Film Foundation tribute gears up @ LACMA
Oct
7
2010
arts·meme guest writer Doug Cummings previews LACMA’s upcoming film series: Martin Scorsese is a valued friend of the film program at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); he’s also a friend to cinephiles everywhere through his pioneering organizations devoted to film preservation, The Film Foundation (formed in 1990) and the World Cinema Foundation (formed ...
Antonioni’s sophisticated chick flick
Aug
26
2010
How pleasant to stroll onto the campus of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and travel in time and space to Italy of the 1950s — and totally avoid LAX. At LACMA we enjoyed Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Le Amiche” (“The Girlfriends,” 1955), the great Italian director’s refined social melodrama. The film depicts the world of ...
Travis Banton undresses Miriam Hopkins
Jul
19
2010
We’re midway through Ian Birnie’s weekend film retrospective of the American-made comedies of Ernst Lubitsch at LACMA. Last weekend, we levitated in pleasure under the spell of “Design for Living“ (1933), the sophisticated German-born film director’s version of the Noel Coward play. Two Americans sharing a flat in Paris, playwright Tom Chambers (Frederic March) and ...
Ernst Lubitsch’s 90-minute tour of paradise
Jul
9
2010
Tonight at LACMA — the launch of Ian Birnie’s 16-film retrospective of the American-made comedies of Ernst Lubitsch. Both films run a dreamy 90 minutes long! Let’ s see how much great entertainment the German expat could pack into 1.5 hours. Nicola Lubitsch, the director’s daughter, will be in the house for a curtain talk. ...
Musuraca put the noir into film noir 4
May
5
2010
LACMA film curator Ian Birnie has some great stuff coming up this month – a retrospective of the films of Italy-born, New York-raised cameraman Nicholas Musuraca, known for his atmospheric noir cinematography at RKO studios in the 1940s. Says Ian: “Musuraca is the third in my unofficial survey of noir cinematographers; the first was Stanley ...
Our exigent film-viewing life in Los Angeles 2
Apr
1
2010
We are truly April fools! It’s a topsy-turvy world … because the laid-back capital of the universe is on fire with film events this month. We in Los Angeles are sweating bullets trying to attend all the film festivals on offer in our city. For film alone, the April line-up is quadruple-booked. arts•meme’s good friend, ...
film noir francais 1
Jun
14
2009
Who knew? . . . when the American film establishment was hyping Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), that French director Rene Clement had filmed a superior version of Patricia Highsmith’s disturbing novel on location in Italy in 1960? And that Minghella’s version was a remake? Like, who knew that? I didn’t. arts•meme can’t ...