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UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

whitesheik I read with some amusement the reviews on this film, ranging from boring to brilliant. So, first things first - brilliant it's not. Good it's not. Boring? Sometimes, but that's not the point. Thom Anderson wasn't born here. He doesn't bother to tell us when he moved here. From his rambling, pretentious, pedantic and horribly written narration, spoken by a horrible narrator, he presents himself as a native, as someone who knows Los Angeles intimately. I don't think so, frankly.There's an interesting idea here - the Los Angeles of film, and the Los Angeles of now. But Mr. Anderson is so in love with himself and the sound of his own voice (and his narrator's) that what we end up with is a smarmy, not very smart documentary about - what? That's the problem. I don't think he has a clue as to what his own movie is ultimately about. His points are occasionally so obtuse that you sit there scratching your head as to what he's trying to say. He puts clips from two Hitchcock films that were shot in San Francisco. Really? And one in Paris? Really? I'm sure he thinks he's being deep and profound, but in both regards he'd be wrong. There are some decent clips here, and happily they've been cleaned up for the Blu-ray and taken from other Blu-ray hi-def sources, so they look much better than what was screened at the Egyptian (I was there). The final forty minutes or so, where he blathers on about completely unknown and obscure films that he's obviously in love with (given that he's a teacher of film theory, I'm sure he revels in such outré material), just devolves this film into complete and utter pointlessness. Worth it for some good clips, and a handful of interesting bits of information. It's okay to want to make a film all about yourself, but don't call it Los Angeles Plays Itself, call it Three Hours of How I Personally Feel About Los Angeles with Sidetracks to Other Pointless Topics. Then we know what we're getting.I cannot give it more than one star because it is such a missed opportunity for those of us who a) were born and raised here, b) know this city well, and c) love this city, especially its past, when it was one of the most unique cities in the world.

mjcfoxx For a three hour documentary about a town that houses 10 million and looks dusty and dirty even when it's at its pristine and pretentious best, this is some compelling stuff. The droll voice of the narrator (Encke King- please tell me that's a pseudonym for the documentary's creator, Thom Anderson) expounds the essay like a cynical alcoholic history professor might talk about the Arapahoe during a Friday night session in which you were hoping to deal with no more important topics than whose breasts look best on GoT or what's up with Jets QB situation. And you'll listen to him because what he says makes sense. Yes, Hollywood is full of overprivileged white guys who pretend the city they live in doesn't exist outside of their fortress-like movie studios and bougie Bel-Air penthouses. I myself lived in Los Angeles for a year, and Hollywood is more of an odor than a thing. You get a faint whiff of it from time to time, but for the most part, Los Angeles is a place where underprivileged multi-ethnic people scrape out a living and pay too much for it. Every single Asian country is represented there (China, Japan, Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, the Phillipines, all of 'em), and of course a good 1/3 of it is Mexican (and you can't forget how many black people live there...). It's a melting pot.Anderson includes a history of Los Angeles by showing how the filmed history got everything wrong and he expounds on the cops and how they're portrayed. His essay sounds like what it is: a tenured film professor being overly critical and at times pseudo-intelligent about an industry borne of immigrants when at its best... which is hilarious given how kind he is to anyone obviously not born in America, as though their portrayal of Los Angeles is more honest because they don't pretend to know anything about it (or probably care all that much-- I lived there, and I never found a reason to care about it. It was a just a place with a lot of people and not a particularly inviting one). This would probably be labeled communist propaganda if it came out during the 50s with how much it seems to disdain anyone who isn't working class or below. Which would be more admirable if the filmmaker was just some guy who watched a lot of movies while he scraped out a living repairing motorcycles in Simi Valley and not some coddled condescending liberal who's been sucking at the film school teat since the 60s.And yet, I give it an 8. The guy does know his stuff.

