Going Down in LA-LA Land (2011)
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Based on the novel by Andy Zeffer, “Going Down in LA-LA Land” is a riveting and uncensored look at Hollywood. It is a story that reveals how friendships sustain us and keep us going. It is a tale that reflects our celebrity-obsessed culture. It is a revealing look at some people’s desire to be loved, adored, and adulated at any cost. Readers have grown to adore the flawed and imperfect, yet earnest and likable characters of Adam and Candy. Now movie audiences will have the same opportunity to follow their rocky ride through Hollywood, and all the laughs that go along with it.
Great LA Serio-Comedy
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A very engaging story of lust, libido and love in LA.
The film was a very good take on LA – its quirky reliance on trendy remedies for modern woes, on drugs and on its special brand of eternally hopeful American aspiration as embodied in Candy and Adam – the one moving from opportunity to opportunity, the other sticking to some level of honesty, no matter how hard won.
The opening sequence of Adam driving through LA set the tone perfectly: brown skies, fabled landmarks, grungy strip malls and fabulous estates.
Candy and Adam – old film school friends – are each determined to make it big as actors, faced with the deadening reality of too many actors for too few roles. What they are really after, though, is family: they have their fraternal relationship, they long for a married one.
Matthew Ludwinski deserves a special mention for managing to be extremely sexy in a porn- fantasy way and at the same time extremely romantic in an honest way.
In this type of story it is often hard to see what the more successful character sees in the less successful character. But the film took the time to make Adam credible as an intelligent, interesting person and the chemistry between Adam and John was immediate and believable.
The film could have been a pat puff piece for the film industry, and the portrayal of the porn industry was a little soft-core: my one caveat. But the film it showed the downside of life in LA – drugs, hucksterism and sex – in a very real and sad way. The comment about not being able to come out of the closet because of the people whose livelihoods depended on a straight actor’s persona, really touched a cord. The ending gained credibility from the gritty reality of the body of the film.
