Don't fear the city.
replica watches A That's the message the folks putting on the Los Angeles Film Festival, which starts in earnest today, want to get out.
After four years of spectacular growth in Westwood Village, the 11-day movie celebration has moved downtown to the L.A. Live campus, with additional programming at the nearby REDCAT, Downtown Independent and classic Orpheum theaters.
This was not done to perversely increase drive times from the Westside, Woodland Hills and West Hills. A switch was necessary, as such stand-alone Westwood theaters as the Festival shut down and the Mann chain declined to renew its leases on the venerable Village and Bruin houses in the past year.
"We really needed to know, as we geared up for 2010, that we could have a footprint that could accommodate our continued expansion," festival director Rebecca Yeldham explained. "We looked at a number of different venues with a view to being somewhere where we could have a consolidated hub."
The Regal L.A. Live Stadium 14 cinemas, less than a year old, were certainly attractive. The fact that LAFF's parent organization, Film Independent, had a good experience when it moved its Spirit Awards ceremony to the campus last March didn't hurt.
And the Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owns all the real estate and operates most of L.A. Live, was eager to bring international events to the growing new entertainment complex across from its other downtown landmark, Staples Center.
"We thought the L.A. Film Festival was perfect for our campus," said Scott Hanley, AEG's events vice president. "The Regal Cinemas were built in October, and we're taking seven of their 14 auditoriums so the public can still go to new movies playing there. We also have the event deck for after parties, the Nokia Theater that's perfect for the big 'Eclipse' and 'Despicable Me' premieres, the Grammy Museum for the intimate events connected to the festival, and we have the poolside chats at the new JW Marriott Hotel."
AEG worked with sister company Regal to negotiate some rental waivers for Cheap Jordan Shoes the festival, and even helped install 35-millimeter projection equipment in four of the state-of-the-art digital theaters to show the LAFF's numerous old-school, foreign and independent celluloid movies.
Most importantly - for those of us wary of driving down there, anyway - AEG could cut a break on L.A. Live's underground parking rates, which can quickly cap out at $25.
Those with LAFF tickets and badges can park there for $5 for under four hours and $8 for the whole day during the festival.
So, what else is new? The festival's attitude, for one thing.
It's still, like most film festivals (and most of L.A.), pretty starstruck, with celebrities ranging from Quincy Jones to Ben Affleck, "Dark Knight" and "Inception" director Chris Nolan to Pee- wee Herman to Sylvester Stallone participating in some of those "intimate" presentations alluded to earlier.
And yes, the aforementioned "Twilight" and animated feature premieres seem to be in keeping with LAFF's tradition of cheerfully debuting the biggest summer blockbusters it can find; even Cannes, commercially compromised for years, might have balked at presenting the "Transformers" gala LAFF hosted a few years ago.
But "Eclipse" and "Despicable Me" are the only studio super- releases in the program this time, partially because this Ho
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