Golden-voiced Jack Jones, a golden performer
Oct
31
2017
Irvine Barclay Theatre, where we have enjoyed so many wonderful dance performances, hosted a super-special treat Saturday evening, a show by the master pop and jazz song stylist, Jack Jones. Jones was in his living room. A boffo performer, the guy settled into the theater’s intimate quarters with an ease and control that reflected his ...
Hank & Jim & Scott bring new book to Los Angeles
Oct
29
2017
In his new book,“Hank and Jim: The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart,” New York Times bestselling author Scott Eyman tells the story of the remarkable friendship of two Hollywood legends who, though different in many ways, maintained a close friendship that endured. Henry Fonda and James Stewart were two of Hollywood’s biggest ...
‘Variety’ got it dead wrong: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) 1
On the occasion of the hugely talented, innovative and original filmmaker George Romero receiving his star on Hollywood Boulevard (the auteur director died in July) and the wonderful tribute event we attended (screening Romero’s marvelous and underrated CREEPSHOW) this past week, we sense that Romero’s pioneering in the horror genre can’t have been easy. A tough ...
Strange times for women echoed in Sullivan-Beeman paintings
Oct
26
2017
These are disorienting times, as a parade of women spills forth the secrets and lies they have been porting in private, some for decades. Stories rife with shame, collusion, dominance, desperation all tap distressing emotions. Upside-down post-feminist realities careen, as well, through the fantasy portraits of Los Angeles artist Deirdre Sullivan-Beeman. Sullivan-Beeman is soon to ...
Danielle Darrieux fondly recalled 6
Two young American actor/dancers, George Chakiris and Grover Dale, had a life changing experience when cast in director Jacques Demy’s quirky French take on the movie musical, “Les Demoiselles de Rochefort” (1967, The Young Girls of Rochefort). Amidst a stellar ensemble cast (Michel Piccoli, Jacques Perrin, Gene Kelly) was a great treasure of French cinema, ...
Not afraid of Virginia Woolf: Portland’s NW Dance Project
The Portland-based NW Dance Project makes a rare appearance in Los Angeles in a program at the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center that includes Woolf Papers, inspired by Virginia Woolf’s modernist novel, Mrs. Dalloway. Mrs. Dalloway, published in 1925, concerns the inner life of a post-World War I woman of British high society. ...
LACMA ‘Found in Translation’ documents Mexi-Cali design dialogue 1
From Sacramento to San Diego, California’s Mexican and Spanish underpinnings are as historic as they are pervasive. We often take those connections for granted, but LACMA’s exhibition “Found in Translation: Design in California and Mexico, 1915-1985” offers a fascinating view of the influence and confluence between the two cultures in the 20th Century. It’s part ...
Remembering George Romero as Halloween draws nigh
Oct
17
2017
Join the close friends and family of director George A. Romero in a celebration of the life and career of the legendary horror filmmaker, who passed away on July 16, 2017, at the age of 77. Too young! Romero, who pioneered the zombie film genre with the 1968 feature, Night of the Living Dead, made ...
REVIEW: Kimin Kim brings action-hero explosiveness to Mariinsky Schéhérazade 2
I admit that prior to Sunday night I had never seen a full-length, fully produced staging of Michel Fokine’s Schéhérazade — including lengthy orchestral prelude, sets, costumes, the works. The Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra delivered their version this weekend at Segerstrom Center for the Arts as part of an all-Fokine program. At Sunday’s performance, the ...
REVIEW: Michelle Dorrance Dance @ The Wallis 1
The night before seeing Dorrance Dance at The Wallis in Beverly Hills I binge- watched Astaire and Rogers clips on YouTube. Such elegant technique! Two bodies moving as one in gauzy ballrooms. Dancing as if on air. In the 1930s and ‘40s, Fred and Ginger embodied love and luxury for a generation eager to escape ...