1927 was a very good year 1
Apr
29
2010
Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS with 25 minutes of lost footage restored and live accompaniment by Alloy Orchestra: a huge event for cinephiles. It was the penultimate closing-night event of TCM Classic Film Festival. Everyone loved it. Everyone except arts•meme … I found it overwhelming and incomprehensible. What tickled me, however, was watching the acknowledged German masterpiece dating ...
Ernest Borgnine chats about JUBAL
Apr
27
2010
Cowboy actor Glenn Ford’s steady presence and a rapturous Grand Teton setting made the Technicolor ‘psychological western,’ JUBAL (1956), my favorite film of TCM Fest. Yes when arts•meme isn’t kvelling over Mozart or Balanchine, she likes a good western! Actor Ernest Borgnine, the prodigious character actor who co-stars with Ford and Rod Steiger in the ...
Icy Gene Tierney in blazing Technicolor 1
Apr
26
2010
We enjoyed the restored LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1945) the Technicolor/noir-esque soap opera starring Gene Tierney and Cornel Wilde, a top-grossing 20th Century-Fox film of the 1940s that had kind of gone missing. The love story-turned-sour reminds us of the negative trajectory of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary or, frankly, of the many noir potboilers in which a ...
Luise Rainer @ 100 1
Apr
25
2010
Yesterday at TCM Fest, I met a handsome, well dressed actor named Vincent DePaul who was still glowing after his luncheon with Luise Rainer. The 100-year old German-born actress is being honored at today’s TCM Classic Film Fest screening of The Good Earth (1937). Vincent shared this photo with me.
Bountiful schedule of classic films at TCM Fest
Apr
22
2010
The schedule for the Turner Classic Movies film festival is absolutely amazing. See it here. Your press representative (me) plans to spend the weekend immersed in great movies and film activity! The festival takes place in the heart of old Hollywood at the historic Grauman’s Chinese Theater and its environs. Grauman’s is an extraordinary place ...
Heidi Duckler’s sudsy classic
The Echo Park lavanderia (“SpinCycle”) where choreographer Heidi Duckler is reprising her 1988 site-specific work “Laundromatinee” stands next door to a Los Angeles bagel factory. Yeasty baking odors waft into the laundromat where her whimsical dance unrolls. We’re in the inner city. That makes sense because Duckler, a long-time contributor to the local dance scene, ...
LACMA film falters …
Apr
20
2010
“Save Film at LACMA,” the grassroots activist group Doug Cummings and I headed up last August, published its update on LACMA chieftain Michael Govan’s progress in sorting out the fate of the museum’s classic film program. We explain that while much has changed since Mr. Govan reversed his decision to cancel the 40-year-running program, much remains ...
BODYTRAFFIC & Barak Marshall fete Israel’s 62nd 1
Haim Saban, the expatriate Israeli entrepreneur who made a bundle in the 1990s manufacturing Power Rangers, threw an amazing and generous party for L.A.’s Jewish community to celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaoot, Israel Independence Day, at his newly refurbished Saban (formerly the Wilshire) Theater. Everything nifty about Israeli culture — its youth, high energy, optimism, talent to ...
Stephen Farber screens Ivory sans Merchant 2
Apr
18
2010
“What’s the city of your final destination?” inquires film critic Stephen Farber of his audience, setting the stage for screening director James Ivory’s latest film. “The City of your Final Destination” is one of a roster of top films enjoying pre-release viewings at Farber’s Monday evening “Reel Talk” events in West Los Angeles. Made four ...
Film critic Manny Farber tribute @ LACMA
Apr
18
2010
Among the most tempting of the surfeit of film series "plaguing" our city in April is LACMA’s tribute to the eclectic artist and film critic Manny Farber. LACMA’s associate film curator Bernardo Rondeau nurtured and developed the series to honor Farber, whose essays were published for decades in The New Republic, The Nation, and Time ...