LA Film Fest: Moviedom's Hometown Party

The LA Film Fest kicks off with "I'm So Excited" for Pedro Almodovar.

Try as we might -- oh, and we try -- we can't imagine the challenges of putting on the Los Angeles Film Festival in, well, Los Angeles. (The name itself is a bit of a spoiler alert as to where it takes place.)

Compare it to throwing a cupcake party in a bakery known for famous cupcakes. That may be an iffy analogy, but since it involves frosting, we're leaving it. In short? The stakes feel a little higher for the LA Film Fest, since it unfurls in the very place where many of those movies were made or at least got their start.

But watch it fly, almost effortlessly, through its week-and-a-half run at LA Live. It opens on Thursday, June13 with Pedro Almodovar's "I'm So Excited" and rounds out on Sunday, June 23 with "The Way, Way Back" (yep, from the writers of "The Descendants"). And in the middle of all that? Screenings screenings screenings and more screenings. We could type the word "screenings" ten more times and that would convey the full slate this fest sets up. Vera Farmiga in "The Conjuring" is getting some talk -- yep, we do like spooky cinema in the sunny summer -- and the Ryan Gosling's much-talked-about "Only God Forgives." 

Panels, parties, and other hobnobbery fill in the spaces in and around the movies. Maya Rudolph is giving a master class in being funny on June 14 and there's a free family day on Saturday, June 15 in Nokia Plaza. Also, some free screenings to boot, including "Dazed & Confused."

David O. Russell is the Guest Director, so we're not sure if that means this fest'll have a particularly quirky, forward-looking vibe. But that sounds good by us.

One of the best things about this festival, and others in its wheelhouse (hi, AFI) is the chance to just walk up, purchase a not-too-pricey ticket, and stride into a movie you know next to nothing about.

Because we truly live in an age where everything gets promoted a lot. (Sorry, should we have spoiler-alerted that one?) So to take a chance on something new is one of the pleasures of like movies and living in Los Angeles.

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Think of it as trying a cupcake without a label at the aforementioned cupcake party. You totally knew we were going back to that, right? Because, frosting.

LA Film Fest is at LA Live from June 13 through 23.

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