Highlights of Today’s AFI/LA Film Festival

Following are capsule reviews of today’s screenings in the American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival at the Cineplex Odeon Century Plaza Cinemas:

‘La Gran Fiesta’

Puerto Rico, 1986, 100 minutes 7:15 p.m. San Juan’s most prestigious casino and social club is the site of a last grand ball before it is converted into a U.S. military facility for the duration of World War II. Francoites and liberals dance and mingle and, under the glittering surface, intrigues, double-crosses, and heartbreaks percolate and pop. This first film by Marcos Zurinaga (“Tango Bar”) is a lesser effort. Zurinaga skimps on his specialties--musical numbers and eye and body english--and, though we need a Fitzgeraldian bittersweet opulence, gives us something drier, thinner, more like Edna Ferber.