Koehler on Cinema: Best of 2013

Film
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1. Leviathan 2. A Touch of Sin 3. Inside Llewyn Davis 4. American Hustle 5. The Last Time I Saw Macao 6. Upstream Color 7. Gravity 8. Nana 9. Viola 10. Computer Chess 11. Museum Hours 12. At Berkeley 13. The Last Christeros 14. The Wind Rises 15. Sightseers 16. Pain and Gain 17. No ...

A six-year “tradition”: Laemmle Theatres “Fiddler” fest

Film · Music
We had a ball this holiday season when friends gathered last Tuesday night for Laemmle Theatre‘s sixth annual “Fiddler on the Roof” Sing-a-Long screening. For the first time, the venerable family-owned theater chain (in 2013, it  marks its 75th anniversary) rolled out the Christmas Eve event city-wide. Spreading from Santa Monica, by the sea, to ...

Step aside, Sugar Plum Fairy! Enter the Kwanzaa Kween.

Dance
Much as we love the chiming celesta that signals an indelible ballet escapade, that of the Sugar Plum Fairy in the beloved holiday favorite, “The Nutcracker,” we’ve also grown to love another special solo. I’m calling it the Kwanzaa Kween — a ballet divertissement porting a heady tinge of the African continent. The dance is ...

Coens recycle musical rivalries in “Inside Llewyn Davis”

Film · Ideas & Opinion
The closing moments of the Coen Bros “Llewyn Davis” distinctly refer to a struggle between two artistic strivers; the rapidly imploding and unsuccessful Llewlyn, a fictional character, eclipsed by a real-life rival who burned brighter — Bob Dylan. The film also hearkens an earlier aristic rivalry between a bright star and a perpetual under dog: ...

Forget your tsuris! Attend Laemmle Theatres’ “Fiddler” sing-a-long. 1

Film
For an “alternative” Christmas Eve, not restricted to the Jewishly oriented but for shower-stall-soloists of every persuasion, we have a suggestion. Try Laemmle Theatres’ sixth annual “anything goes” (and we’re not talking Cole Porter) “Fiddler on the Roof Sing-a-Long.” Belt out your holiday spirit — or your holiday angst — with your fellow meshuggenahs while ...

Holiday sounds: manger, mistletoe, and martinis

Music
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Every December, a crop of new recordings address the season by celebrating the birth of Jesus, playing up the frivolity of holiday parties, and all variations between. These are some of this year’s CDs. PBS viewers know well the angelic boys choir Libera. A recorded concert at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh soars to heavenly ...

Chestnuts roasting in London … to Offenbach’s “Fantasio” 1

Music
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To the classical chestnuts of many a holiday season — Messiahs, Nutcrackers, Oratorios, Bats and Holy Nights — as essential and perennial as those roasting on that open fire, perhaps add the delightful confection that is Offenbach’s Fantasio.

Dance jewels set to glitter in annual County holiday showcase

Dance
The commission’s mission statement reads: The Los Angeles County Arts Commission fosters excellence, diversity, vitality, understanding and accessibility of the arts in Los Angeles County. Nothing represents that pledge better than the fun-and-free dance offerings at this year’s holiday celebration at the Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on December 24, hosted annually by the Arts ...

Koehler Clips: Camille Claudel, Lenny Cooke, Vermeer

Film
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CAMILLE CLAUDEL 1915 The brilliant female sculptor Camille Claudel, according to the 1988 movie version starring Isabelle Adjani, was oppressively dominated by the towering presence of Auguste Rodin and effectively driven insane by jealous but more powerful men. But writer-director Bruno Dumont isn’t interested in that version or chapter of Claudel’s life. Dumont is one ...

Museo Jumex’s Eugenio Lopez powerfully rendered by Juan Bastos 4

Visual arts
When friend of arts·meme Juan Bastos, who is not just a talented and in-demand portrait artist but also a super nice person, shared with us his distinguished oil painting of his client Eugenio Lopez, completed last year, we were struck by the skillful rendering of a powerful-looking young man. What we did not realize was ...