THE LA RIOT SPECTACULAR (2005)
(Promo / Screen Caps)
Official Synopsis
It's 1992 and Los Angeles along with the entire nation, holds its
collective breath as attention is centered on a jury in suburban Simi
Valley where a decision is forthcoming in the trial of LAPD officers
captured on film beating a man after making a traffic stop. The man is
Rodney King. A decision is rendered, the officers are found not guilty
and the torch to the proverbial powder keg that is early 90's Los Angeles
is lit.
It's now 2003 and after a decade afterward, the problems that were
inherent in the city then are seemingly still in place now. Has the city
fully learned from the lessons taught in 1992, healed itself and moved
on? Filmmaker Marc Klasfeld sets to make a film re-examining the events
of 1992 in a bid to answer the questions still lingering and unanswered.
Utilizing a mix of fictional and all too real characters in a creative
mix as volatile as the very event which inspired it, Marc Klasfeld
decides to make... a satire. The result is The LA Riot Spectacular,
a neo-absurdist and fully satirical look at the watershed period in 1992
when images of the nation's second largest city afire filled America's
and the world's screens.
This is not your parent's PC film.
Narrated by Snoop Dogg and featuring a stellar ensemble cast including
Charles Dutton, Emilio Estevez, TK Carter, George Hamilton, Ronny Cox,
Anne Marie Johnson, William Forsythe, Ted Levine, Chris McDonald and
Jonathan Lipnicki, The LA Riot Spectacular, attempts to get to
the absolute base of the various motivations at play - urban and
suburban; primary and secondary - leading up to the darkest period in
the city's contemporary times.
Cast
Snoop Dogg ... Narrator
T. K. Carter ... Rodney
Charles S. Dutton ... The Mayor
Emilio Estevez ... Officer Powell
George Hamilton ... The King of Beverly Hills
Charles Durning ... The Lawyer
Christopher McDonald ... Officer Koon
Jonathan Lipnicki ... Tom Saltine Jr.
Ted Levine ... Tom Saltine
Crew
Director: Marc Klasfeld
Executive Producer: James C. E. Burke, Scott Disharoon, Bo Hyde
Co-executive producer: Charles Katz, K. Morgan, Keith Richman
Producer: John Bard Manulis, Marc Klasfeld
Co-producer: Chris Miller, Barry Opper, Lula Zezza
Associate Producer: Khene Tan, Randy Weiss
Trivia
On Monday, April 25 2005, The LA Riot Spectacular premiered in
New York City as part of the 4th Annual Tribeca Film Festival priced at
$10 each for a regular screening.
This independent, low-budget movie was shot in 2004, over a mere 15 days
in around seven different LA-area locations. In a bid for authenticity
the filmmakers worked with extras from the area they were shooting in;
people that worked and lived right there. This was to realistically show
just how diverse Los Angeles' many neighborhoods really are.
Jonathan plays a young Nazi called Tom Saltine Jr. which is why he had
his hair in a mohawk around January 2004.
The movie had a mini-theatrical release on August 11 2006, at the
Laemmle Theatre, Sunset 5 in West Hollywood. The movie was running on a
late-night weekend screening program, before being released nationally
on DVD on August 15.