What to Do in Los Angeles This Month: 4 Can’t-Miss Events for Film Buffs

This story first appeared in the March 27 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

TCM Classic Film Festival
Various venues in Hollywood (Info: filmfestival.tcm.com)

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The latest edition of the four-day fest (March 26 to 29) features programs organized around specific themes and subjects (“Herstory,” for example), as well as an impressive array of restorations and special presentations (from Imitation of Life to Chimes at Midnight to Marriage Italian Style). What truly distinguishes the event, however, is the access it offers to multiple rare titles in the space of a few days; this year’s gems include Joseph Losey‘s Boom!, Anthony Mann‘s Reign of Terror and Bob Fosse‘s Lenny, starring Dustin Hoffman as comedian Lenny Bruce.

Forgotten Masterpieces at UCLA
10899 Wilshire Blvd.

This year’s UCLA Festival of Preservation is underway at the Billy Wilder Theater, with the final two weeks featuring several notable screenings. Don’t miss a March 21 double bill of the early Bela Lugosi vehicle White Zombie and the racially steeped horror provocation Ouanga, or the underseen midcentury Norman Foster film Woman on the Run (March 29). Also worth a look is the closing-night restoration of John Ford‘s The Long Voyage Home (March 30), starring the director’s longtime collaborator John Wayne.

A Tribute to Hal Hartley
611 N. Fairfax Ave.

American indie hero Hal Hartley‘s new film, Ned Rifle, screens April 3 at Cinefamily. In tribute to the writer-director, the theater also will show a pair of double bills of his most beloved works: on April 2, the first two titles in Hartley’s trilogy of literary riffs, Henry Fool and Fay Grim; and on April 4, 1989’s The Unbelievable Truth and the 1991 masterpiece Trust. Hartley is set to be in attendance all three nights.

Gregory Markopoulos at REDCAT
631 W. 2nd St.

Following a Los Angeles Filmforum screening of Gregory J. Markopoulos‘ The Illiac Passion on March 22, a second evening of films by the late experimental director will take place at downtown’s REDCAT on April 6. Two works will be shown, each a meditation on a monumental piece of architecture: 1967’s Bliss explores the interior of a Byzantine church in Greece, while 1968’s Gammelion is a hypnotic portrait of Italy’s castle of Roccasinibalda.