“Phantom Limb” group show @ Narzarian’s
Aug
2
2016
Trenton Doyle Hancock, The Referee, 2014, Acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 66 inches x 108 inches. Courtesy of Hales Gallery, London This vivid and jam-packed work in acrylic paint part of an intriguing-looking new group show at Shulamith Nazarian gallery in Venice. Phantom Limb include works by the prolific Houston-based Trenton Doyle Hancock, as ...
A tradition of dance carries forth at the Norton Simon
Shiva as Lord of Dance (Nataraja), c. 1000 India: Tamil Nadu, 975-1025 Bronze 31-3/4 x 24 in. (80.6 x 61.0 cm) The Norton Simon Foundation This gorgeous statuary — Shiva, as the Lord of Dance — reigns supreme in the Norton Simon Museum’s distinctive collection of Asian art, and has done so for many years. ...
Jeff Parker’s guitar twists & turns @ The Blue Whale
Jeff Parker knows about harmonic color. His current CD, The New Breed (International Anthem Recording Company) is lush with it. It hangs like audible clouds, created by slow-moving electronic keyboard backgrounds, nudged along by discreet electric bass currents, and seeded by Parker’s pungent single-note improvisations. The KORG MS20 adds grainy keyboard impasto to those scrims ...
Gypsy dancer shop-talk at the Academy
It was a night of dance chatter at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. A highly vaunted circle, including veteran gypsy dancers, a choreographer for the camera, and an Oscar-winning actor, gathered at AMPAS prior to a screening of “West Side Story” Monday July 18, 2016. In the photo, Maria Jimenez, who danced ...
‘Group’ therapy … at the movies
Jul
24
2016
Good to get this announcement from Laemmle Anniversary Classics… ***** At a time when critics lament the poor roles for women on screen, Laemmle Anniversary Classics is rolling out a goodie: a celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Group, a rare Hollywood movie to center on eight intelligent, spirited, well-educated women. The film is ...
Kirk Douglas, the actor and the man
Jul
21
2016
A guest writer on the blog, Shannon Kelley, Head of Public Programs for the UCLA Film & Television Archive, contributes this appreciation of actor Kirk Douglas. The Archive is mid-stream in a comprehensive Douglas retrospective that runs through September. KIRK DOUGLAS: A CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, commemorates the career and the life of the great Hollywood star, ...
Forever Flamenco, Forever Ford Amphitheatre
Jul
20
2016
What is not to love about Saturday night at the newly refurbished Ford Amphitheatre for “Forever Flamenco”? The distinguished flamenco presentation series normally based at the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood transfers every summer to the plein air setting of the Ford. There’s been a jog for the upgrade of the facility and we’ve been missing ...
‘West Side Story’ feted, dissected, appreciated at the Academy
Fascinating film lore revealed by producer Walter Mirisch, at Monday’s panel discussion prior to a special screening of West Side Story (1961) at the Academy. Apparently Jerome Robbins, WSS’s creator/co-director, was extremely resistant to the location shooting, in New York City, of the “Prologue” — the movie’s brilliant opening minutes when an overhead shot drills into ...
Robert Frank doc, ‘Don’t Blink,’ opens soon in L.A.
Jul
19
2016
Robert Frank, now 91 years old, is among the most influential artists of the last half-century. His seminal volume, The Americans, published in 1958, records the Swiss-born photographer’s candid reactions to American poverty and racism. It helped define the off-the-cuff, idiosyncratic elegance that are hallmarks of Frank’s artistry. Director Laura Israel (Frank’s longtime film editor) ...
Armand & Henry & Vincent & friends have a play date
Jul
15
2016
Industrial tycoons Henry Huntington and Armand Hammer, two of Los Angeles’s most significant arts barons, ruled over great collections that form the core of major museums in Los Angeles. (Collectors respectively of the early and mid 20th century, Huntington and Hammer still pale by comparison, in their acquisitive nature, to L.A.’s tycoon-collector of the day, Eli ...