Joe Stemme In much the same spirit as Martin Scorsese's "Mio viaggio in Italia" (1999), Thom Andersen's "visual lecture" on his native Los Angeles is a very personal journey. Because of rights issues involved in procuring clips from dozens and dozens of films, this project is unlikely to ever be seen outside of Museums, Cinemateques, and 'academic' settings, so you will have to actively seek it out if you want to see it. It is worth doing so - with reservations.Because it is such a personal odyssey, nobody is likely to agree with all of it, and that would suit Director Andersen just fine. I guess I could be categorized as a "tourist who stayed" in the vernacular of Andersen's thesis. I grew up in Boston, and moved to Los Angeles in my early 20's. Therefore, MY LOS ANGELES is different from Andersen's. I don't get my back up when the city is referred to as "L.A.", but Andersen pointedly does. He finds it a derogatory and dismissive term that is used as a weapon by outsiders and tourists. As local film critic Andy Klein points out, Americans don't seem to have the same issue when it comes to the abbreviation "U.S.A.", so why is "L.A." so offensive? And, though many locals DO object, "Frisco", "D.C.","NYC", "SLC"and other similar abbreviations are becoming more and more common in our less literal society.Some of the clips which Andersen employs last only a few seconds - acting as veritable Still Photos of certain views of the city (representing a variety of eras as well). Andersen is laudably conscientious in identifying ALL the clips used (sometimes this is a distraction; especially in those briefest of shots). Oddly, the brevity of those shots actually spurred me to wish the film were EVEN LONGER (the most common criticism of the film is that it is too long as is). Still, by the end, a remarkable portrait of a city does emerge. But, being the home of "Hollywood" (a term which also rankles Andersen - especially when it is used interchangeably with the main city itself), Los Angeles doesn't seem to exist in the world's eyes as separate from the Film Industry.The biggest problem with the film is the narration (not Andersen's voice as others have often mentioned). Andersen is given to make sharp declarative sentences, that are too often contradicted not only by reality - but by the clips in his own movie! For instance, he makes a point about the haze over the city and declares that films ALWAYS have a gauzy look when showing Los Angeles - then provides clips which show the sharp sunny vistas (think BAYWATCH) that attract hordes of visitors and tourists. More problematically, Andersen is a 'neighborhood' guy who not only derides Hollywood, but seemingly anywhere west of Vine. For someone who is declaring love for his native city, it is odd that he dismisses vast swatches of it! Curious too, is that Andersen knowingly adopts the view of "outsiders" to the city (and the film industry) as he levies specious arguments to why "Hollywood" is so phony in its depiction of the city. Andersen certainly is better informed, but feigns ignorance to make his point.The final portion of the movie brings Andersen's agitprop view into focus. To Andersen, racism is the dark underside of Los Angeles. As a so-called 'liberal Westsider', I have sympathy with much of what Andersen espouses (especially his parsing of the term "Nobody walks in L.A."), but it changes the focus of the film (not to mention the explosive and divisive use of a term like "genocide" to define public policy). Again, one wishes the film were longer in order to explore some of these issues touched upon. Also, Andersen should have done another pass in the editing room. Not in terms of length, but in terms of some of the obvious contradictions in his narration vs. reality/movie clips. And , a cheap shot at George Kennedy (obviously an attempt to inject humor in the dry commentary) is not worthy of such a high-minded project (curiously, Andersen misses an opportunity to needle Kennedy again in a later BLUE KNIGHT clip). On a technical note, I must say I was disappointed that it is a Video Production (as many of the most extraordinary pieces of Cinematography are marred by a fuzzy video-dupe look) -- all the while understanding the financial and logistical reasons it is so.

Eye-on-the-pie-in-the-sky Trenchant and epic in size is Thom Andersen's "Los Angeles Plays Itself" – a doc that analyzes representation as much as it analyzes representation of Los Angeles itself.How I adored the narrator's (Encke King) voice! It was at once sardonic and annoyed – a reflection of Andersen's emotional regard toward the whole matter, no doubt. What we hear are critical observations of the film clips that we see – there are quite literally dozens and dozens of clips here. This may seem disorienting and exhausting (to the interest level) but it's not. So struck with the compelling argument that Andersen presents to us do the hours fly by like minutes (not vice versa as Addison DeWitt said in "All About Eve").Funny/interesting it is how this doc is set up like a conventional narrative film that Hollywood is guilty of routinely (and cloyingly) pushing on to the consumer - first we laugh and then we cry. The only difference here (and it's a big one) is that we're looking at actual subjects that existed or still exist. We cry for Los Angeles, you ask? Well, I'm not at liberty to discuss the poignancy that's present – it must be experienced firsthand in order to attain those surprise tears that are greatly missing in our movies.