Think of Los Angeles, and you’ll likely think of movies; you might not, however, think of cinema. (There is a difference, however subtle.) Worry not; cinema in Los Angeles is alive and well, beginning with the latest rep house to take the town by storm, the Cinefamily at the historic Silent Movie Theater. Cinefamily’s program defines eclectic, from BMX Bandits to Sternberg’s The Last Command; rare week-long championings of an oddball title without release, like the crazy, 4-hour Love Exposure; and video-store clerk amusement par excellence, the Five-Minute Game (find the dustiest, most hopeless looking VHS tapes and show the audience the first five minutes of each. Eat food on the Spanish patio out back. Vote. Watch the winner, with much good cheer).
But Cinefamily’s just the tip of the iceberg: weekly listings checks take in the American Cinematheque, at the westside Aero and the historic Egyptian Theater in Hollywood; the UCLA archive at the Hammer Museum with its hot pink seats; the LACMA film program, constantly under threat, forever rising from the ashes; the New Beverly’s nightly double bills of grindhouse and more; the hip new Downtown Independent; Eastside experimentia with the Echo Park Film Center; in summer, old classics revived al fresco in the Hollywood Forever cemetery by the good people of Cinespia; and flitting from location to location like some beautifully avant-garde butterfly, the LA Film Forum. It’s just not possible to see everything! (Tom von Logue Newth)
