![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/LAFF-Day-5.jpg\" "\\"LAFF-Day-5\\"")
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I<\/span>nitially I hadn’t planned on trying to see anything that started in the 4:00 hour, figuring it’d be too tight to get there from work, but when I actually did the math, I realized I could get to work like half an hour early and that would leave me plenty of time, since the theatre is so close. Tested the time on Tuesday with a not-too-early 4:40pm screening, and sure enough, it was an easy twenty minutes from sitting at my desk to sitting in the theatre. And with the early screenings not as full as the evening ones, getting a good seat was still pretty simple. So I got to add four more screenings to my schedule. Yay!<\/p>\n Especially yay because the first one I decided to add is precisely the film I was hoping to find here, a low-budget iiiiindie to fall in love with and throw my voice (however small it might be) behind. And to think I almost didn’t add it to my schedule. (Every time I say that I do wonder how many of the other films I actually didn’t add to my schedule are just as amazing, and I may never know.) The Dynamiter<\/em><\/b> isn’t a film I’d ordinarily look twice at, with its small-town Southern setting, coming-of-age story, and general sense of low-income Americana. There’s nothing wrong with those things, but they tend not to appeal to me personally. But something about the description of this one, or the still illustrating it in the film guide, kept me glancing back to it. But choosing low-budget, non-actor, first-time director films can be a crapshoot, and even heading into it, I was thinking, oh, should I switch to something else… But I stuck with it, and I was charmed within ten minutes, and in love by half way through. It finds the lyricism in the story, but never becomes pretentious, and the three non-actors leading the cast are wonderfully naturalistic, but most of all, the script and direction handle the subject with incredible humanity, making you care deeply about the main character, a 14-year-old boy thrust into manhood and caring for his family, in the all-too-brief runtime. My full review is on Row Three.<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n It was tough to break the mood set by The Dynamiter<\/em> to go into an action crime movie like Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within<\/em><\/b>, but such are the vagaries of festival scheduling. I will admit, though, that that unwillingness to leave The Dynamiter<\/em> may have played a part in my reaction to Elite Squad 2<\/em>. Having heard great things about the original, a crime film set in the favelas of Brazil, my expectations were high, and while the film was good, it just wasn’t great to me. It focuses a lot more on the politics of corrupt cops and politicians than the action on the streets, which is not a bad thing (and I did like it more after the director explained a bit about the politics of the film in relation to the actual politics – most of the film is based on real events, just molded and transformed into a bit more narrative-friendly form), but it wasn’t what I was expecting. The action scenes that are here have a great driving soundtrack, and…fall prey to many of the same quick-editing pitfalls that American action films do. I was hoping its foreign origin would protect from that but I guess it’s becoming widespread elsewhere as well. Anyway. It’s still quite a good film, and from what I’ve read since, the first film actually is what I was hoping for, so I’ll probably try to catch that soon. And I will try this one again when I’m more in the right mood and not quite as tired.<\/p>\n I very nearly decided to go home and get some sleep after Elite Squad 2<\/em>, but the last film on my schedule for Tuesday was a remake of a ’70s Japanese TV show about young Daimon and his motorcycle, which can turn into a karate-wielding robot on command. It looked utterly over-the-top and ridiculous, which is exactly what I need from a film fest 10pm slot (at least if there’s no midnight timeslot). So I stayed, and yes, Karate-Robo Zaborgar<\/em><\/b> is just as ridiculous and awesome as it sounds. More plot: the evil doctor is trying to build a giant, world-killing cyborg, for which he needs the DNA of various politicians, so he sends his android Miss Borg after them. But Daimon and Zaborgar are out to stop him, and all the other scantily-clad, rocket-powered cyborgs he sends after them. And it just gets crazier from there. It was a ton of fun, and just what I needed to finish out the night.<\/p>\n The festival is half done at this point, five days down, five to go. Twelve films down, thirteen to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Initially I hadn’t planned on trying to see anything that started in the 4:00 hour, figuring it’d be too tight to get there from work, but when I actually did the math, I realized I could get to work like half an hour early and that would leave me plenty of time, since the theatre […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[2165,2167,2166,2160,2164],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/LAFF-Day-5.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":40,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/06\/48-hour-film-festival-cont\/","url_meta":{"origin":23794,"position":0},"title":"48 Hour Film Festival, cont.","author":"Jandy","date":"June 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"That was another great theatre-going experience to mark down in my book. The Tivoli was PACKED OUT. I got there just before seven (when the show was supposed to start, but it didn't get started until 7:15), and there were people lined up outside, not able to get in because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":23458,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/50dmc-11-movie-i-walked-out-of\/","url_meta":{"origin":23794,"position":1},"title":"50DMC #11: Movie I Walked Out Of","author":"Jandy","date":"July 9, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions. Today's prompt: What's a movie you walked out of in theatres? As far as I can remember, there's only one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/50-Day-Challenge-11.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17558,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/cinema-101-the-academy-awards-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":23794,"position":2},"title":"Cinema 101: The Academy Awards","author":"Jandy","date":"February 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I thought it might be fun to pull back and look a bit at the history of the awards and the Academy that bestows them, as well as how the Awards work. Read More","rel":"","context":"In "Cinema 101"","block_context":{"text":"Cinema 101","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/cinema-101\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/cinema-101-academy.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35132,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2015\/03\/tcm-film-fest-2015-another-great-experience\/","url_meta":{"origin":23794,"position":3},"title":"TCM Film Fest 2015: Another Great Experience","author":"Jandy","date":"March 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"There are plenty of great reasons to go to the TCM Classic Film Festival - seeing movies you love on the big screen, discovering forgotten and long-unavailable films, learning about film history firsthand, seeing some of the greatest actors, directors, and behind-the-scenes talent in the history of motion picture, etc.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "TCM Film Festival"","block_context":{"text":"TCM Film Festival","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/tcm-film-festival\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/TCM-Film-Festival-2015.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":23917,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/la-film-fest-2011-day-six-wednesday\/","url_meta":{"origin":23794,"position":4},"title":"LA Film Fest 2011: Day Six (Wednesday)","author":"Jandy","date":"June 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Wednesday I got up and went to work early so I could leave by 3:15 to get to a 4:10 screening. Dedication, I tell you. Dedication. Really, though, I'm thankful for how close LA Live is to where I work, and that my boss is so flexible in letting me\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/wpid-Photo-Jun-24-2011-331-PM.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":30,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/05\/an-ode-to-the-hi-pointe\/","url_meta":{"origin":23794,"position":5},"title":"An Ode to the Hi-Pointe","author":"Jandy","date":"May 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Only not really, because I don't do poetry. When I went to see Brick last week, I was impressed by the film, but I was equally impressed by the theatre-going experience, a topic that increasingly interests me. I don't go to the Hi-Pointe Theatre very often, but I must make\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23794"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Dynamiter.jpg\" "\\"Dynamiter\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Elite-Squad-2.jpg\" "\\"Elite-Squad-2\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Karate-Robo-Zaborgar.jpg\" "\\"Karate-Robo-Zaborgar\\"")
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