Los Angeles Film Festival: Reviews, A to Z

GO  13 MOST BEAUTIFUL ... SONGS FOR ANDY WARHOL’S SCREEN TESTS (USA) “I paint anybody, anybody that asks me.” An admirably democratic mission statement, though Andy Warhol was marginally choosier about the Factory denizens he invited to appear in the 500 or so black-and-white “screen tests” he “produced” (“the camera has a motor; you just turn it on and walk away”) from 1964 to 1966. This latest sampler, handpicked and musically bittersweetened by Luna’s Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, packs plenty of ex post facto underground-star power (Nico, Lou Reed, Dennis Hopper, Edie Sedgwick, Mary Woronov, et al.), and comes spiked with just enough post-Beat, pre-hippie desperation to flutter our hearts for an hour. Screening hosted by Outfest. (Ford Amphitheatre, Sat., June 20, 8:30 p.m.) (RS)

THOSE WHO REMAIN (Mexico) Border crossing is less a political issue than a human one in co-directors Juan Carlos Rulfo and Carlos Hagerman’s lyrical documentary about the Mexican families who stay behind when their parents/children/spouses undertake the long, arduous crossing to the U.S. Some remain by choice, others out of fear, and still others because they have been to the promised land themselves and opted to return. At first, the film evokes stasis with its images of half-built dream houses and lives suspended in limbo, but Rulfo and Hagerman’s portrait is ultimately one of movement and renewal — of the births, deaths, weddings and other facts of life that go on, uninterrupted, even in the face of mass emigration. (Landmark, Fri., June 19, 9:45 p.m.; Mann Festival, Sat., June 20, 1 p.m.; Landmark, Sat., June 27, 7:15 p.m.) (SF)

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TURISTAS (Chile) Ditched by her husband during their vacation after admitting that she recently aborted their child, Carla (Aline Kuppenheim) heads off into nature for a restorative camping trip with a gay Norwegian backpacker (Diego Noguera). Writer-director Alicia Scherson’s character drama has some quietly reflective moments that speak to the universal need to reconnect with oneself. But the film’s accumulation of similarly lost souls adds little to Carla’s personal quest, and Scherson’s gentle rhythms leave Turistas feeling undernourished rather than transporting. (Regent, Fri., June 19, 7:15 p.m.; Landmark, Mon., June 22, 4:30 p.m.) (TG)

UNMADE BEDS (U.K.) Bed-head is a way of life for spacey 20-year-old Axl (Fernando Tielve), who wakes up in a sprawling London squat one morning and moves in. The teddy-bear Spaniard is in search of his lost father; fellow flotsam Vera (Deborah Francois, brunette) drifts in and out of yet another tousled stranger’s orbit and snaps photos. A Flickr-ready wistful-blissful masquerade party pegs this present-tense nostalgia piece by director Alexis Dos Santos (Glue), who conjures some surprisingly affecting moments but stops short of delving deeply into the ephemeral milieu. (Landmark, Thurs., June 25, 2:30 p.m.; Regent, Sat., June 27, 9:30 p.m.) (NR)

CRITIC’S PICK  WAH DO DEM (WHAT THEY DO) (USA) Newly dumped by his girlfriend (singer Norah Jones, in a brief cameo), 20-something Max (Sean Bones) decides to go it alone on the Caribbean cruise he won in a contest. To his dismay, he finds himself the only young person on the boat, which leaves him plenty of time to mope. Although it takes writer-directors Sam Fleischner (who also did the superb camerawork) and Ben Chace a tad too long to get Max off the ship and onto the island of Jamaica, once they do, this terrific 75-minute movie takes flight. Max eventually finds himself stranded and at the mercy of the locals, most of whom treat this laughably pale-skinned tourist quite well. As played by the resourceful Bones (who gets a “collaboration” credit alongside the directors), the occasionally petulant, often clueless Max gradually learns to stop fretting and feel the moment, even when things are looking their worst. “Reach out to the end of the world without moving,” a Rastafarian advises the young traveler, whose heart slowly but surely enlarges before our eyes. Bones, a New York musician who’ll be performing with his band at the Echo on June 26, co-wrote and sings the end-title song with Jones. (Regent, Sat., June 20, 9:30 p.m.; Landmark, Wed., June 24, 4:30 p.m.) (CW)

WEATHER GIRL (USA) “Partly Cloudy With a 90% Chance of Total Meltdown,” reads the humdrum but marketable tag line of writer-director Blayne Weaver’s humdrum but marketable comedy. Unable to score another broadcasting gig after committing career hara-kiri, Seattle morning-TV’s “sassy weather girl” Sylvia Miller (Tricia O’Kelley) moves in with her smug slacker bro (Ryan Devlin) and faces the existential storm of being a single 35-year-old woman, until true love arrives as earlier telegraphed. O’Kelley performs with the confidence of an embittered Sex and the City girlfriend but more closely recalls the broad hysterics of a Cathy comic strip. Ack! (Majestic Crest, Fri., June 19, 7:30 p.m.; Landmark, Wed., June 24, 9:30 p.m.) (AH)

GO  A WEEK ALONE (Argentina) There’s social commentary percolating in A Week Alone, but thankfully it doesn’t boil over: Argentine director Celia Murga’s film — about a gated community whose adult residents take a synchronized vacation, leading to an upscale (and admittedly fairly gentle) Lord of the Flies scenario — is more focused on domestic textures than national allegory. Certainly, Murga has an eye for the accouterments of affluence, with each house a minimarvel of bourgeois set dressing — all the better for their inevitable despoilment by the home-alone crowd. The child actors are excellent, as is Natalia Gomez Alarcon, as the housemaid who doesn’t so much shirk her caretaking responsibility as watch it slowly slip away. (Regent, Fri., June 19, 4 p.m.; Landmark, Sun., June 21, 7 p.m.) (Adam Nayman)