Going Down in LA-LA Land

Comments (0) By Michelle Orange Wednesday, Apr 18 2012

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Going Down in LA-LA Land
Directed by Caspar Andreas
Opens April 20, Cinema Village

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A hot dude gets dumped in the opening moments of Going Down in LA-LA Land, a lo-fi feature blend of True West Hollywood Story and a gay fairy tale. We meet Adam (Matthew Ludwinski) at a low moment, the end of a string of events set off when he arrived in Los Angeles like a modern-day Pinocchio, hoping for the audition that will turn him into a real actor. In the meantime, he crashes with would-be celebrity Candy (Allison Lane), who gets dumped herself after telling her boyfriend she'd "rather blow William H. Macy" than marry him. There's a lot of that kind of crass, sitcom humor in LA-LA Land, which was adapted from Andy Zeffer's novel by Swedish filmmaker Casper Andreas. If he never hits a satiric mark, Andreas (who also stars as Adam's porn gateway boyfriend) is more successful in handling the dramatic elements of yet another young actor's contemplation of whom he'll blow to get famous. High-fashion handsome Ludwinski has an affable thickness that limits the role of the eventual porn ingenue as often as it fills it out, whereas Michael Medico's warmly human performance as a famous but closeted Prince Charming all but wipes Adam's waffle-stamped stomach off the screen.