Editor Pick: Film

Some scientists are not completely at the behest of self-serving corporations. Some scientists actually want to make a difference and better the lives of millions. These scientists are their own entrepreneurs and their mantra is do no harm.

Makes you wish you could see your own future to warn yourself you’re better off skipping it.

'Fan Girl', by director Paul Jarrett and screenwriter Gina O'Brien, was a total trip when it premiered at the LA Film Festival. A “trip”? Dude, that’s so last century. If there is anything this movie isn’t, it’s last century. Fan Girl is a winner of a movie because of the writing, the casting, and the acting. If all that works together, the director deserves credit as well. On the surface Fan Girl is a story of teenager Telulah Farrow, played by Kiernan Shipka (Mad Men, Flowers in the Attic), who adulates the punk band All Time Low. She thinks she needs to connect with the band and create a music video for her filmmaking class to launch her movie career. What she really needs, and the story beneath the surface, is to learn what is really important in human relationships.

Leah McKendrick encourages actors to "fight for what you believe in and what you want to do, what you actually want and what will make you happy."

I’m making sure the windows are locked tonight. Three consecutive films I viewed at the Los Angeles Film Festival, June 10-18, dealt with tying people up. Not in a nice way, but at least in two cases, a funny way. 'Caught' tells the tale of a teen having an affair with a married man who is kidnapped by the man’s wife and, among other things, tied up. In 'Shevenge', three BFFs fantasize about how to punish men, which involves tying them up. In 'Old Tricks', a burglar learns that you should never try to steal from a retired magician and escape artist. They’re kind of hard to tie up.

With "Set Fire to the Stars," filmmaker Andy Goddard has constructed a layered film that is clear and intentionally muted.

Why do filmmakers create short films? Sometimes they are truly motivated to tell a story which only fits in a short format. Other times, it is to show off their skills in order to establish their credentials. Once in a while, they may make a short version of a film that they ultimately want to turn into a feature length production. At this year’s Dances With Films (DWF) festival, held in Hollywood in June, the selection of short films was impressive and contained examples which both fit into and transcended the above reasons. Three films I found impressive all dealt with our perception of what is real: 'Funny Love,' 'Waste Paper,' and 'Waiting for You.'

Want to be successful in Hollywood? The Dances with Films Festival featured a terrific "powerhouse" panel. Here's what the panelists had to say.

When news reports of Kurt Cobain's suicide came out, the world was in shock and then settled back to thinking it was another of example of a rocker living fast, dying young and leaving a good looking corpse. Only in Cobain's case it wasn't so good looking; a shotgun blast to the head killed him. Or was it? After the case was closed by the Seattle Police Department another investigator who had information pieced together details and information that he had that the police didn't want to see. His conclusions are explosive and may result in re-investigating Kurt Cobain's death, this time as a homicide.

Wildlike, a film by writer/director Frank Hall Green, was shown during the eighteenth Dances With Films (DWF) indie-film festival in Hollywood. Dances With Films promotes itself as relying on “innovation, talent, creativity and sweat equity” rather than celebrity. All those good qualities are evident in Wildlike. The film has an intriguing story, great characters and an interesting production history.