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 ...
Hollywood harassment nothing new, says Barrie Chase 8
The brouhaha over movie producer Harvey Weinstein’s decades of inappropriate sexual aggression with actresses brought back sixty-year-old memories from Barrie Chase, one of the most superb dancers to work in film and television. Her story concerns Arthur Freed, the renowned MGM producer of an A-list of movie-musical titles, a revered high-quality player — oddly similar ...
The view from Europe: ‘German Currents’ Film Festival
Oct
12
2017
As it rolls into its eleventh year, German Currents Film Festival is forging ahead with a strong selection of German-directed and produced films in genres ranging from action to children’s matinee screenings. The Festival, which opens the weekend of October 13 at Hollywood’s historic Egyptian Theater, according to its website provides “unique insight into German ...
Awake to the world, with Jacaranda
Oct
11
2017
The onslaught of bad, breaking news has us numbed. Howling winds, gushing waters, marauding mass murderers, predators of pretty movie stars, all pummel our sensitive souls. That’s where the artistic director of Jacaranda music has stepped into the breach. In launching AWAKE, Jacaranda’s 15th season, Patrick Scott is pushing back against the bad noise, and replacing ...
Love without the germs … from director Garry Marshall
This passionate-but-sanitary movie kiss comes courtesy of “Young Doctors in Love” (1982), the opener of a film series replete with many titles in the comedy genre, all directed by Garry Marshall. It takes place at the Burbank theater that bears the director’s name. “Movies at the Marshall” will screen all 18 films directed the Bronx-born ...