MovieChat Forums > Los Angeles Plays Itself Discussion > What I don't get

What I don't get

posted 9 years ago by fullstopfilms-597-610248
3 replies | jump to latest

I agree that this documentary is fascinating. What i don't get is Anderson via the narrator continuously talking about the movie industry like they are outsiders - which just isn't true. They are both filmmakers. Also I feel like the misanthropy just gets in the way after awhile. yeah like its cool to hate on everything and everyone (oh except Europeans - like that's not predictable at all) - but all this "low tourist" and "high tourist" derision - give me a break. he wouldn't make a documentary about film if it wasn't an important part of his life. And his roots in L.A. I believe ended when he was a teenager. Since then he's lived in Chi-town. Also - is the narration supposed to make you want to claw your eyes out? Could we not just have a little inflection now and then - it's not enough to say bitter things for 3 plus hours, the narrator has to sound suicidal too? Just saying.

[–] marvanhogan 9 years ago

I sounded like film student babble to me. Just an excuse to run 3 hours of someone else's films.

[–] chas77 9 years ago

Thom Anderson is a professor at Cal Arts. He lives in Brentwood not "Chi-Town." He's not exactly a filmmaker. He's an artist who makes films. Not the usual kind of documentarian. Before this film was available on Netflix or blu ray it was only available at certain screenings in LA. Anderson is/was very generous about presenting the film and being available for Q & A afterwards. I liked the film for the first 2/3 until he started the strange ruminations on how the only decent films about LA were the ones made about the poor African American families in the ghetto, blah blah blah...Just seemed like ultra white liberal guilt to me. Other than that, a fascinating, if flawed, film.

[–] Brennan-8 8 years ago

Give him credit though: unlike most liberals, Anderson acknowledges that mass immigration has resulted in worse unemployment for blacks and the working class in general.

I enjoyed the film but some of it was just silly, like when he seems to suggest there's a hate campaign by directors against modern Los Angeles architecture. He disproves his own conspiracy theory by acknowledging that some of the worst offenders are actually preservationists in real life. I mean what was the point then!