Wednesday, 17 June 2009

• Currently Awesome By Jack Pendarvis see related

  Sorry - I just have to post something or else I won't be able to concentrate.

   I’m thinking of checking out the L.A. Film Festival this year (June 18^th – 28^th) ever since I saw a little booklet advertising some of the films they were showing this year. 

   

  A few of the ones that I wanted to check out: 

   

  

   

  500 Days of Summer

  Added Screenings

  (96 mins)

  Directed By: Marc Webb

  Producers: Jessica Tuchinsky, Mark Waters, Mason Novick, Steven J. Wolfe
  Cinematographer: Eric Steelberg
  Editor: Alan Edward Bell
  Music: Mychael Danna and Rob Simonsen
  Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Geoffrey Arend, Chloë Grace Moretz, Matthew Gray Gubler, Clark Gregg, Rachel Boston, Minka Kelly
  
  

  "This is a story of boy meets girl,” begins the wry, probing narrator of  (500) Days of Summer, and with that the film takes off at breakneck speed into a funny, true-to-life and unique dissection of the unruly and unpredictable year-and-a-half of one young man’s no-holds-barred love affair.

   

  

   

  Black Dynamite

  Ford Amphitheatre Screenings

  (USA, 2009, 90 mins)

  35mm

  Directed By: Scott Sanders

  Executive Producers: Deanna & James Berkeley
  Producers: Jon Steingart, Jenny Weiner Steingart
  Screenwriters: Michael Jai White, Byron Minns, Scott Sanders
  Cinematographer: Shawn Maurer
  Editor: Adrian Younge
  Cast: Michael Jai White, Tommy Davidson, Arsenio Hall
  Music: Adrian Younge
  
  Somewhere between homage and send-up of the sweet blaxploitation films of the ’70s, Black Dynamite is right on the money in reconstructing the groovy aesthetic and flare. It revels in delivering the swagger, funkadelic soundtrack and titillating action that made these films memorable, while also highlighting the social and political subtext from which the genre was born. Can you dig it?

   

  

   

  My Dear Enemy

  International Showcase

  (South Korea, 2008, 123 mins)

  In Korean with English subtitles

  35mm

  Directed By: Lee Yoon-ki

  Executive Producer: Cho Eun-un
  Producers: David Cho, Cho Kwang-hee, Oh Jung-wan
  Screenwriters: Lee Yoon-ki, Park Eun-young
  Cinematographer: Choi Sang-ho
  Editor: Kim Hyung-joo
  Cast: Jeon Do-youn, Ha Jung-woo
  Music: Kim Jung-bum
  
  

  When the tightly wound Hee-su demands that her former lover Byeong-woon repay a long-standing debt, he happily agrees, setting in motion this understated comedy from director Lee Yoon-ki. Refusing to let Byeong-woon out of her sight, Hee-su insists on accompanying him as he calls in a variety of favors—mostly from women—in order to repay her. As the two embark on a daytrip through Seoul and their own rocky history, they come to realize that sometimes the most interesting time in a relationship is after it’s over.
  

  

  I Sell the Dead

  Dark Wave

  (USA, 2008, 85 mins)

  HDCAM - NTSC

  None Premiere

  Directed By: Glenn McQuaid

  Producers: Peter Phok, Larry Fessenden
  Screenwriter: Glenn McQuaid
  Cinematographer: Richard Lopez
  Editor: Glenn McQuaid
  Cast: Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden, Angus Scrimm, Ron Perlman
  Music: Jeff Grace
  
  

  In 18th century England, Arthur Blake is a day away from the blade of the guillotine. Charged with a lifetime of grave robbing, Blake confesses his past crimes, but his stories quickly turn from standard cadaver thefts for science to peculiar things that go bump in the night. Juggling a mad doctor, a nefarious rival gang, a beautiful but ambitious apprentice, and a scary spectrum of creatures, Blake and his partner Willie Grimes somehow always lived to tell the tale . . . that is, until the pesky death sentence was served.
  

   

  

   

  Paper Man

  Galas

  (110 mins)

  Directed By: Michele Mulroney and Kieran Mulroney

   

  Executive Producers: Dan Fireman, Darin Friedman, Andrew Spellman, Lila Yacoub
  Producers: Richard N. Gladstein, Guymon Casady, Art Spigel, Ara Katz
  Cinematographer: Eigil Bryld
  Editor: Sam Seig
  Music : Mark McAdam
  Cast: Jeff Daniels, Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone, Kieran Culkin, Hunter Parrish, Lisa Kudrow

   

  Paper Man is the coming-of-middle-age story of Richard Dunn, a writer caught between the pressures of deadlines, the expectations of his wife, and the constant presence of the superhero who's lived inside his head since 2nd Grade.  And then he meets a girl—a Long Island teenager whose friendship shows him that no matter how much it hurts, it's never too late to grow up.
  

   

  
  
  

  ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction

  Guilty Pleasures

  (USA, 2009, 87 mins)

  HDCAM - NTSC

  None Premiere

  Directed By: Kevin Hamedani

  Executive Producers: John Sinno, Ali Hamedani
  Producer: John Sinno
  Screenwriters: Ramon Isao, Kevin Hamedani
  Cinematographer: John Guleserian
  Editor: Andrew McAllister
  Cast: Janette Armand, Ali Hamedani, Doug Fahl, Cooper Hopkins, Ryan Barret, James Mesher, Bill Johns, Cornelia D. Moore, Linda Jensen, Russell Hodgkinson, Irene Strauss, Victoria Drake, Andrew Hyde
  Music: Andrew Rohrmann
  
  

  A plague of zombies assaults a small island town in the Pacific Northwest, sending the conservative residents into a panic. When the media blames terrorists, a young Iranian-American woman becomes the scapegoat of dimwitted neighbors. Amid the carnage, the local pastor declares holy war, complicating matters for a visiting gay couple intent on coming out of the closet. Lest all this sound like a simple blue state political tract, be assured that there’s plenty of blood-red gore on offer. ZMD gives equal time to inventively staged disembowelments, decapitations, and outrageous eyeball trauma. And as the citizens band together to defeat a common enemy, this horror comedy reveals that most American of virtues: optimism. 

   

  I don’t think I’ll be able to see ALL of these, but I’m hoping to see at least one.  A lot of these look really good.  Maybe they'll come out on DVD soon? 

   

  • 11:37 AM
  • 29 Views
  • 2 eProps
  • 3 Comments