Highlights of Today’s AFI/LA Film Festival
Following are capsule reviews of today’s screenings in the American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival at the Cineplex Odeon Century Plaza Cinemas:
‘La Gran Fiesta’
Puerto Rico, 1986, 100 minutes 7:15 p.m. San Juan’s most prestigious casino and social club is the site of a last grand ball before it is converted into a U.S. military facility for the duration of World War II. Francoites and liberals dance and mingle and, under the glittering surface, intrigues, double-crosses, and heartbreaks percolate and pop. This first film by Marcos Zurinaga (“Tango Bar”) is a lesser effort. Zurinaga skimps on his specialties--musical numbers and eye and body english--and, though we need a Fitzgeraldian bittersweet opulence, gives us something drier, thinner, more like Edna Ferber.
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