Philharmonic will perform live musical accompaniment to selected footage from the spectacular BBC television series Planet Earth. Conducted by none other than the shows’ composer himself, George Fenton, the orchestra promises to match the stunning high-defition footage, as projected onto the Bowl’s big screen.

Planet Earth, which first premiered on the BBC in 2006, and was re-broadcast in the U.S. in 2007, compiles extraordinary, cinematic scenes of nature from all over the world, in eleven different habitats. It’s probably the best reality show you’ll ever see, if only because it’s completely devoid of humans. Yet, the series is without a doubt a distinctly human feat, and would be half as exciting were it not for the power of a fully human, orchestral score.

And yes, Fine Arts LA has two tickets to give away to hear this score performed live by the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl this Friday, July 23^rd at 8:30 PM, alongside footage from BBC’s Planet Earth. George Fenton conducts, you and your date cuddle up, while the entire audience is transported to the places far beyond even Hollywood’s imagination. Just write in your first name, last name, and e-mail address into the form below, and you can be eligible to receive these Planet Earth passes, as well as the next three ticket giveaways we do. Safe travels.

Fireworks have the ability to conjure up about as many disparate meanings and memories as the number of spokes in their shooting spiral light displays. In China, they’re thought to scare away evil spirits. In America, they’re billed as patriotic—provoking heckles of “ooh’s” and “aah’s” and “hell yeah’s” from admiring crowds. In zombie movies, they’re often used as weapons of distraction. In the Middle East, they’re not much different than the sights and sounds of air bombs. And in romantic relationships, they’re either explosive celebrations of symbolic ecstasy, or nostalgic reminders of dying light.

Whatever meaning you may attach to them, fireworks do possess a universal power. And on this July 4^th, FineArtsLA.com is giving you and a lucky date the chance to witness the magic close-up at the best Independence Day pyrotechnics show this city has to offer. Live at the Hollywood Bowl, with special guest Vince Gill (does is get more patriotic?), and the U.S. Air Force Band of the Golden West (apparently it does), the Los Angeles Philharmonic presents the famous July 4^th Fireworks Spectacular. Simply write in your first name, last name, and e-mail address into the form below, and you will automatically be put in the running to win two free tickets to this year’s show (and as always, your name will be added to the lottery of the next three FineArtsLA.com ticket giveaways).

Sure, you could catch the lights from a distance off the side of the 101. But why not immerse yourself in the Bowl this year, and join the true fireworks show, which of course has nothing to do with gunpowder, but rather the thousands of individual sparks that fly up from our own collective subconscious.

I wrote about the Los Angeles Film Fest last year, and made a day-by-day list of the movies and events I was looking forward to go see (as evidenced by this link). And while I would love to do the same thing again this year, there’s a problem. A lot more films on schedule are films I had no idea even existed. Maybe with the Festival’s move from UCLA to Downtown, and with the supposed scale-back of this year’s Sundance, the LAFF also got more “indie?” Or more likely, the marketing budget for independent features went way down this year. Regardless, and out of a resounding sense of selflessness, here’s a list of movies playing at the Los Angeles Film Fest that seem interesting to me:

Down Terrace: Bristish writer-director Ben Wheatley first got noticed with a ten-second viral video he made called “Cunning Stunt.” It’s short, one shot, surprising, and insanely realistic. Wheatley borrows this same attitude, storytelling prowess, and predilection for genre-molds to his first feature, Down Terrace, which he shot in only eight days. It tells the tale of a father-son ex-con team who decide to go after the man they think snitched them out. But when a hit-man, his 3-year-old child, and a bossy matron get involved, what could be a simple, maybe humorous crime farce turns ugly, gritty, and extremely dark. Wheatley is the latest figure in the the long-standing “kitchen sink” tradition of British filmmaking, where much like in “Cunning Stunt,” the mundane and passingly familiar transcend into deeper realms.

Mahler on the Couch: It may be the year for ‘famous-figure-meets-other-famous-figure’ biopics. First there’s Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, and then from Germany, there’s Mahler on the Couch, the meeting of composer Gustav Mahler and father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud. In this richly stylized interpretation of actual events, writer-director Percy Adlon—who also made Bagdad Café and Sugarbaby—relates the story of the complex, doomed marriage between Mahler (a supposed manic-depressive) and his wife, as seen through the oddly comic psychotherapy sessions with the most influential figure in 20^th century art and thought.

Marwencol: It’s important to see at least one documentary in any film festival, because frankly, they’re usually the best. The 2010 LA Film Fest is certainly not lacking in good-looking docs, either. But Marcenwol is by far the most curious. It’s the story of Mark Hogencamp, who suffered acute brain trauma after being attacked by a group of local teenagers. The damage left him a near-amnesiac, and he was forced to re-construct a new life for himself. This led to Marwencol, a 1/6 scale model of an imaginary, WWII-era Belgian village that Hogencamp took four years to build in his back-yard. He infused intricate storylines for his action-hero and barbie-doll villagers, many of whom stand in for characters in Mark’s real life. And just as anyone who saw Exit Through the Gift Shop can testify, every good story ends with a visit from the imperial art-world.

Café Noir: Even if you don’t speak Korean (which I do not), I recommend watching the trailer to this feature-debut from former South Korean film-critic Jung Sung-Il. The dialogue and action are deliberate and sparse, the photography is beautiful, and the editing destroys any American-borne notion that the more frantic the preview, the better the movie. In this story of unrequited love, Jung Sung-Il instead takes a page from the Godard school of filmmaking, folds it up into an airplane, and flies it over Russia into South Korea. Along the way, he references Bollywood, Goethe, Dostoyevsky, Christianity, politics, and the entire history of South Korean cinema. This is a movie that foreign-film buffs, nostaligic French New Wavers, and eager dilettantes like myself shouldn’t miss.

Tiny Furniture: This, in my opinion, is probably going to be the smash-hit of the festival. It’s the semi-autobiographical story of 23-year-old, writer-director-star Lena Dunham, a film-studies post-graudate in search of herself. It co-stars Alex Karpovsky (the lovable romantic lead in my favorite movie of last-year, Beeswax), as well as Dunham’s own sister playing, well, Dunham’s sister. I’ll admit, the bitterness in me arouses suspicions of cliché about this movie, but at the same time, I’m looking forward to a young female-helmed movie that shows off young females in a more realistic light than Juno. Who knows?  It may turn out to be my generation’s The Graduate, or (and what I hope), it will turn out to be something more specific, something personal and true, something a fellow-former film/writing major can watch and say, “that’s interesting.”

The 2010 Los Angeles Film Fest runs until June 27^th. For tickets, times, and more information, please call (310) 432-1240, or visit www.lafilmfest.com.