Don Murray held Marilyn Monroe close in “Bus Stop”
Sep
6
2010
Read this story on The Huffington Post. We passed the Labor Day weekend inhaling the Egyptian Theater’s popcorn-soaked oxygen during the 46th annual CINECON — a festival of the weird, the wonderful, and the rarely viewed. Cinecon is a connoisseur’s festival; and the key word is rare — movies that for whatever reason haven’t been ...
First lady of nation recognizes first lady of dance
The freewheeling creativity that flourished in 20th century America spawned three indigenous art forms: film, jazz, and modern dance. The first two on this list (in descending order of magnitude), have functioned relatively adeptly in the market economy. Why? Because entrepreneurs recorded them on celluloid and disc, then packaged, promoted and distributed movies and records. Poor ...
Pauline Wagner, 100, remembers James Cagney
Sep
2
2010
“The man you saw on the screen was certainly not Jimmy Cagney,” said former studio-system contract actress Pauline Wagner, 100, following a screening of “White Heat” at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Monday. Cagney was “one of the nicest persons in Hollywood,” so unlike Cody Jarrett, the homicidal psychopath with a mother ...
Cleopatra reclaims the Egyptian Theater 1
Aug
31
2010
What better place to celebrate the art (and commerce!) of Cecil B. DeMille than the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard? An under appreciated director who mined the nexus of the lofty and the lusty, DeMille fits well with the Egyptian Theater’s ornate aesthetic. His influence was ingrained in mainstream American culture by the time Sid Grauman ...
Our shared racist past surfaced in “Neighbors”
People can be color-blind when it comes to race. In fact, skin color doesn’t even matter. Based on that idealistic credo — the legacy of the civil rights movement and ’60s egalitarianism — Richard and Jean Patterson, an interracial couple who are the subject of a brilliant new play, “Neighbors,” marry. He’s black, she’s white. ...
Charlie Chaplin to reappear at Cinecon
Aug
29
2010
I’m looking forward to attending the 46th annual Cinecon Classic Film Festival at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood California over Labor Day weekend, September 2-6, 2010. The big event at this year’s festival is the screening of a previously lost Charlie Chaplin film, “A Thief Catcher” from Keystone Studios, 1914. Film collector Paul Gierucki found ...
Natalia Osipova’s ethereal “Giselle” 1
Aug
28
2010
I met and briefly interviewed the phenomenal 24-year-old Bolshoi and ABT ballerina Natalia Osipova yesterday, in rehearsal for an upcoming performance in Orange County next January. She struck me as a magnificently moody Russian. Read my L.A. Times article here. This Russian television broadcast shows Osipova’s unearthly technique, particularly her jumps, and there is something so ...
Antonioni’s sophisticated chick flick
Aug
26
2010
How pleasant to stroll onto the campus of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and travel in time and space to Italy of the 1950s — and totally avoid LAX. At LACMA we enjoyed Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Le Amiche” (“The Girlfriends,” 1955), the great Italian director’s refined social melodrama. The film depicts the world of ...
Ken Russell & Dr. Kildare tackle Tchaikovsky
Aug
23
2010
It was touching to see Richard Chamberlain with his wild-man director of forty years ago, Ken Russell, at Sunday’s screening of the octogenarian’s exuberant Tchaikovsky biopic, “The Music Lovers” (1970). The reversal of the usual post-screening Q&A set-up also seemed fitting. The actor and the white-haired cinema maestro sat not before the audience, on a stage, but ...
Jack Cole bangs the drum, but not slowly 1
Aug
20
2010
Norton Owen, Jacob Pillow‘s wonderful Preservation Director, gave kind permission to publish this extraordinary photo of Jack Cole teaching class at the rustic dance retreat in 1971. (Click photo for detail.) A Jack Cole dancer, Rod Alexander, once described how the ferociously intense choreographer would give his drum as much of a beating as he ...