Capsule Reviews of AFI Film Festival

Following are capsule reviews of a selection of the screenings today and Sunday at the American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival at the Cineplex Odeon Cenutry Plaza Cinemas.

SATURDAY

John Cassavetes Marathon

United States, 1961-84, 12 hours Noon This marathon of five of the late John Cassavetes’ best films and Michael Ventura’s sympathetic documentary “I’m Almost Not Crazy” (shot during the filming of the 1984 “Love Streams”) reveals one of the U.S. cinema’s great rebels, precious iconoclasts and essential film makers. These movies have the raw smack of truth, the pulse of life. They dig into character, the battering rams of desire and anger, the frustration of contemporary living, the blackness, the sweetness, the laughing salty edge of life as it is. Included: the epochal “Shadows” and “Faces” of 1961 and 1968; the 1974 masterpiece, “A Woman Under the Influence” with Gena Rowlands’ annihilating portrayal of marital breakdown and the rarely shown “Killing of a Chinese Bookie” (1976) and “Opening Night” (1979). RECOMMENDED.