The line-up for 2012′s Los Angeles Film Festival has been announced and, as expected, Woody Allen’s To Rome With Love will kick things off.  LAFF 2012 will also feature the world premiere of Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike to close out the festivities.  Between those two screenings, the world premiere of Dreamworks Pictures’ People Like Us will also be featured, along with screenings of Lorene Scafaria’s Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere and Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild. The festival runs from June 14th to the 24th at L.A. LIVE in downtown Los Angeles for its 18th annual showing.  Hit the jump to see more of what you can expect from the eclectic mix of films at the 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival.

The 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival has been going on for the past couple of days in Downtown Los Angeles and Collider has been there checking out the latest offerings from the indie world along with some buzzed about films from Sundance and SXSW.  We’ve provided some reviews for Drive and The Devil’s Double already and after the jump you can read my thoughts on some of the films that have played the festival so far like Haunters, Senna, Sawdust City, and Once I Was a Champion.

Monday night The Los Angeles Film Festival hosted a special screening of Lee Tamahori’s new “Iraqspolitation” film, The Devil’s Double followed by an after party at the Ritz Carlton hotel populated by numerous celebrity impersonators as well as real life celebrities. Collider was on hand to see the film and scope out the festivities.

While at the party, I spoke briefly to Twisted Pictures co-owner and Saw producer Mark Burg about his upcoming reboot of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre franchise. “It’s going great,” said Burg. “We start shooting July 18^th.” When asked about Bill Moseley’s connection to the film Burg hesitated, saying that the ink wasn’t dry on the contract. He did however confirm that if Moseley is in the film, which looks very likely, he will not be reprising his role as Choptop from 1986’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Part 2 but instead playing an entirely new character.  Read on for a review of The Devil’s Double.

After running for 10 days and showing over 200 feature films, shorts, and music videos, this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival finally came to a close on Sunday.  In my final write up you can read which films won the major prizes and my thoughts on the festival along with my mini-reviews on a couple of films including the Australian crime film Animal Kingdom, the documentary Freakonomics, the Chilean martial arts film Mandrill, the British comedy about suicide bombers Four Lions, the recently much buzzed about Monsters, and Welcome to the Rileys starring James Gandolfini and Kristen Stewart. My write up after the jump:

Wednesday and Thursday had the Los Angeles Film Festival be the host to a number of events including a conversation with Sylvester Stallone, and a poolside chat about twitter featuring Richard Kelly and Eli Roth. It was also the host for the premiere of the latest Twilight film which ended up making the festival an extremely busy and jam packed place to be.

After the jump you can read my thoughts on the documentaries Life With Murder and Make Believe, the latest film from French filmmaker Claire Denis White Material, and the documentary Seperado! about Super Furry Animal’s lead singer, Gruff Rhys, trying to find out more about his ancestors.  My write up after the jump:

The Los Angeles Film Festival continues in downtown L.A. through out the week and so do the various screenings, interviews, and retrospectives taking place there.  After the jump you can read my thoughts on Of Love and Other Demons, the excellent Cold Weather, Venice Film Festival winner Lebanon, and the latest documentary from Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) Waiting For Superman. My write up after the jump:

Last night was an awesome event at the Los Angeles Film Festival.  Billed as “Edgar Wright Saves the World,” the event featured writer/director J.J. Abrams and Edgar Wright on stage together and it was two hours of Abrams asking Wright questions about his career.  You could have called the event “Edgar Wright: This is Your Life” and it would have worked.  Either way, it was very cool to watch two directors that I love talk in front of a packed house.  What made the night even better was Wright world premiered 9 minutes from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and a very cool viral clip for the movie.   While I hate using the words like awesome or cool when describing something…the clip looked awesome and very, very cool!

Of course the two hour discussion was not just about Scott Pilgrim, as Abrams had Wright talking about how he got into making movies, how did he first hook up with Simon Pegg, how tough was it to get Shaun of the Dead made, and so much more.  For a complete recap, hit the jump!

Saturday night brought a lot of different kinds of films to the Los Angeles Film Festival.  There was everything from documentaries about elephants, circus’, zeppelins, to dark comedies from the U.K and dramas from China and Romania.   After the jump you can read my thoughts on the comedy short Successful Alcoholics starring Lizzy Caplan and TJ Miller, the dark drama Judge from China, a documentary about a trip around a world in a Zeppelin and the affair that took place on it, and a documentary which tells the story of the wildly inventive and influential band Fishbone.  My write-up after the jump: