Loveless In Los Angeles (2006/Allumination/LILA)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: C- Feature: C-
A good
idea gone very bad, Archie Gips’ Loveless
In Los Angeles (2006) wants to be an ironic dark romantic comedy (or the
like) about Dave Randall (Dash Mihok) becoming a jerk after getting involved in
desensitizing reality TV. He was nice
and an old lover might be able to get him back to who he was, though any drama
or transformations are about as convincing as Bo Derek in Bolero.
He
establishes himself as a big jerk right off the bat, but this is never funny,
ironic or interesting, there is never any irony about or critique of reality TV
itself and Dave’s character is not as well drawn out enough to make this any
kind of character study that it could have been. Instead, Gips is just too self-impressed with
his script and his directing of the actors is stale and stillborn. Energy-less is more like it and the ending is
really dumb.
The
letterboxed 1.78 X 1 image is hazy, funny and not well shot. You can see fuzz and artifacts in too many
scenes that could have been avoided if more care was taken. The Dolby Digital 2.0 fares a little better,
but some location taping has slight echo, which cuts into the voice’s
fullness. Extras include outtakes, deleted
scenes, extended scenes (both of which are no help anyhow) and even a strange
director’s commentary where Gips tries to explain his work.
- Nicholas Sheffo
