Los Angeles Film Festival 2012

Killer Joe

plays with Guest Director William Friedkin presents Killer Joe

(USA, 2012, 103 mins)

Executive Producers: Vicki Cherkas, Molly Conners, Zev Foreman, Roman Viaris-de-Lesegno, Christopher Woodrow
Producers: Nicolas Chartier, Scott Einbinder
Screenwriter: Tracy Letts
Cinematographer: Caleb Deschanel
Editor: Darrin Navarro
Music: Tyler Bates
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Thomas Haden Church, Gina Gershon

In this twisted dark comedy based on Tracy Letts’ play, William Friedkin serves up a heaping murder story only a Texas-sized plate can hold. Matthew McConaughey shines as Joe Cooper, a dirty cop hired to take out the hated matriarch of a trailer park family for her $50,000 life insurance policy. Chris gives up his sweet and innocent sister Dottie to Joe as collateral until they get the cash — and Joe can’t resist this young object of desire. Killer Joe is an audacious, sexy thriller that will make you gasp while wanting to bite down on some deep-fried cookin’.

A iconoclastic filmmaker with a fiercely independent spirit, William Friedkin has bravely forged his own path through the American cinema of the past forty years. Hollywood is still reeling from Friedkin’s one-two punch of The French Connection and The Exorcist, two films that heralded a new era of filmmaking. Raw and visceral, with an authenticity that cannot be denied, his films — including The Boys in The Band, Sorcerer, To Live and Die in L.A., Cruising and his latest, Killer Joe — are bold, exciting works that have frequently courted controversy, only to go on to become contemporary classics. A filmmaker who has never stopped challenging himself or his audiences, William Friedkin is the perfect choice to be this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival’s Guest Director.

LA Film Fest at LACMA

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