LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF

Fascinating for anyone who loves either movies or the city, <![CDATA[<i>]]>Los Angeles Plays Itself<![CDATA[</i>]]> is a terrific cinematic essay.
Highly expansive in its approach and scope, Andersen's film is roughly divided into three parts, chronicling the city as a cinematic background; as a virtual character in films itself; and as the actual subject for such works as <![CDATA[<i>]]>Chinatown<![CDATA[</i>]]> and <![CDATA[<i>]]>L.A. Confidential<![CDATA[</i>]]>.
Utilizing clips from about 200 films, both famous and obscure, Andersen makes his arguments, ranging from the profound to the digressive, in informative and highly articulate fashion. His narration ranges from the merely witty to the profound. A look at the use of the city's modernist architecture as locations for the homes of an endless parade of cinematic villains, for instance, starts out in jovial fashion before becoming a thoughtful philosophical examination of societal resistance to utopian dreams.