First Ever Directors’ Fortnight Hits L.A. + This Week’s Must-See Movies!

Hi there! I’m Mark Olsen and I’m delighted to present you with another edition of your go-to guide, full to the brim with Only Good Movies.

Unexpectedly, this week has turned into a heavy-hitter for new film releases, with several films that are likely contenders for many end-of-year top movie lists hitting the big screen. While some of these may also be available on streaming platforms soon, experiencing these in a cinema with other movie-goers is the perfect way to watch.

The heartfelt dramedy, “A Real Pain,” both written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, tells the story of two cousins (portrayed by Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin) embarking on a journey through Holocaust-related sites in Poland.

During our fall preview discussion, Eisenberg and Culkin expressed the bond they felt while filming together.

“From the moment we began filming, there was an instant connection — something just clicked,” Culkin noted. “By embodying these characters and striving to make this film work, we formed a strong bond.”

One of the most unexpected delights of the year for me has been Alonso Ruizpalacios’ “La Cocina,” featuring Raúl Briones and Rooney Mara as employees at a tourist-oriented restaurant in Manhattan. The film is a captivating metaphor for work, life, and the wider world, showcasing Ruizpalacios as a director who fully understands his craft. In my review, I noted that “Despite the chaotic scenes onscreen, the confident filmmaking results in one of the year’s most refreshing films.”

Mara has only taken on three roles in the last six years. She responded to a letter from Ruizpalacios, whom she had never met before, and, as she mentioned in a conversation with Carlos Aguilar, “Now that I have kids, I cherish my time. The experience is crucial to me now. I always wonder: Will this be an experience worth having? Can I grow from it? And everything about the way Alonso wanted to make the film seemed perfect for me. It felt different from anything I had done so far.”

Ever since its premiere at Cannes, Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez” has been one of the most talked-about films of the year. The movie, a melodrama set in Mexico about a drug lord who transitions in secret, is also a musical.

In an unusual turn of events, all four leading actresses in the film — Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz — received the best actress award at Cannes. In a conversation with Manuel Betancourt, Saldaña spoke about her experience working on the film, saying, “It was a mix of an experiment and an experience. I enjoyed the experimental aspect of it. And we only achieved that because Jacques wasn’t possessive about his words, his lines. It was incredibly collaborative, and very liberating.”

Mati Diop’s deeply mysterious documentary “Dahomey” won the highest honor at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year and is Senegal’s submission for the international feature Oscar. The film delves into the return of artifacts from France to Benin, formerly known as Dahomey, from the perspective of the objects themselves.

Also debuting this week is “Blitz,” Steve McQueen’s take on the German bombings of London during World War II, featuring Saoirse Ronan and Elliott Heffernan. As McQueen told Emily Zemler, “People often think war is something that happens far away. I wanted to bring it closer: This is what happened here. There’s a real sense of urgency in this movie, sadly. I wanted it to be a thrilling journey through wartime London.”

Robert Abele reviewed Clint Eastwood’s “Juror #2,” a courtroom thriller with a star-studded cast featuring Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Zoey Deutch, Chris Messina, and Kiefer Sutherland that is receiving an unusually quiet limited release.

Abele wrote, “If ‘Juror #2’ is to be this iconic filmmaker’s final work, it might come across as a subtle farewell: measured discussions taking the place of the trademark violence and death in his filmography. But in its calm professionalism, it still makes a strong closing statement about what Eastwood values most — how we live as much as how we die, and in the final count, what ultimately dooms us all.”

Cannes in L.A.

Starting tonight and running through Sunday, Acropolis Cinema will be showcasing “Directors’ Fortnight Extended,” a selection of films from the Cannes sidebar Director’s Fortnight, known in French as Quinzaine des cinéastes. This marks the first time a program from the Fortnight has been presented in Los Angeles, with screenings at the Culver Theater.

The series kicks off with Ryan J. Sloan’s noir thriller “Gazer,” featuring Ariella Mastroianni. Other notable films in the program include Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel’s French thriller “Eat the Night,” set in the world of online gaming; Chantal Akerman’s restored 1989 exploration of Jewish American identity, “Histoires d’Amérique: Food, Family and Philosophy”; and the closing selection of Jonas Trueba’s Spanish-language relationship comedy “The Other Way Around.”

The Fortnight was established in 1969 as a response to the cultural and political unrest at Cannes in 1968, and has maintained that rebellious spirit, running parallel to the festival’s main selection.

“The Fortnight was designed as a new space to welcome filmmakers from around the globe, regardless of their production methods,” said Julien Rejl, artistic director of Directors’ Fortnight since 2023. “The goal was to prioritize new cinematic language. All kinds of cinema, from very radical and edgy filmmakers to genre cinema, great masters. The idea was to treat these films equally, and to provide the filmmakers with a chance to take their time, engage with an audience, discuss their film, talk about cinema, and also to interact with each other.”

On Saturday afternoon, there will be a discussion featuring Rejl and filmmakers India Donaldson, who made “Good One,” and Tyler Taormina, the director of “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”

Acropolis has previously brought selections from the Locarno Film Festival to Los Angeles, and this new collaboration with the Directors’ Fortnight continues the mission of screening lesser-known art-house films for Los Angeles audiences.

