Los Angeles Plays Itself
dir. Thom Andersen
Fri April 1-Thurs April 7 at NWFF.

You wouldn't necessarily expect a movie composed almost exclusively of scenes from other movies, with pointy-headed academic narration laid over the top (in several senses), to have such a stirring, even emotional effect, but Los Angeles Plays Itself is a most unusual documentary. Though it comes wrapped in the sheep's clothing of post modern semiotics, the film is more like a first-person meditation on man's connection to a city, and to cinema, and more to the point, to the city most closely associated with cinema. Among Andersen's concerns are the degree to which Los Angeles has been misrepresented by the art form it has nurtured, and the degree to which that misrepresentation has passed into myth, and from there into fact. He mourns the passing of the real city into "simulacrum," and comes equipped with (almost literally) countless examples of fallacies that have become facts. Andersen is ludicrously obsessive, and obsessively ludicrous; his sources are sublime, ridiculous, and everything in between--from Blade Runner to The Exiles, from Charles Burnett to Mack Sennett, avant-garde to straight-to-tape. Though the film seems indiscriminate, it builds to a poignant climax in which class, race, and art collide. It talks incessantly, but it also swells with a native's love for the least-loved metropolis in the modern world. He even addresses his obsessions, and the unfair burden he places on cinema, early on, when he explains that "movies exist in space. We live and die in time. So why should I be generous?"

Fastidious (he gets upset when people call his city "L.A." because it smacks of apologia), weirdly literal (he hates it when films betray the city's real geography, but hates it worse when they misrepresent the class realities at work there), and as dense as its subject is sprawling, Los Angeles Plays Itself is the best kind of solipsism: a self-aware exercise in self-absorption that yields several moments of genuine insight. Andersen has put in the work, and viewers are required to do some of their own, as well. It's worth it. But if his movie's three-hour running time feels indulgent, it's only because you haven't accepted that his premise is bigger than any one movie can contain. People will tell you that Los Angeles Plays Itself is boring and pointy headed. Those people are lying. SEAN NELSON

Lost Embrace
dir. Daniel Burman
Opens Fri April 1.

Hard as it may be to believe these days, being compared to Woody Allen used to be something for filmmakers to shoot for. Lost Embrace, Argentina's entry for the 2004 Oscar, favorably recalls those thrilling times of yesteryear, when defensive wit reigned and neuroses were mostly charming. Set within the fertile ground of a fading strip mall in Buenos Aires, it nearly overdoses on the quirks at times (some of the supporting characters wouldn't be out of place in a Star Wars bar) yet always finds a way to stay comfortably above the annoyance line.

Much like the Woodman's best, co-writer/director Daniel Burman's movie would be fairly insufferable if it wasn't so light-footed. That it remains so is mainly due to Daniel Hendler, who delivers an utterly winning performance as the central schlub/narrator, an endlessly kvetching twentysomething slacker desperate to ditch his family's winding-down lingerie business and explore his submerged Polish heritage. His low-key bewilderment papers over the script's few dead spots, and also manages to keep the film's more extreme denizens (horny Internet saleswoman, beekeeping novelty dealer) somewhat grounded. Burman's shaky camera and shaggy-dog method of storytelling does get bogged down occasionally into blind alleys, and, at 100 minutes, probably runs a little too long for its own good (the director clearly loves all his characters, and is noticeably reluctant to turn off the lights), but the overall combination of subtle ennui and broad emotional pratfalls packs a lingering wallop. When a movie can turn a hilariously low-speed race between two aging stock boys into a life-altering experience for an entire community, something's clearly working right. ANDREW WRIGHT

Beauty Shop
dir. Bille Woodruff
Opens Fri April 1.

The problem with movies like Beauty Shop is that they have no lasting effects on the viewer. So even though I just saw the movie like three days ago, I actually remember very little of it. In fact, I wonder if I saw it at all.

This doesn't mean it was a bad film, because surprisingly it wasn't terrible. It's just that it'll sort of entertain you for that 100 minutes or whatever, and then you're back to where you were before seeing it. It's as if time stopped for that hour and a half, and the world that exists afterwards is the same exact world that existed before. Even though it isn't. But trust me, it is.

Something I do remember about the film is getting super excited about Kevin Bacon being in it. I had no idea and then--POOF!--there he is, acting all pompous and French and sporting the worst hairdo he's ever had in the history of all Kevin Bacon hairdos. It was quite exciting. The rest of the movie, though, was a lot like Barbershop except all the roles are reversed (I've never actually seen Barbershop, so one can only guess). Instead of one lady working amongst a bunch of men, it's one (INCREDIBLY SEXY) man working amid some sassy ladies. And, you know, they face their challenges, and together they see it through. And they do some hair while they're at it. And Alicia Silverstone talks with a mind-numbingly annoying Georgia accent. But other than that, no lasting effects. Same world. Nothing's different. MEGAN SELING