Fests and events, 4/10.

City of Lights, City of Angels "will, in the course of seven days, transform the Directors Guild of America Theater on Sunset into a giant Parisian googolplex wherein one can travel from the art house to the grindhouse without ever leaving the building," writes the LA Weekly's Scott Foundas.

One of the major attractions will be Bienvenue Chez les Ch'tis, "already the most successful French-language movie in history." It's a "modestly budgeted culture-clash comedy about a disgraced postal supervisor (Kad Merad) who finds himself transferred from sunny Cassis to the bleak, linguistically challenged French-Belgian border region of Nord-Pas de Calais," writes Scott Foundas, who talks with its director and star, Dany Boon. The dates: Monday through April 20. More in the Los Angeles Times.

Back in the LAW: David Thomson checks in on A Sterling Legacy: British Directors in Hollywood, running at LACMA through April 26.

The Philadelphia City Paper presents reviews of 29 films screening in the second week of the Philadelphia Film Festival, which runs on through Tuesday.

"What 'distinguishes' the painfully bad stuff—the misfires of talented artists, the hack work of lesser mortals, the by-the-numbers cookie-cutter crap—from the low-rent gems, the bizarre one-offs, the twisted genre riffs, the pinnacles of unintentionally hilarious bad taste?" asks Michael Fox at SF360. "With the latter we have entered the exalted province of Will 'The Thrill' Viharo, the fez-festooned impresario of the monthly East Bay cult-movie extravaganza Thrillville. In anticipation of his 11th anniversary show April 10 [that's today, folks] at the Cerrito Speakeasy, featuring the 1958 chiller It! The Terror From Beyond Outer Space (whose plot was ripped off by Alien, it's widely maintained), we hobnobbed with Viharo over a mug of joe."

Cine Las Americas opens on Wednesday and runs through April 24; the Austin Chronicle's got a preview package:

• Belinda Acosta talks with the organizers, including programming director Jacqueline Rush Rivera: "When people look at our posters and our website, they assume we have a lot more money than we do. That's why I encourage them to come by our office. I think that puts it all in perspective."

• Josh Rosenblatt previews a retrospective of eight films by Nelson Pereira dos Santos, whose Rio 40 Graus (Rio 100 Degrees F.) "revolutionized Brazilian cinema by liberating it from its glamorized Hollywood roots and turning it into a tool of social dissension, all the while expanding the goals of neorealism to include outright political enthusiasm and partisanship. With it, the Cinema de Novo ('New Cinema') was born, and Brazilian directors had suddenly forced their way onto the film world's radar."

• Then, 15 capsule reviews.

Also in the Chronicle: "Anne took the green pills. Neely took the red pills. Jennifer took the blue pills. You can choose your own color so you can sparkle, too." Stephen Moser will be presenting Valley of the Dolls at the Alamo Downtown on Tuesday.

Mike Everleth has the lineup for the Calgary Underground Film Festival. Tuesday through April 20.

"Projections brings together the rich area of artistic experimentations with slide, film and video projection that characterizes much contemporary art since the 1960s." In Vue Weekly, Mary Christa O'Keefe talks with curator Barbara Fischer and Amy Fung takes in Bruce Nauman and Bill Viola. Both shows are on view at the Art Gallery of Alberta through June 8.

"Schlepped out to the U of C last Thursday for the opening-night screening in Doc Films' new Golden Age of Mexican Cinema series," blogs Pat Graham for the Chicago Reader. "Not that there's anything remotely new about it, since the films are all venerable antiques, dating from the 1930s through early 40s - also, based on a handful of viewings (and leaving Emilio Fernández 'poetically' aside), relatively unwatchable, at least in the narrowly modern sense of narratives that cohere, of cinematography, blocking, performances, etc, that conform to fussbudgety notions of cinematic excellence. But who cares, it's all marvelously seductive, a raw celluloid rush..." Thursdays through June 5.

For the Phoenix, Neely Steinberg talks with Mohammed Harba about the Boston Muslim Film Festival; the first edition focuses "on 'Think-Different Women,' in which the themes of women's equality and free expression are expounded." April 14 through 30; free and open to the public.

Alexander Sokurov's Alexandra is still at Film Forum and will play there through April 22. In the New York Press, Armond White argues that "Sokurov continues the sensual-spiritual nationalistic impressionism of his 2003 Father and Son, where military men made objects of unabashed adoration."

At the Tisch Film Review, Ricky D'Ambrose notes that Film Forum will be screening five weeks worth of Godard's 60s. May 2 through June 5.

POV's Cathy Fisher notes that a special guest popped in on a screening of Campaign at MoMA on Tuesday.

Posted by dwhudson at April 10, 2008 6:41 AM