Made in Hollywood

Bruce and Norman Yonemoto (U.S., 1990) Deadpan funny, Made in Hollywood presents the Glitter Biz dimmed by the tawdry pull of commerce. Here, Hollywood’s glamorous past has withered, leaving behind a modern-day dream scaled to the dimensions of a thirty-second spot. In their stagy satire, the L.A.-based Yonemotos unspool a story of burst bubbles in which those drawn to the fantastical myth of Tinseltown find little more than a city of tarnished angels. Tammy (Patricia Arquette), a midwestern bumpkin, leaves her beloved Granny to fulfill her technicolor dreams in L.A., while a couple of soured artists, Matt (Ron Vawter) and Mary (Mary Woronov), abandon the Big Apple to pursue their own rather colorless aspirations. They find themselves marooned at the mansion of an aged movie mogul (Michael Lerner) whose empire has fallen to (barney) rubble. Using sly narrative disruptions and glossy stylizations, the Yonemotos skewer the Dream Factory as a place where image-obsession is as real as it gets. Preceded by: Movie Map (Chip Lord, U.S., 2002). Scenes from Bullitt and Vertigo are melded to reveal a San Francisco landscape of pure longing, dream, and acceleration. The Great Yiddish Love (Diane Nerwen, U.S., 2002). During Marlene Dietrich’s absence Zarah Leander became the ascendent star of Nazi-era melodramas. With a perverse twist, Nerwen joins them as lesbian lovers, using clips from their films and a thirties Yiddish soundtrack.