Los Angeles Plays Itself - 2003 - 3½ Stars

Subject:  How Los Angeles is portrayed in movies
Director:  Thom Andersen

Los Angeles Plays Itself is a remarkable chronicling of Los Angeles's history through the films that are set there.   What do directors focus on about the LA landscape?  What do they tend to leave out?  What landmarks are often shooting locations?  What kind of sociopolitical commentary can we gin up from their choices?

Los Angeles Plays Itself has the difficulty of overcoming its idiosyncratic narrator - it's unclear exactly what his thesis is or how much of his documentary's opinions we should attribute to mere taste.  There's a lot of interesting points made about life in LA through film - the fact that there are several locations around town that appear from the outside to be regular businesses but that function only as film sets is certainly an unnerving commitment to unreality.  With his final conclusion built around the greatness of Los Angeles set Neorealistic films - a genre I certainly enjoy, but I recognize its fundamental boringness - it's clear that this person wants something different out of film than most of us.