Nathaniel BellWelcome to L.A. Weekly's Movie Guide, your look at the hottest films in Los Angeles theaters this week — from indie art-house gems and classics to popcorn-perfect blockbusters and new movies garnering buzz. Check here every week before you make your big-screen plans.
Limited/art-house
Friday, March 29
Noir City: Hollywood opens its 21st festival of film noir at the Egyptian Friday night with the first of 10 consecutive double features. As in last year's fest, one “A” film from Hollywood's past is paired with a “B” from the same period. First on the slate is a 35mm print of Trapped, a 1949 noir about a counterfeiter (Lloyd Bridges) who teams up with the Treasury Department to crack a ring of forgers. This is one of those crime dramas that adopts a semi-documentary style (replete with imperious voice-over narration) to add verisimilitude to the story. The film had languished in the public domain until the UCLA Film & Television Archive restored it with funding from the Film Noir Foundation and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Charitable Trust. On the bottom half of the bill is The File on Thelma Jordon, a tough Robert Siodmak noir about a black widow who ropes an assistant DA (Wendell Corey) into a murder plot. Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Ketti Frings (Come Back, Little Sheba) penned the screenplay, gives the proceedings a solid dramatic arc. Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; Fri., March 29, 7:30 p.m.; $15. (323) 466-3456, americancinemathequecalendar.com.
Playgirl; Credit: Universal Pictures
Tuesday, April 2
Playgirl probably hasn't been seen onscreen in 50 years. This 1954 melodrama stars Shelley Winters as a small-town girl who goes to the big city, becomes a nightclub singer, and slaloms between two men. In a rare and generous act of cinephilia, NBCUniversal, led by Janice Simpson (director of content governance and preservation) and Barbara Whitehead (preservation coordinator), struck a new 4K DCP from the film's original negative. Alan K. Rode will introduce the premiere of this new restoration. Finishing the evening is Hell's Half Acre, a lurid melodrama about a soldier (Wendell Corey) thought dead in the Pearl Harbor attack who re-emerges years later in Hawaii, much to the surprise of his concerned wife (Evelyn Keyes). Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; Tue., April 2, 7:30 p.m.; $12. (323) 466-3456, americancinemathequecalendar.com.
Also opening Friday, March 29: The Beach Bum; The Brink; Diane; Dumbo; Unplanned; A Vigilante; White Chamber; Wounds
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