Rock impresario Ron Delsener: New York was his town
“Ron Delsener was ubiquitous and New York was his town,” says Paul Simon, one of the talking heads in RON DELSENER PRESENTS, a just-opening rock documentary directed by Jake Sumner and distributed by Abramorama. It’s a big, fun, nostalgic movie-tour for baby boomers who lived the era. The doc’s subject, of course, is the self-made, ...
Generation-to-generation, Santa Monica’s Westside Ballet prevails and thrives 2
May
28
2025
spencer collins, photo: sarah madison The art of classical ballet is born out body-to-body, and there’s no going around that. Personal involvement has always been at the heart of the pedagogy practiced at one of Southern California’s finest training academies, that of the Westside Ballet of Santa Monica. The company’s co-founders, Yvonne Mounsey (New York ...
Candles, challah, and a corpse make for a ‘Bad Shabbos’ at the movies
Bad Shabbos, from Menemsha Films, nails New York City from the jump. The opening montage tours iconic Upper West Side spots — brownstones, street carts, Lincoln Center, Zabar’s — before settling into the legendary Barney Greengrass deli. (The owner even pops in for a wry cameo.) It’s clear that director Daniel Robbins wants to establish ...
Unexpected catapult to stardom, Clive Owen’s rare journey with ‘Croupier’ in 25th anniversary screening 1
May
22
2025
edgy mien of clive own in croupier Remember video rental stores? Just another blip in the fast-paced technological “advances” we have lived through. And yet, I used to enjoy walking to the video place on Hyperion Avenue, a second floor, full scale retail shop, with movies lovingly organized by genre, and staffed by human beings ...
‘The space between us all’: Mark Morris’s ‘PEPPERLAND’ in fetching revival 1
When this Fab Four configuration of Mark Morris dancers made a 90-degree turn to march directly toward the audience in the culminating moments of ‘Pepperland,’ the much-heralded choreographer Mark Morris’s brilliant dance-and-music homage to the Beatles’ culture-bending “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” album of 1967, I laughed. It was so funny. But my heartstrings ...
The one and only Billy Shears! Mark Morris’s ‘Pepperland’ at The Wallis
photo: robert torres When I first saw Mark Morris’s bullseye-hitting “Pepperland” oh so many years ago at Segerstrom Center in Orange County, I was so ebullient through the entire thing that after the show, I clambered backstage to congratulate Mr. Morris in person. I don’t typically do that. I’m a dance critic. I felt I ...
A visit to the dentist for Charles Moulton, choreographer & artist
He who made this grand opera of minimal nuttiness mixed with finesse, “Ballet Passing” (above), the choreographer/visual artist/film man Charles Moulton, staged his master work on a grand scale in 2017. But it was just a passing phase! Because by March 2025, the former Merce Cunningham Dance Company dancer and choreographer of mind/body whimsical works, ...
Summer is for hanging from helicopters. It’s also for movies. Our critic’s preview for May/June ’25.
While it may not hit the heights of “Barbenheimer,” summer movie season 2025 promises to be a big one. Officially, it all kicks off Memorial Day weekend with Tom Cruise in the final chapter of Mission Impossible. Unofficially, it has already started. That was on the April 4 release of Minecraft and its $1 billion ...
Our Brazilian dance-friends, GRUPO CORPO, hit the Music Center stage
May
9
2025
It was a thrilling sight as a string of dancers in yellow unitards filtered onto the stage of the Ahmanson Theater, in a veritable chorus line. The work, “21,” by veteran choreographer Rodrigo Pederneiras, created in 1992 has become the international calling card of the wonderfully athletic Brazilian dance company, GRUPO CORPO. In a fitting ...
Overwhelming! Two mega-movies, HEAT & RHAPSODY IN BLUE, light up TCM Fest 2025 3
director michael mann, actor al pacino, ben mank in conversation prior to screening of HEAT (1995) at tcl chinese theater part of tcm fest 2025, april 27, 2025 There’s something lacking in the much-bantered trope, “You have to see it on the big screen.” And yet, those very words motivate film fans from across the ...