“The aim of Acropolis is to introduce films that wouldn’t normally be shown here,” said Jordan Cronk, founder of Acropolis Cinema. “So this is a perfect partnership in that respect. Many of these films are so small that it would be difficult for Acropolis to show them even for just one night, but when you can place them in the context of something like the Quinzaine, we’re hoping it could generate enough interest for people to check out the smaller films.”

“When you put the films in the context of a larger program from Cannes, I’m hoping people will discover the films that we’re showing during the day, artisanal cinema,” Cronk added. “That is definitely a goal, and it’s just a pleasure to try and introduce audiences out here to new and exciting cinema.”

GuadaLAjara Film Festival

This weekend also brings the annual GuadaLAjara Film Festival to various venues across the city, with events at the United Theater on Broadway, Vidiots, Gloria Molina Grand Park, the Million Dollar Theater, Alamo Drafthouse and Milagros Cinema Norwalk.

The festival begins with Mexico’s submission for the international feature Oscar, “Sujo,” directed by Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez. Noted cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto’s debut as a director, “Pedro Páramo,” will be screened before its release on Netflix later this month. The festival concludes with the first two episodes of the upcoming Prime Video series “La Liberacion,” created by Alejandra Marquez Abella.

Among the short films in the festival are “All the Words but the One,” directed by and starring “Baby Reindeer” star Nava Mau, and “Dovecote,” produced by and featuring Zoe Saldaña. “La Cocina” will also be screened as part of the festival.

Points of interest

30 years of Giant Robot

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of Giant Robot, a magazine started by UCLA alumnus Eric Nakamura that celebrates alternative Asian and Asian American culture, the UCLA Film and Television Archive is launching “A Film Series for You: Celebrating Giant Robot’s 30th Anniversary.” The series begins Friday night with a 2022 episode of PBS SoCal’s series “Artbound” that interviews key figures from the magazine’s history, along with a screening of Wong Kar-Wai’s 1994 “Chungking Express,” reviewed in the magazine’s third issue. A Q&A session will feature Nakamura, magazine co-editor Martin Wong, filmmaker Dylan Robertson, actor Tamlyn Tomita, and actor-filmmaker Daniel Wu.

On Saturday night, a double feature of Jon Moritsugu’s 1993 “Terminal USA” and a 35mm screening of Gregg Araki’s 2004 “Mysterious Skin” will be shown. Other films in the series include Shunji Iwai’s 2001 “All About Lily Chou-Chou,” Michael Arias’ 2006 “Tekkonkinkrett,” Shusuke Kaneko’s 1995 “Gamera: The Guardian of the Universe,” and Derek Yee Tung-Sing’s 2004 “One Nite in Mongkok.”

‘Blonde Venus’ in nitrate 35mm

A rare 35mm nitrate print of Josef von Sternberg’s 1932 “Blonde Venus” will be shown at the Academy Museum on Saturday. The film stars Marlene Dietrich and a then-unknown Cary Grant and tells the story of a singer-turned-housewife who returns to the stage to earn money to save her sick husband. The film features the infamous “Hot Voodoo” musical number, beginning with Dietrich in a gorilla costume.

In other news

Remembering Teri Garr

Actor Teri Garr passed away this week at the age of 79. She seamlessly merged comedy and dramatic depth in films such as “Tootsie,” earning her an Academy Award nomination for supporting actress, as well as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Mr. Mom,” “Young Frankenstein,” and “After Hours.” Her appearances on “The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson” and “Late Night With David Letterman” remain iconic for their warmth, charm, and straightforward honesty.

In her review of “Tootsie,” critic Pauline Kael described Garr as “the funniest neurotic dizzy dame on the screen.” Times critic Sheila Benson referred to Garr’s performance in “After Hours” as “touchingly bizarre.”

Garr publicly announced her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2002, and the disease was her cause of death.

Even after revealing her health struggles, she continued to work, stating, “Actually, I thought, ‘What’s the difference — being handicapped in Hollywood or being a woman over 50?'”

Malkovich on ‘Malkovich’

As part of The Times’ ongoing 1999 Project celebrating the pop culture of that pivotal year, I had the chance to talk to actor John Malkovich about his experiences making the movie “Being John Malkovich.” The feature debut of director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (both future Oscar winners), the film is about a struggling puppeteer (John Cusack) who discovers a portal that leads inside the head of Malkovich. The cast also includes Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, Charlie Sheen, and, in a brief uncredited cameo as the national arts editor of the Los Angeles Times, filmmaker David Fincher.

When asked how he prepared for the role of John Malkovich and whether it was different from any other part, Malkovich replied, “That’s an interesting question. The reality is, there wasn’t much to search for, because Charlie created such a specific world. One day, I did something and Spike Jonze said to me, ‘John Malkovich wouldn’t do it that way.’ I found it amusing, but I asked, ‘Oh, OK. How would he do it?’ I didn’t think much of it because anything I do isn’t me. But John Malkovich isn’t me either, any more or less than anything else isn’t me. So if somebody says, ‘That’s not the way John Malkovich would do it,’ maybe they know better than I do.”