Festivals

'Fan Girl', by director Paul Jarrett and screenwriter Gina O'Brien, was a total trip when it premiered at the LA Film Festival. A “trip”? Dude, that’s so last century. If there is anything this movie isn’t, it’s last century. Fan Girl is a winner of a movie because of the writing, the casting, and the acting. If all that works together, the director deserves credit as well. On the surface Fan Girl is a story of teenager Telulah Farrow, played by Kiernan Shipka (Mad Men, Flowers in the Attic), who adulates the punk band All Time Low. She thinks she needs to connect with the band and create a music video for her filmmaking class to launch her movie career. What she really needs, and the story beneath the surface, is to learn what is really important in human relationships.

I’m making sure the windows are locked tonight. Three consecutive films I viewed at the Los Angeles Film Festival, June 10-18, dealt with tying people up. Not in a nice way, but at least in two cases, a funny way. 'Caught' tells the tale of a teen having an affair with a married man who is kidnapped by the man’s wife and, among other things, tied up. In 'Shevenge', three BFFs fantasize about how to punish men, which involves tying them up. In 'Old Tricks', a burglar learns that you should never try to steal from a retired magician and escape artist. They’re kind of hard to tie up.

Why do filmmakers create short films? Sometimes they are truly motivated to tell a story which only fits in a short format. Other times, it is to show off their skills in order to establish their credentials. Once in a while, they may make a short version of a film that they ultimately want to turn into a feature length production. At this year’s Dances With Films (DWF) festival, held in Hollywood in June, the selection of short films was impressive and contained examples which both fit into and transcended the above reasons. Three films I found impressive all dealt with our perception of what is real: 'Funny Love,' 'Waste Paper,' and 'Waiting for You.'

Want to be successful in Hollywood? The Dances with Films Festival featured a terrific "powerhouse" panel. Here's what the panelists had to say.

One of the amazingly enjoyable aspects of the Dances with Films Festival is the opportunity to see short films you might never otherwise never screen.

Wildlike, a film by writer/director Frank Hall Green, was shown during the eighteenth Dances With Films (DWF) indie-film festival in Hollywood. Dances With Films promotes itself as relying on “innovation, talent, creativity and sweat equity” rather than celebrity. All those good qualities are evident in Wildlike. The film has an intriguing story, great characters and an interesting production history.

Blogcritics' interview with Director Cosima Spender, who has has created an amazing documentary of the iconic Palio of Siena, the oldest and one of the most crazy and exciting horse races in the world.

The Palio, the phenomenal horse race which has been held every summer since 1238 in Siena, Italy is indescribable in its beauty, its corruptions and its excitement. The Palio's culture and the strategies necessary to understand in order to win the race have been like following a dark passage into the arcane unknown, until now.

When mysterious suicides bring an inspector and his daughter Sara to the town of Bridgend, Wales, there is no respite for the father and daughter. Both caught up in the evil atmospheres of the town and the surrounding dark forests. Sara becomes estranged from her father and the inspector grows more tyrannical as the situation moves from bad to worse. There is no explanation why teens are killing themselves and everyone wonders who will be next.

My brain’s cynicism synapse snapped when I heard that a new Arnold Schwarzenegger zombie movie was opening at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival.