Go Grover! Grover Dale does the boogaloo in ‘The Landlord’

Dance · Film
I so enjoyed seeing “The Landlord” (1970), Hal Ashby’s maiden voyage as a film director, screened at TCM Fest 2017. One of those rambling and intriguing seventies movies that is so direct, so real, and wearing its heart on its sleeve. As the credits rolled, an added bonus — the name of arts·meme friend, Grover ...

Farber on Film: ‘The Landlord’ @ TCM Fest 2017

Film
One of the special guests at this year’s TCM Classic Film Festival was actress and director Lee Grant, who gave a spirited interview before the screening of The Landlord, the film that earned her one of her four acting nominations for best supporting actress. Grant’s first nomination came for William Wyler’s Detective Story in 1951, ...

Farber on film: ‘David and Lisa’ @ TCM Fest 2017

Film
by 
Many out-of-town patrons attend the TCM Festival to catch the big productions with the big stars in attendance: In the Heat of the Night, The China Syndrome, Saturday Night Fever. Or they line up for perennial audience pleasers like Casablanca, which celebrated its 75th anniversary in the large Chinese Theatre. But for some of us, ...

Southern Californialand, here we come!

Architecture & Design · Ideas & Opinion
Native Southern Californian Charles Phoenix has been called the “King of Retro.” Now the King of Retro will make a personal appearance at one of our most distinctive historic properties to have been spared the wrecking ball, the still vital, still operating vintage beauty, Union Station. Phoenix’s presentation at Union Station, sponsored by Metro Art. ...

“Baby Jane” never better than at poolside screening, TCM Fest

Film
The highlight of our first day of this, our eighth TCM Turner Classic Film Festival, was hands down WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1964) screened poolside of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. We so enjoyed viewing the Gothic horror movie so smartly directed by Robert Aldrich and graced by the outre performance of Bette Davis and ...

Greek tragedy in Alphabet City: the death of Lee Morgan

Film · Music
by 
Trumpeters have the most tragic lineage of any instrument in jazz history. Car accidents, mental illness, congenital defects, drugs and alcohol have claimed some of the greatest players. But the murder of trumpeter Lee Morgan in 1972 was a laceration on the music that never healed. That a great but floundering musician regained his footing ...

Critic Robert Koehler’s TCM Fest 2017 game plan

Film
by 
Despite the untimely death of its venerated, longtime host, film historian Robert Osborne, this year’s TCM Classic Film Festival isn’t likely to take on a funereal mood. Instead, it’ll probably be more like a wake.    That’s because the overarching theme of the new edition is comedy, under the theme, “Make ‘Em Laugh: Comedy in the ...

Comedy-themed TCM Fest 2017 unfunny in oversight of women 2

Film
In our writing about TCM Classic Film Festival four years ago, we gushed in print, “We love the women of TCM Classic Film Festival 2013.” That year, the annual festival (we have covered TCM Fest since its inception in 2010) honored Barbra Streisand’s tour-de-force film debut in “Funny Girl.” Tippi Hedren, Eva Marie Saint, Mitzi ...