LA Happenings: Greek Film Fest, Hitch B-Sides And Robert Mitchum Noirs

It's June in LA, which means it is sometimes confusingly still very warm at night, or else it gets chilly... ocean-breeze chilly. And that is no fun at all. But there is rarely anything confusing about the temperature of a movie theater, which should be comfortably temperate, regardless if the movies make you sweat bullets. And some of the films playing our fair city these coming weeks most certainly will.

First up, starting tonight and running all weekend, it's the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival at the Writer's Guild Theater in Beverly Hills. This year's line up features the Berlin selected The Daughter, an intense look at how the new generation is dealing with the financial crises, and Meteora, which chronicles a crisis of sex and faith. Also of note, the Slamdance award winning Fynbos, which also happens to be a contender for my favorite film of the year thus far -- read my full review here and check out LAGFF's full line up right here.

Look, we've all probably seen an Alfred Hitchcock film on the big screen. Maybe it was Psycho or The Birds or perhaps Vertigo (Heck, the Egyptian just screened Vertigo). But Hitch has such a massive catalog of films under his belt, that many titles considered by some to be lesser works get less big screen time. The Cinefamily is calling them b-sides, and hey, I love me some b-sides. Things kick off on the 11th with a 35mm screening of Lifeboat and continue on through the month with screenings of The Trouble With Harry, Frenzy, The Wrong Man, Foreign Correspondent (a personal fave), plus rare home movies and more. Check it out.

Meanwhile at the New Beverly on June 14th and 15th, it's a Robert Mitchum noir double feature: Out Of The Past and Crossfire (both from 1947: perhaps the most noir-ish sounding set of numbers ever).