Capsule Reviews of AFI Film Festival
Following are capsule reviews of a selection of the screenings today and Sunday at the American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival at the Cineplex Odeon Cenutry Plaza Cinemas.
SATURDAY
‘Short Fiction: Drama’
United States, 1989, 104 minutes 5:15 p.m. Four short dramas, all but one literary adaptations, that play it safe aesthetically. Noah Morowitz’s “Master of the Manor,” from W.W. Jacobs, tries for British-style quaintsy-quivery quality horror; “Big Moose”, an original by John Gilroy, is a dusty barroom hunting anecdote about the hollowness of machismo; “Greasy Lake,” with Damian Harris adapting T. Coraghesson Boyle, sends three cruising buddies into a Santa Monica heart of darkness. The gem of the group, Alan Bergmann’s “The Hitchhiker,” has the best literary source (Eudora Welty), good acting and a nice sense of the heat, languor and indirection of a Southern small-town summer night.
Only good movies
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