Following a debut at last January’s Sundance Film Festival, Lake Bell‘s In A World will play the Los Angeles Film Festival on Saturday, 5.15 — tonight. I haven’t seen it, but the trailer conveys the difference between mainstream movie-star faces and personalities and the faces and personalities that tend to populate indie-world. Bell and her costars (Demetri Martin, Fred Melamed, Michaela Watkins, Ken Marino, Rob Corddry) are intriguing and “attractive” as far as it goes, but they’re more average-looking than movie stars. Their lights don’t burn as brightly. Their faces, no offense, are metaphors for accepting and living within limits. They’re smart but somehow less vivid and engaging than their mainstream cousins.

I’m sorry but I don’t see myself in these indie folks. They seem cool enough, but I don’t particularly want to be them. But I do see myself in this or that movie star.

Al Pacino in Heat, for example. I’m Vincent Hanna, “on the edge where I gotta be..by the time I get to Pheonix she’ll be risin’…’cause she’s got a great ass!” Or…you know, Lee Marvin in Point Blank. Or Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network. Or Javier Bardem in Vicki Christina Barcelona. Or Nicolas Cage in Matchstick Men or Vampire’s Kiss. Or Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront. Or Paul Newman in Hud or The Hustler. Or Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire. Or Cary Grant in North by Northwest. Or Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or Three Days of the Condor. Or Jimmy Cagney in One, Two, Three.