Angel City

American independent Jon Jost must be tired of being compared with Godard, but there's no denying that his Angel City does for Los Angeles some of what Alphaville did for Paris. Both movies use private eye characters to investigate more than mere murder: Jost's Frank Goya ('like the painter') is hired to check out the death of a Hollywood starlet, and winds up identifying the villains as illusionism and monopoly capitalism. The movie is structured as a kind of countdown in twelve numbered sections, ranging in theme and tone from satire of Hollywood to American 'visionary' poetry. Interesting stuff.