Yes, I know they prefer calling it "NC Hollywood"...but when has that stopped me?

There's usually a wrinkle in the NC lineup when they get to LA, often served up by the American Cinematheque staff--and in 2025, as the FNF focuses on "dames" (with Eddie's latest reworked book making its appearance imminently) that means adding some color to the proceedings in the form of "neo-noir."

The fest plays out over two long weekends, for a total of 23 films. Here's the schedule:

Thurs 3/20 ROAD HOUSE (nitrate print, reception)
Fri 3/21 DETOUR/MY TRUE STORY
Sat 3/22 FLAMINGO ROAD (neo-noir: THE LAST SEDUCTION)
OUT OF THE PAST/THE KILLING
Sun 3/23 THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS (neo-noir: THE GRIFTERS, with Annette Bening)
TENSION/ALIAS NICK BEAL

[three days off]

Thurs 3/27 PHANTOM LADY/THE RECKLESS MOMENT
Fri 3/28 THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW/MURDER, MY SWEET
Sat 3/29 RAW DEAL (neo-noir: DESTROYER, with director Karyn Kusama & screenwriter Phil Hay)
CRY DANGER/HELL'S HALF ACRE
Sun 3/30 DEAD RECKONING (neo-noir: BOUND, with Jennifer Tilly)
THE PROWLER/ACE IN THE HOLE

So they've restored several of the films snipped from the Seattle series, and added some films with different "dames" not in Eddie's book: Babs, Joan, La Liz, and Ida).

The smarty-pants folk who run the AC are probably behind the move toward neo-noir: it seems like a gambit they'd devise to add "relevance"--and three of the four choices for this are actually quite good. The one that's not the same as the others is DESTROYER, largely seen as a flawed exercise in "acting ego" on the part of Nicole Kidman when it came out in late 2018.

So it's a sprawling but a bit ungainly variation that's also cannily designed to create some extra "separate admission" events on the weekends. I suspect Tilly will make her interview quite entertaining, and if Eddie interviews here, Bening might wind up talking about her turn as Gloria Grahame as much as THE GRIFTERS.

I think I would've put the two Bennett films together and paired PHANTOM LADY with MURDER, MY SWEET, but then again you know how I like to quibble! :-)